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Couldn’t possibly agree with this more. Anybody who thinks ayn Rand is an elite novelist has simply not read enough (or widely enough) to know what an insane opinion that is.

Infinite Jest, for example, is a far more interesting rumination on freedom in America than anything by Rothbard, Rand, etc etc.

You will learn more about humanity from Shakespeare than from the Mises (all due respect to Mises).

So many incredible conversations about big ideas live in works of fiction or poetry, where people tend not to look.

100% endorse not just reading more but reading outside of your comfort zone. Read poetry, read more fiction, read something you think you might disagree with, read something long.

Imagine how absolutely miserable hyperbjtcoinization will be if everyone just reads and talks about the same five books. nostr:note1xd2jq296f7vm302ke6vmhd78y7zfqckg6j4564tdtrdg25gyyw0s73v45n

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Discussion

₿ennett 1y ago

Infinite jest is tough to make it through, got footnotes longer than most chapters

Logan 1y ago

It’s long, but so worth it. Lots of the footnotes are pretty funny, too. Central theme of the book is basically what is freedom in modern America. And I would argue it’s a much more profound, human exploration of it than, say, an economic tract or a less subtle, less nuanced, novel-as-mere-vehicle-for-message thing, I.e. Rand.

Logan 1y ago

The footnotes also serve the purpose of structurally fracturing the narrative in a way that mimics the fractured, splintered nature of our lives realities today. Think about our daily information flow. How often are you interrupted by, say, social media, advertisements, email pings, calls, etc. Modern life is a million pieces of info and content coming at you in a kaleidoscopic blast. I think he’s exploring that by forcing readers to physically flip back and forth from footnotes to narrative and blurring the boundary between which is which. At least that’s how I think about it 🤷‍♂️

CitizenPleb 1y ago

I’ve always felt like David Foster Wallace’s footnotes, even in his shorter essays, might lend themselves to reading online or in PDF format, where one could click on an anchor link, like on Wikipedia and not lose where you are on the page.

j'ai les clés 1y ago

The footnotes are fucking hilarious. I could feel DFW laughing with me from the grave. What tension he puts his characters, and readers, through! So much fun.

Trey Walsh 1y ago

Ok but like don’t bother with Ulysses, right?

That may be my hottest literary take 😂

Also, Dave Eggers a heartbreaking work of staggering genius made me just absolutely fall in love with reading again post college. Just feels in a similar vein to DFW for me

Logan 1y ago

One can certainly do without Ulysses haha. As far as Joyce goes I stick with the dead and portrait of the artist. Eggers is very much influenced by and in the same vein as Wallace, the kind of how-do-we-return-a-modicum-of-sincerity-to-this-whole-thing-after-postmodernism vibe. Eggers wrote the introduction to the copy of IJ I have. And I think Wallace has one of his very few blurbs on the copy of heartbreaking work that I have. Both writers who are really partaking in what Eliot would call “raids on the inarticulate” (which I always wish was raids on the inarticulable) - trying to get to the proverbial nitty gritty of being human, being vulnerable, being alive in an unforgiving environment, and shining a light through it.

Guy Swann 1y ago

Well if you’ve already read them and know the ideas then of course those books wouldn’t be super entertaining or thought provoking. But for people who are new and actually interested in a real economic foundation, those are great places to find grounding from the Keynesian shit people are fed.

Those are recommended frequently because they are often completely unheard of for new people into the space. I still know people who majored in Econ and have never even heard that list of names. But of course, it they aren’t looking for economic grounding or something to explain why everything they know about money and the state is nonsense, then those books won’t be of much value to anyone. But nobody is going to pick that knowledge up from Shakespeare.

TL;DR - That list is recommended because those are generally the ideas and arguments that normies have literally never heard before (Rothbard, Hayek, Mises, Rand, etc). Thus, they often result in people’s worldviews being shattered, because they are extremely strong philosophical examinations, imo.

Logan 1y ago

Totally fair and agree. My pitch would be once you hit those, don’t lose that sense of intellectual adventure that got you there in the first place and keep branching out to more stuff. Because it’s certainly true that good fiction/lit can open up perspectives, unearth layers and vistas that were previously unseeable. Again, paraphrasing Eliot, good lit is a raid on the inarticulable.

It’s low key one of my dreams to start a Shakespeare / classic lit reading group of bitcoiners. I think the mash up of ideas would be exhilarating, fruitful, and lots of fun.

And when that dream comes to fruition you are getting an invite sir.

Guy Swann 1y ago

Would love an invite! And I agree with the general thesis here, i will read about anything that sparks an interesting thought and I do fiction as often as non-fiction. 🫡

Clarkian 1y ago

Instructions unclear. Ordering "Fifty Shades of Grey"

j'ai les clés 1y ago

I would join this.

Roland 1y ago

+1. Shakespeare was taught at my woke government school. They wouldn’t allow a book on their curriculum that would actually make people think. These books, especially Ayn Rand have been incredibly valuable to me. It took me 30 years to find it.

Logan 1y ago

Sounds like your woke government school taught Shakespeare wrong, or at least deeply insufficiently. Shakespeare traditionally not taught in anything resembling woke, but some scholars in the last probably 25 or 30 years or so have tried to narrow him in that way. Don’t give up on him. You might find him even more interesting/constructive now as an adult with the economic grounding you now have.

Roland 1y ago

You have a good point. Would you recommend one to start with?

ike 1y ago

I read Anna Karenina for the first time last year and it absolutely wrecked me for all other fiction. Truly the genre-setting standard for the novel; nothing compares.

Logan 1y ago

These are the literary takes I’m here for 🔥🔥

Leo Fernevak 1y ago

The benefit of Nostr is the long format, over the compacted micro format of Twitter.

A few books I can recommend before I head out with my wife.

1. Time's Arrow, 1991 by Martin Amis.

The story in this book takes place in the reverse. The protagonist is a doctor that is introduced to the reader at old age and he is experiencing a backwards aging every day.

His relationships may start with a painful feeling on his chin, until he meets a lady at a restaurant that he never saw before, experiencing how she removes the pain on his face with a reversed slap.

It has a number of humorous parts in spite of the serious topics. The book opens up a different way of thinking about causality. Everything we do is filled with what we fill ourselves with.

2. The mirror in the mirror, 1984, by Michael Ende.

This book reads like an abstract painting and reaches out with a number of short stories that leaves pause for reflection.

Michael Ende is perhaps more known for his book The Never Ending Story but here he compacts his visual thinking into a series of poetic and dreamlike meditations.