/lit/ - Literature

Monkey brain.

>>19773184
Because art makes no sense if there is nobody you can impact with it. In a post-modern society there is so much cynicism that no matter how you open your heart you will meet nobody with your efforts. It's all a joke. If you are making art with the intent of speaking to other people, this world is a nightmare.

>>19773184
Because solipsism. He should have researched telepathy, but psychologically he couldn't go there it seems

>>19773184
Because he was an epic humanist.

>>19773213
>He should have researched telepathy,

Is there any evidence it works?

>>19773184
First world problems

>>19775260
Everybody is telepathic, they just don't know it yet

>>19773184
He was lonely and had difficulty connecting with people.

4TM02

>>19773184
He never felt a connection with himself and other people.

Dwelling on it made me more like him and I suffered as a result. Thankfully, I grew out of it. He was intelligent but retarded, he was ngmi.

i think i have developed an addiction to solitude after many years.

>>19773184
I wonder what would have made him feel contentment.

>>19775415
I read most his books, and what I got out of it is to stop being an overthinking bitch like him and just life your life

He was a man who needed an outlet that wasn’t writing or audience pussy. He should’ve actually written for TV as a side gig.

>>19773184

He was a neuroatypical gay nerd with visible body tics. We are at the end of history, and normal people are perfectly satisfied with sex, entertainment, and modern medicine. And we're tired of being ruled by the unusually intelligent and ambitious. It's better this way, what should we make our lives worse for your sake? Fuck off nerd. Rome was then, America is now

>>19775329
IMO taking telepathy seriously is based even if it’s not really possible to get anywhere outside of metaphysics with it. In fact, I think modern psychology is basically the scientific approach to becoming “telepathic”.

Humans are *sort of* telepathic in that we can understand each others’ thoughts through nonverbal indicators, the most obvious of which being body language. Accurate, 100% telepathy where you can read a person’s every thoughts doesn’t seem like it’d even be useful (let alone fucking possible) given that so much of the way our brains interpret information consists of us having to simultaneously filter stimuli that does not arrest our attention.

Other forms of telepathy are things like the phenomenon that occurs when people become unified through a common effort or experience, like during a concert or religious gathering. Most of people attending start to think and feel the same way and it creates this strong hivemind that gives most people there a window into each others’ minds.

I’m the person DFW wished he was. I’m both Mario and DFW’s tortured narrator. It was hard reconciling it, but I made it, and I will be his successor as well as Kafka’s.

>>19773184
why does no one post the names of their idols? why do you recognise all the authors you have read by their faces? this is colossal faggotry
i could not identify a single fiction writer by their face alone, i am convinced most of lit has to do a reverse image search before contributing to a thread

>>19773202
Bullshit, this is such a petty way of thinking. It makes absolutely 0 sense to imagine that a work like his, which was wildly successful, did not impact people in meaningful ways. I am living proof that his book was impactful upon my life.

I somehow doubt he was dense enough to feel like people just didn’t “get it” and so the only logical conclusion is to an hero. What he dealt with is a common occurrence for big brains, Jordan Peterson quotes Tolstoy as a way to illustrate this in 12 Rules for Life. I don’t remember the quote exactly, but he concluded that there were only 3 ways for him to approach his life from a conscious perspective: 1) being a hedonist, 2) pretending like religion is truth, 3) suicide. DFW couldn’t transcend that existential crisis, and so he killed himself.

>>19775513
lurk moar faggot

>>19775513
jesus christ anon
come back when you're 18

>>19775644
>lurk moar
missing the point. why should i care to remember what the author looks like? only if i wanted to idolise him would i search his portrait
>faggot
you are the gay

>>19775513
psh this is the book world kiddo

>>19775505
>I’m both Mario and DFW’s tortured narrator.
I hate to break it to you, but that is most everyone.

>>19775671
>see new /lit/ thread
>reverse image search
>its the author that everybody on lit knows and talks about incessantly
>he...hes kinda hot
>prints off image and several other portraits
>creates a dedicated shrine
>prays to shrine
>weeks go by
>praying to dfw shrine daily
>feel my intellect expanding
>become one with dfw
>see new /lit/ thread
>reverse image search
>its the philosopher that everybody on /lit/ knows and talks about incessantly
>he...hes kinda hot
>prints off image and several other portraits
>creates a dedicated shrine
>prays to shrine
>weeks go by
>praying to stirner shrine daily
>feel my intellect expanding
>become one with stirner
>>see new /lit/ thread
>reverse image search
>its the philosopher that everybody on /lit/ knows and talks about incessantly
>he...

>>19775695
In a way that is so mild that it's simply not the case at all.

>>19775812
No, that literally embodies the duality in everyone, as you view the narrator. The narrator is ultimately the same as the rest of the characters in IJ, but parallels Hal perfectly; starts out as a top notch high level narrator but becomes increasingly unreliable and ends largely with going through the motions by relaying characters internal monologues with the occasional unreliable and highly suspect digressions.

This will probably be a difficult truth for you to reconcile, but it will be one you will need to reconcile if you want to be DFWs successor.

>>19775505
>I'm Mario (a retarded cripple)
I bet you are

>>19775861
can you elaborate on your take on the narrator in IJ? as far as I know there's multiple narrators, hal and don gately being some of them

>>19775505
The Sad Stork, himself?

>>19775513
I agree with you in principle but I don't know how you could be on this board for 5 minutes and not know what DFW looks like

>>19775477
This is all true, but even in this circumscribed form telepathy is underexplored.

>>19775549
>I am living proof that his book was impactful upon my life.
The fact that you included this sentence is proof that you didn’t get it, that it didn’t impact you at all.

>>19775890
I thought it was JOI.

>>19775890
>>19775939
It is a single narrator. The narrator is giving up just like Hal, he starts out as a top notch narrator with keen observational ability but loses his way and experiences the same crisis as Hal does. This is mostly shown through the use of free indirect speech, the narrator taking on qualities of the characters speech. At the start (Ken E not the first/last chapter) there is no free indirect speech, the narrator relates the scene in detail and interprets the characters internal monologue to show the significance of what the character is going through in a way relatable to someone who has not gone through what they have. As the novel wears on more and more internal dialog gets relayed and free indirect speech becomes more prominent and free indirect speech becomes increasingly used improperly, using the speaking qualities of characters who have nothing to do with the scene. By the end the narrator is mostly falling into relaying internal monologue and constantly has to remind himself to clear up the ambiguity with additions like "Gately thought" or "he (Gately)." And it finally ends with the first chapter where it is almost completely relaying internal monologue, the narrator, like Hal, has ceased speaking, he just goes through the motions of performing as a narrator. A good amount of what does not make sense about the plot can actually be marked up to the increasingly unreliable narrator attempting to cover up his increasing failure as a narrator and tie up loose ends.

captcha: DEATH

>>19775928
Lol in what way? Do you think the only way a book can have meaningful impact is if the reader begins to worship it? That’s precisely what I meant when I said that your interpretation of meaningful work is extremely petty.

>>19775861
Very few people are as nice and likeable as Mario. Very few people are as complicated as DFW's narrator (the narrator in all of his works from IJ onwards). You're right that DFW's work is about this kind of duality, but you're being extremely charitable to the human race by saying that his work is representative of everyone. People are generally not likeable or interesting. It's commonly talked about here how people fail to grasp what is significant about IJ. Now, on your advice - I'm not DFW's successor because I'm like him or writing like him. I've succeeded where he failed. My writing is a synthesis of "sincerity" and crippling, cruel self awareness. Wallace never synthesized it, he wrote about wanting to synthesize it. I'm just sorry I'll never get a letter of appreciation from him.

>>19776022
Almost none of DFWs characters are particularly likable or interesting, they may have gone through some interesting ordeals but nothing about them as people is interesting and if they are likable it is for banal and superficial reasons, not because of who they are as people. Your cruel self awareness would be crippling narcissism by the standards of DFWs fiction, ala Rand or Fogle.

>>19775549
I agree with you up until the second paragraph but I wish I didn't because you sound like a total retard
>jordan peterson quote
>taking his gay book seriously
>"only 3 ways"
DFW himself would call you a retard for that one
>pretending like religion is truth
you completely miss the point of religion

>>19776064
You don't think Mario and Gately are likable?

A poor author focuses on certain experiences and characters because it reflects their own psychology or cultural background.
A good author's focus is an exclusively aesthetic choice. It is determined by the needs and expectations of the aesthetic principles the work operates under.
Collapsing the latter into the former at every opportunity (as most of the posts in this thread do) is the mark of a complete lack of critical and literary discernment.

>>19776683
>doesn't know what almost means
What exactly do you find likeable about Gately? He endlessly takes the easy path and does so regardless of the cost to himself and his friends. He replaced his identity/personality with 12step dogma and has taken it to such extent it distances him from everyone even those also entrenched in the dogma. Everything he does is for himself, even his defense of Lenz, he did not want to deal with it or the consequences so he let the old Gately back out. The only redeemable thing about him is that he is trying.

>>19776703
>A good author's focus is an exclusively aesthetic choice
And the aesthetic choice is supplemented by the authors background and psychology. stop being retarded

Imagine being a toxic masculine male

>>19777478
Haha. Where's this image from?

>>19775505
>I’m both Mario

and ima luigi!

>>19776670
It’s a great book, I doubt you’ve read it.

>>19775549
>I am living proof that his book was impactful upon my life.
Oh? I am living proof that I love fresh green beans.

>>19778183
Can’t argue with that, my d00d

>>19778213
>didn't even try
why are you even on 4chan?

>>19775455
Some people aren't retards like you.

The advice, just be yourself, just live your life, don't worry so much. Is advice retards give because they have to make an effort to overanalyze situations.

For some people, a new situation is not approachable unless it has first been studied. This is what is assumed of most peoples, but is more rarely the case.
For other people a new situation is involuntarily studied because their mind simply can't help noticing all the details and intricacies and trying to process them. These people have all sorts of warnings flare up about everything and their subconscious will not allow them to proceed unless they are cleared up.

Its not someone consciously taking the time to overanalyze the situation. Its involuntary as i said. You, being retarded, have found that you were just doing it because you wanted to be an overly complicated bitch.

So take your advice and go fuck yourself with it niqqer.

>>19778110
I hate zoomers so much its unreal

>>19777666
Some new yorker article titled "7 signs your man(?) isn't toxically masculine" or something like that.
All a joke btw

>>19773184
Narcisism.

>>19773184
he couldn't sense that every other person was lying about wanting to be genuine. No one wishes this when they get three wishes.

The answer is that when you're depressed you feel very disconnected from other people around you and you become quite narcissistic in a volatile way.

High quality thread. Good job, everyone. Best posts:
>>19775963
>>19776703
>>19779239

>>19779548
This is ironic right? I never can tell

>>19773184
Jesus fucking Christ just look at this guy. "Was he based?" "Did he know truth?" . Fuckottahere

>>19779598
This,

The guy was a hippie feeler not a thinker.

The writing is relatable in emotion, not in sound logic and his suicide only amplified that. I am not sure why he's referred to as a philosopher

>>19779575
I'm really enjoying this thread.