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Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

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Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#481

Post by KhoomeiK »

yobert wrote: post #123
oliv__ wrote: post #17

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

Atlas Shrugged was wonderful for me as a young adult. It helped me break free of a religious upbringing that was filled with guilt. And then it was good for me in my middle age when I realized how flawed other parts of Rand's philosophy are and how much I disagreed with them and why, and got to move past it to even better places. :D

People always talk about the flaws in her philosophy but no one has ever actually pointed them out to me. I'm a young adult now so maybe I don't have the perspective to see these flaws, but please do enlighten me.

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#482

Post by jeffe »

vector_spaces wrote: post #44

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. This book changed my life. I read this book when I was maybe 17? And read it again last year, a decade and a half later. The most powerful lesson I learned here is what anthropologists call cultural relativism. This book also taught me that everyone is under the influence of Mother Culture and her stories. I think internalizing this can help a lot with understanding other people, building sel…

I'm surprised that this book, which is as about as heavy handed and nuanced as Atlas Shrugged, seems to have such positive consensus. Reading it at a similarly impressionable age I found it to be a typical luddite philosophy presented by a condescending pseudo-intellectual gorilla. It presented some obvious truths about human culture and its effects on the environment, but insidiously twisted everything to support his notion that we have destroyed some grand 'natural' order and need to stop being a culture of 'takers'. Did I mention that to Quinn all cultures are either 'givers' or 'takers'? You can probably guess which one he spent the majority of the book demonizing.

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#483

Post by georgelyon »

It is a bit newer than many of these suggestions, but the Broken Earth trilogy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._K._Jemisin) is a really compelling fantasy and tells a really human story amidst an inspired though familiar world. If you’ve felt like you’re reading the same fantasy story over and over, I highly recommend giving this one a try.

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#485

Post by raister »

bookworm3827482 wrote: post #312
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are thinking about it wrong. Suspend your disbelief about the practicalities of what he did (pretend he was tired and not thinking at all). The story is a metaphor about life, the struggle, and a cruel world. Every person will interpret it differently. Think about how his story is a metaphor for some part of your life, and you might get the emotional import of it.

The guy was a professional fisherman... but didn't know how to fish? I get the point of the story and what the author was trying to do. It just seems silly to have such a huge flaw in the plot. It's like Lord of the Rings - the eagles could have flown the ring over to Mordor. I just can't enjoy books (or films for that matter) which require a suspension of, I dunno, basic reasoning.

It's discussed that the eagles would not mingle in those affairs during the crisis, being unable to help in the most difficult times. I know it's hard to accept this and move on, but otherwise the movie would have like 2 or 3 pages, right

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#486

Post by rewgs »

randomsearch wrote: post #184
ellius wrote: post #151

"East of Eden." Steinbeck draws beautiful vignettes of human life and emotion, and I think the book's main idea about human motivation is largely correct and explains a wide variety of behavior. It helped me see both myself and others with more clarity.

Greatest book I’ve ever read. Timshel.

Agreed, same here. When I finished it I felt that I had witnessed something profound and ancient and true. No other book has done what it did to me, though I'm not sure I can even describe it.

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#488

Post by zumu »

Jkol wrote: post #103

Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, aka Three Body Problem. Explored existential topics in a way I've never encountered anywhere else. I truly believe that decades from now this series will be viewed as the LOTR of our time. I've recently been reading the Foundation series, and have found the concept of The Mule character to be incredibly eye opening. I can't say directly it's had a positive impact on my life but it…

What specific existential topics? I did find not TBP particularly deep. It felt like a Hollywood movie, but set in China.

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#489

Post by L_226 »

Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke.

It helped me understand that all things must end eventually, and that it is okay. I must admit I was pretty depressed for a few days after finishing it though.

The City and the Stars, also by Clarke.

This one encouraged me to explore as much as possible, and also that people sometimes cognitively isolate themselves, and only come out of this isolation if they personally want to. They cannot be externally motivated, e.g. you cannot convince a truly zealous religious person that their religion is flawed, they need to realise it themselves.

There is also a curious anecdote involving this novel - as Clarke had rewritten the story some years after the inital publishing. The anecdote involves two people discussing the novel without realising that each had read a different version of the story [0].

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_and_the_Stars

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