Literature thread. Again.

[Dantius]

What book or piece of literature do you feel has most influenced you in your worldview/outlook on life? I was discussing this with a RL friend, and we came to the agreement that what you read manages to shape your personality more than just about anything else. I, for one, think that this is a rather interesting, and am curious to see what influences others.

[Goldengirl]

Nowadays, I am not prone to reading nearly as much as I'd like to. Now then, when I can, I will read just about anything I can get my hands on. The only exception is the especially dry, technical stuff. Novels, philosophy, psychology, and history would be the major categories of things I read, all in all.

 

However, I'd like to challenge the notion that reading books shapes your personality more than anything else. Your upraising with the family is clearly the base off of which everything else is structured, challenged then by societal peer pressures. Beyond that, thought is the force that changes personality, and that can be motivated independently or by any form of communication, book or not. Plus, not everyone is literate, yet they clearly still have personalities.

[Lilith]

[Edit: There's humorous trolling and there's trolling. Please try to stick with the former.]

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Goldenking

However, I'd like to challenge the notion that reading books shapes your personality more than anything else. Your upraising with the family is clearly the base off of which everything else is structured, challenged then by societal peer pressures. Beyond that, thought is the force that changes personality, and that can be motivated independently or by any form of communication, book or not. Plus, not everyone is literate, yet they clearly still have personalities.

I did say "just about". While your family may influence your early development, you do begin to formulate your own ideas at a certain point, and that is where literature comes in. While parents do play a large role, you play an even larger role, and since most people simply pick and choose their ideas from others, books do have an enormously large influence.

Originally Posted By: Thuryl

mein kampf

lololololololol*sigh*lololololololol

This must be the legendary Thuryl snark we hear of.

[Randomizer]

Another Fine Myth by Robert Asprin introduced me to the wonderful philosophy of situational ethics and this is one of those situations perfect for trolling.

 

I missed Thuryl's troll.

[Sudanna]

I used to love the Myth series. Blasted library only had like three.

[Enraged Slith]

I took an African Literature class in high school, which essentially gave me a better idea of how much the rest of the world sucks. Also took a Latin literature class, but that simply enforced the notion that Spanish authors are insane.

[Acky]

That needs to be enforced?

 

Dr. Seuss is my favorite. He's so deep.

[Callie]

1984 and Atlas Shrugged here. Oh, and the Bible.

[Niemand]

While it's far from the only influence I can think of, one of the more unusual ones that springs to mind is a book that my father read to me sometime around when I was ten to twelve. Since I had been quite small my father had traditionally read aloud to me for a maybe twenty minutes to half an hour before I went to bed every night. As I got older and could do a lot of reading for myself, he transitioned to heftier and more serious books that I wouldn't have been likely to read or get through on my own, and one of the last of these was Mila 18. For those not familiar with it, the book is a dramatization of the events leading up to and during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943. The story was incredibly grim, and somewhat frightening to me at the time; I still recall vividly how I imagined the scenes that were portrayed. It wasn't until some years later that I learned how closely the book was based on actual history.

[RCCCL]

I don't think it's literature itself that helps form one's personality, more like you're personality dictating, to a degree, what you read. Though I imagine that, on occasion, someone may read something that changes their life, and possibly their personality, but I don't think it's a direct result of having read it. In other words, whatever it was that the person read could of had a similar, if not the same, effect no matter the source, whether it's a book, speech, movie, or a chance encounter.

 

That being said, what don't/didn't I read. Both my parents are prolific readers, and it wore of on their children.

[Rowen]

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

IAlso took a Latin literature class, but that simply enforced the notion that Spanish authors are insane.

Did the authors write in Spanish, have there work translated to English, or just Chicana literature? I ask since I took a Spanish literature class and am taking another this spring. I really liked it, all but two of the novellas were in Spanish, and the others were Chicana Literature.

[Slawbug]

Clearly, personality influences what experiences you expose yourself to, which in turn influence your personality, though your personality is in general less plastic when you are older.

 

It sounds like what you are looking for here is not books that shape your personality in a different direction than it would have gone otherwise, so much as books that catalyze its growth, perhaps in a direction that did not seem likely at the time given the rest of your environment, but which actually fit perfectly with your core feelings and beliefs -- giving form and expression to them and allowing for intellectual and aesthetic elaboration. These are the books with themes that seem perenially relevant, that you can go back to and reread every few years and experience not a sense of distance or change, but a sense of familiar immediacy, a sense that they are just as relevant to your life now as they have always been. These are the books that you reach out to, and that respond by reaching out to you.

 

For my part I think The Thousand Nights and a Night comes first and foremost, or maybe Shadow and Evil in Fairy-Tales by Marie-Louise von Franz -- or maybe, if you go back far enough, Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder.

[inni]

Animal Farm, Philosophy made light.

 

[Goldengirl]

Originally Posted By: I need no introduction

Animal Farm, My Book on Philosophy.

Would you care to expand on this, please? Enlighten me.

[Alorael at Large]

Spanish authors or Hispanic authors? Both are plausible claims, but they're not the same claim. And how much of the insanity is, in fact, just magical realism, which is the polite term for modern setting fantasy trying to dodge a genre label?

 

—Alorael, who lists Miguel de Unamuno as one of his favorite authors. The man wrote briefly and brilliantly. Actually, San Manuel Bueno, Mártir should be required reading for anyone considering faith or lack thereof, and the introduction and re-introduction to Niebla should be required reading for everyone who has ever wanted to be baffled by literature.

[VCH]

The Twilight Book series

[inni]

Originally Posted By: Goldenking

Would you care to expand on this, please? Enlighten me.

Looking at philosophy is a short history of most of the philosophers starting with Thales and going on in chronological order to Irigaray.
i mentioned Animal farm because it taught me that you can't have a capitalist head and eat it too, not unless you plan to share.

[VCH]

Word to Caesar was pretty cool back in Grade 7.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: VCH

The Twilight Book series

Damn, I was going to say that. Beat me to the punch.

[Sudanna]

Ew.

[Slawbug]

From Unamuno to Twilight... tear.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Pray for New Flesh

From Unamuno to Twilight... tear.

I hate the fact that the only way to convey sarcasm on the 'net is to add a [sarcasm] tag, but I find that that rather ruins the effect. Also, if you were being sarcastic, and I could not tell,that only serves to prove my point even further.

[Alorael at Large]

I think Unamuno could accept Twilight for what it isn't.

 

—Alorael, who is more worried about the descent from Harry Potter to Twilight. One pop phenomenon was acceptable. One is not.

[Aran]

Cryptonomicon, I would say.

[Frozen Feet]

Influenced my life the most? The guestion makes all books, magazines, comics, articles, essays and internet forums I've ever read anywhere flash trough my mind. There's so much I've read I really can't begin to sort it all. For the heck of it, I'll answer Bible. Considering how deeply rooted my parents, grand-parents and the culture around me are on christian values, it can't go too wrong.

[The Knight Who Said Ni]

I personally like Douglas Adams and Arthur C. Clarke.