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/lit/ - Literature

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22670123 No.22670123 [Reply] [Original]

Do we still like him or are we pretending to hate him again?

>> No.22670200
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22670200

I’ll defer to Dale Peck on this one.

I recently saw an interview with him (Wallace), talking about consumerism. He stuttered about eight hundred times in the course of fifteen minutes. It became apparent immediately that this was not a man with a speech impediment, nor a desire to sound smart but failing to find the right words, it was an experimental performance that attempted to obscure the fact that he had absolutely nothing profound to say, in fact, the points he was making were universal common sense that a child could intuit. This phenomenon is reflected in his writing. He, like many other greats, uses obtuseness and verbosity in masturbatory volumes to shroud the simple fact that what he was saying held no importance or intrinsic truth, nor did it buck conventional wisdom nor create investigations deeper than the cliché shallow puddle. But man could he paint a picture with words.

>> No.22670209

>>22670123
Postmodern literature is trash

>reference upon reference upon reference

A complete and utter crutch of literature with no depth or essence. It will largely be forgotten in the coming centuries it is very much "of the times".

>> No.22670258

>>22670200
Yeah but do we still like him?

>> No.22670475

>>22670123
Never liked him. I found it really baffling reading IJ because I had agreed strongly with DFW in his interviews where he complained about ironic posturing in our culture. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that his work was by far the worst offender in that respect. I suppose it's yet another case of people hating in society what they most hate about themselves.

>> No.22670535

>>22670123
/lit/ is going through the reverse litbro phase that reddit and xitter went through. Everyone desperately wants you to know how much they don't like these pseud male writers which means DFW and Pynchon are on the chopping block

>> No.22670702

>>22670535
/lit/ agreeing with Twitter book women, hating on people who like IJ. Hilarious.

>> No.22670764

>>22670123
He's unironically great but he's been an essential /lit/ author for so long that over time newfag contrarians shit on him just to seem cool, but now it's the majority opinion since the board is majority newfags. Same reason that /mu/ hates the Smiths and Radiohead now.

>> No.22670782

>>22670764
>Same reason that /mu/ hates the Smiths and Radiohead now.
randomly browsing for the first time in years, wasted my adolescence on /mu/ and i'm seething. i'm honestly glad I don't come here anymore

>> No.22671370

i like this lobster essays book (minus AVN eassy that was retarded). He has a really techincal writing style but seems like he uses a theasurars

>> No.22671420

>>22670123
I will always like him. Both IJ and The Pale King are both great books.

>> No.22671422

>>22670123
>that Gately childhood story where the old woman bakes him a cake and his mom throws into the trashcan

>> No.22671427

>>22670123
>Do we still like him or are we pretending to hate him again?

I'm indifferent. His life and work don't affect me at all, one way or another.

>> No.22671667

>>22670123
I've only read Infinite Jest and it's really good, overall. Specifically there's a lot of bullshit in the book but it ties together into a phenomenal whole

>> No.22671705

>>22670123
What the fuck even is the philosophy of Pynchon and Wallace?

Carlyle and Lewis have a clesrly identifiable philosophies but Pynchon and Wallacr don't seem to have that.

>> No.22671762

>>22670535
How fucking pathetic.

>> No.22671770

I like him, but one of his fans once called me a "fucking idiot" for criticizing Infinite Jest, so I have a love/resent relationship with his work/fanbase.

>> No.22671781

>>22670123
He's irrelevant.

>> No.22671823

>>22671705
It's been a few years since I've read either, but this is what I recall:

DFW to me focuses on escapism, particularly through media and drugs as seen in IJ. He champions the narcotics anonymous group and their collective endeavour to lead a clean, sincere life. I could go further with TPK, but in short: "sincerely engage with the world" was the message I received.

Pynchon is a wacky son of a bitch I sez. I'm sure there's much analysis that could be done, but I feel he's just trying to have a good time with some scientific and engineering references thrown in. In contrast to that, the world in his books is often mysterious, surreal, and dangerous. I would summarise him with "technology and people are absurd and an endless rabbit hole of investigation"

>> No.22671986

>>22670123
My used copy of The Pale King I ordered abroad got returned because of shitty state postal service.
I'll purchase another used version, this time thru Amazon.
Wish me luck, anons.

>> No.22672221

IJ really just seems to me like he read Vineland and Gravity's Rainbow and re-wrote it for the 90's.
The man could create a beautiful scene though.

>> No.22672260

>>22670535
>>22670702
/lit/ is a female board, scrotie. Of course we hate litbros.

>> No.22672371

>>22671705
To me it seems like Wallace has a really simple and almost deliberately cliche “philosophy”, people try to make him way more than he was. He wanted people to be sincere, care about other people, be present and attentive to your life instead of getting sucked into consumerism and entertainment. All common sense.

His literary achievements are more triumphs of style than philosophy. New Sincerity was not about changing the way you see the world but changing the way you write books, music, film etc. to cut out trendy irony and cynicism.

>> No.22672622

>>22671422
For me it was
>the story near the end where the tennis coach becomes homeless and spends months begging for people to touch him to prove that God exists
>he makes tons of money because people would rather pay him than touch him
>Mario is the only one that will do it
Kino book

>> No.22672638

>>22670123
i like him, but he is truly the mcdonalds of literary fiction

>> No.22673776

>>22672638
what would you recommend instead?

>> No.22673859

>>22670200
nigga I ain't reading all that shit

>> No.22673864

>>22672371
>cut out trendy irony and cynicism
The options are layers of irony or dogmatism. The king is not simply divine and not simply a fool. The satirizing of his foolishness does not need to undermine his divinity.

>> No.22673917

>>22670209
It's like I'm back in time listening to the philistines talk about how Manet is talentless and not a real artist because "it not like old thing."

>> No.22673926

>>22671427
And yet here you are.

>> No.22673963

>>22670209
DFW isn't post modern

>> No.22673975

>>22673776
i would recommend against reading fiction

>> No.22674039

>>22673975
Retard

>> No.22674109

>>22672371
I just like how he tried to shine a light on hard it is to actually do though. Everyone knows drugs are bad, that family and friends are important but actually keeping that in mind all the time is hard. The guy sitting at home watching vtubers all day will occasionally come out of his trance knowing full well it's all a charade but he just can't stop.

>> No.22674237

>>22674039
Nigger.

>> No.22674252

>>22671422
>that story of the christian couple in the park waiting for their abortion appointment
Best thing DFW ever wrote.

>Later on, he believed that what happened was he’d had a moment of almost seeing them both as Jesus saw them—as blind but groping, wanting to please God despite their inborn fallen nature. For in that same given moment he saw, quick as light, into Sheri’s heart, and was made to know what would occur here as she finished turning to him

>> No.22674256

>>22670764
>/mu/ hates the Smiths and Radiohead now.
you mean the k-pop board hates things now? yeah it figures

>> No.22674267

>>22674237
Not following the argument, just scrolling through the front page and wanted to say you're based for saying nigger. Keep it up, and NEVER stop being racist against vile black demons

>> No.22674296

>>22674267
i'm actually NOT racist and i deplore racism

>> No.22674319

>>22674296
Then don't use our word next time faggot, you're making it too hard to tell bad from good

>> No.22674331

>>22674319
i'm a free speech absolutist, and that includes my right to say things i don't even believe

>> No.22674372

>>22674256
> k-pop board

ain't that the truth. Remember when they were in there Fantano hate era? I feel like that is similar to this pomo hate era we find ourselves in now on /lit/. This board will be an unironic erotica board in another year or two.

>> No.22675450

>>22674372
Fantano is incredibly hateable thoughever

>> No.22675812

>>22670200
>In May 2011, Peck's criticism of Jewish American literature in which he claimed "[I]f I have to read another book about the Holocaust, I'll kill a Jew myself" prompted a public outcry. His editors later removed the statement from his article.

Holy fucking based.

>> No.22675905

>>22674109
It’s also a message that has to cut through the deluge of self-help cliches that have been flooding the airwaves since the 90s at least. We can see now, looking back, how true DFW’s observations were.
Anything that might once genuinely help people has been turned into a product to consume, conveyed by advertising.

Thus everybody rightfully mocks self-help advertising, government anti-drug education, and “live laugh love” style wellness cliches. The sincere value of looking after yourself, avoiding your worst impulses and cherishing life is lost in the shuffle.
As you said, those things are very hard to do, and it is thus easier to reject them behind a layer of cynicism because the self-help message is gross and bullshitty.

>> No.22676189

>>22675450
So is DFW. It is okay to challenge the hipster opinion of these hobby boards, but it is a sign of the fall of a board I think

>> No.22676353

>>22670123
The American Bolaño

>> No.22676372

>>22670200
Nice way to not have any opinion whatsoever and do the exact same thing you criticise DFW for...

>> No.22676382

David Poptart Walnuts

>> No.22676385

>>22670123
Mogged by F Gardner

>> No.22676390
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22676390

>>22672260
>female

>> No.22676465

>>22673963
Are you stupid

>> No.22676511

>>22670123
Never did

>> No.22676531

>>22670123
>kills off Boomer encylcopedic pomo novels forever

He's a decent essayist and very little beside. The Pale King in its unfinished state is an embarrassment and disgusting cash grab by his estate that ought to be removed from circulation.

>>22670200
>He stuttered about eight hundred times in the course of fifteen minutes. It became apparent immediately that this was not a man with a speech impediment, nor a desire to sound smart but failing to find the right words

Dysfluencies are a sign of manipulation and/or psychopathy. As an affectation they are the reddest of flags. You know uhh that umm Shatneresque Obama NPR sort ofmmm thing? He was Jordan Peterson neuroses and all without the technical tools to articulate them to himself or how they mirrored the whole of Y2K Americana.

>> No.22676539

I could enjoy IJ if he hadn't made their characters jack off all the time. Like, was he an incel? If you want to write about degeneracy, at least put some sex scenes instead of characters jacking off all the time. That's boring and disgusting, but not in a good way.

>> No.22676545

>>22676539
For example the dood who takes vacations from work to perma-smoke pot for days on no end. Instead of making him jack off, he could have made a scene where he lures the dealer foid have sex with him.

>> No.22676546

>>22670123
>Do we still like him or are we pretending to hate him again?
That's not Bret Easton Ellis.
That's not Cormac McCarthy.
That's not Jane Austen.

>> No.22676775

>>22676531
>The Pale King in its unfinished state is an embarrassment and disgusting cash grab by his estate that ought to be removed from circulation.
He left a sizable chunk of the novel ready to go along with instruction on how to pull the rest together from his drafts right next to his suicide note, he wanted it published. It is pretty great and I suspect you either never read it or have poor comprehension but lets see you prove me wrong, whats so terrible about it.
>>22676545
There is very little in the way of masturbation in the novel, the act itself never happens in the novel and none of the main characters masturbate, Erdeddy is not a main character. You dropped it in the second chapter, didn't you?

>> No.22676796

>>22676539
You didn't read it. The second chapter with Erdedy is literally the only part where a character masturbates, and there's a scene later on where Orin fucks a 10/10 model.

>> No.22676806

>>22676796
Erdeddy does not actually masturbate, just mentions that he will when he gets stoned but we leave him before he gets stoned. There is also the joke Orin makes about getting the Kleenex concession at ETA, one of the young ETAs (Blott?) discusses masturbation with Lyle, the wall of cum Gately cleans up daily at the homeless shelter and the mention of things you learn in a halfway house, that everyone masturbates. But still not much, maybe a dozen pages out 1100.

>> No.22676953

>>22676531
Faggot

>> No.22676975

>>22676775
> You dropped it in the second chapter, didn't you
I dropped when he came to some dood talking about the things he learned in drug rehab. '[...], and that, pretty much everyone masturbates'. Why did he feel the need to write that? What's so glorious about learning such a thing in such a pathetic manner? How mentally vain does someone have to be to find interest in such a topic? How much natural inhibition does one have to loose to watch some fat naked Mexican in rehab masturbating in the rehab bathroom?

>> No.22676978

i like his thoughts on irony and television and his speech this is water is nice too.

>> No.22677004
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22677004

>>22676465
He's nu Sincerity

>> No.22677007

>>22676975
kek the point is that the drug addicts are degenerates that are trying to reform themselves like Gately, it's supposed to be comedic but also a condemnation of their sin. In that same chapter he says that black penises are the same size as white penises and talks about an addict that has "FUCK NIGGERS" tattooed on his chest.
I don't know how much you've read, but pretty much all literature meant for adults describes at least one form of degeneracy and sin, including the Bible. In fact, some of the more praised books on this board like Blood Meridian and Gravity's Rainbow are total edgefests that are actually trying to gross out the reader, IJ is honestly pretty tame in comparison in this regard.

>> No.22677009

>>22676775
His prose is masturbatory, it's all over

>> No.22677012
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22677012

>>22677007
kill yourself

>> No.22677017

>>22677007
As I said earlier, masturbation is, although degenerate, neither interesting nor particularly degenerate nor anything.
He could have wrote a gay sex scene with a nigger as the top for example. Of course that's a disgusting thing to read, but he would have not had less opportunity to bring over ehatever 'comedic statements' he was trying to make.
'...nd the cock of the redneck rose to a size equal to that of the nigger..'

>> No.22677053

>>22676975
>>22677017
lmaoooo, you have a hilarious way of putting things, anon.

the degeneracy qua degeneracy is not so important. masturbation is just another instance of the characters (and modern society as dfw saw it) pursuing their/its solipsistic self-gratification.

it may be worth it to try and read like 300 pages and then deciding whether you want to read more. maybe not. i used to adore ij, but i see it as more flawed now than i did before. i actually think the pale king is much superior.

>> No.22677062

>>22677053
> masturbation is just another instance of the characters (and modern society as dfw saw it) pursuing their/its solipsistic self-gratification.
Well, I saw it more as DFW affirming degeneracy rather than writing against it.

>> No.22677098

>>22677017
The other anon that replied to this put it better than I did initially, masturbation is one of the forms of addictive activity described in the novel which tie into the main theme of addiction and recovery, and how modern society encourages addiction. The dystopian setting the book takes place in is called "ONAN" literally named after a character in Genesis that cums on the ground and gets killed by God. It wouldn't surprise me if DFW himself had an addiction to masturbation at one point, since the Erdedy chapter at the beginning of the book is known to be based off of his real addiction to weed and TV.

>> No.22677939

>>22676975
Are you one of those coomer incels that copes by pretending to be trad?
>>22677009
What is masturbatory about it?

>> No.22677948

>>22670123
His niece is cute.

>> No.22677987

>>22670123
Muffaka couldn't wright even remotely decent dialogue if his life depended on it

>> No.22677994

>>22670535
Hey, Pynchon is universally liked
The main difference between the two is that Pynchon has no pretense

>> No.22678029

>>22677948
Lydia?

>> No.22678040

>>22677994
Pretense is part and parcel of being a public figure. Pynchon managed to avoid this aspect of celebrity.

>> No.22678051

>>22677939
> Are you one of those coomer incels that copes by pretending to be trad
I haven't fapped in almost a year

>> No.22678065

>>22678051
Impressive, but for what purpose?

>> No.22678070

>>22677053
It is more that he was making the point that everyone has something which they abuse as an escape and even banal everyday things which are not a problem for most people can be destructive or turn destructive.
>That purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape. That gambling can be an abusable escape, too, and work, shopping, and shoplifting, and sex, and abstention, and masturbation, and food, and exercise, and meditation/prayer, and sitting so close to Ennet House's old D.E.C. TP cartridge-viewer that the screen fills your whole vision and the screen's static charge tickles your nose like a linty mitten.
The purpose of IJs length is to make it difficult for the reader to write it off as someone else's problem and to explore the myriad of ways in which society and everyone in society feeds and awards such behaviors. Society is built around attaining easy rewards and as long as the awards you seek are among the ones society deems good you have no problem but it is a problem because when life goes wrong one of those banal everyday things may turn into something more or you may turn towards something else which provides those awards more efficiently.
>>22678051
So that is a yes,

>> No.22678083

>>22678065
> Impressive, but for what purpose?
I picked up from a book that someone who never had sex doesn't have the need for sex, if I explain myself. After that it was all autosuggestion until I completely defeated the need to jerk off.
> So that is a yes,
Perhaps. I'm not a conventional trad, but I am a realist in some stances, like in the faggot question.

>> No.22678097

>>22677053
>>22677098
Huh, that’s really interesting. Didn’t notice that on my first read. Makes a lot of sense. Thanks anons. Good to see posts like this.

>> No.22678098

>>22677004
that is postmodernism and failure of its goals

>> No.22678099

>>22670123
Only thing I read by this guy was his essay shitting on Terminator 2

>> No.22678100

>>22678083
>Perhaps. I'm not a conventional trad, but I am a realist in some stances, like in the faggot question.
IJ is pretty much about (You). You should get over getting tiggered by masturbation being mentioned half a dozen times in 1100 pages and just read it.

>> No.22678108

>>22678083
>I picked up from a book that someone who never had sex doesn't have the need for sex, if I explain myself. After that it was all autosuggestion until I completely defeated the need to jerk off.
This doesn’t seem implausible, as my mom (who I think may only have had sex with my dad and only enough times to conceive my sister and I) never remarried after they divorced and had literally 0 interest in pursuing of allowing herself to be pursued by other men. Whatever sexuality she has is definitely not being expressed in any way shape or form and has not been expressed for literal decades.

>> No.22678128

>>22678100
> IJ is pretty much about (You). You should get over getting tiggered by masturbation being mentioned half a dozen times in 1100 pages and just read it
I didn't get triggered by it, I got the suspicion that the book was written by a literal coomer. Wich does not speak much in favour of the writer. People say he criticizes degeneracy, well I did not much get that vibe. More like he actively indulges in it, romanticizes it, idealizes it.
>>22678108
Think about wether you started to actively seek sex when you had knowledge of having the physical faculties for it or wether you were brainwashed by society to seek it (at an age too young as well probably).

>> No.22678150

>>22678128
>More like he actively indulges in it, romanticizes it, idealizes it.
And you base that belief off of one character who abuses masturbation and addicts in withdrawal abusing masturbation? See the part of >>22678070 which is not a (You).

>> No.22678160

>>22678150
I don't have the book at hands right now but no I didn't mind in the beginning but after pages and pages where notes about fapping were casually thrown into the pile I got tired of it and dropped the book.

>> No.22678165

>>22677053
i think that gets to the heart of it… i used to think IJ was just about addiction, but rereads showed me that he was more aiming to get at the heart of addiction and what causes it… at least thats what i think… idk i’m a midwit

>> No.22678173

'Is there really someone in our class who never ever jacked himself off?'
Everyone laughed.
What a pathetic loser degenerate kid, imagine becoming a living turd at the age of 12.

>> No.22678178

>>22678165
In interviews it's always about the 'everybody worships' thesis. In a world devoid of meaning, what meanings do individuals attribute to their society and how do those meanings manifest as needs for control or non-control and how do the characters deal with the subsequent addictions that are in conflict with the regular day to day aspects of life.

>> No.22678205

>>22677053
>solipsistic
What does this mean? I always thought it meant the philosophy where you only believe you are or what’s inside your head is real, but the way DFW uses it in interviews and essays doesn’t seem to have that usage, and you seem like you’re using it in the same way he does. Am I misunderstanding that word or what?

>> No.22678217

>>22670782
as far as boards go, /lit/ isn't doing too bad. newfags here tend not to be complete imbeciles, which is nice. the literature discussed here speaks for itself really, so there a common ground

>> No.22678286

>>22678128
>Think about wether you started to actively seek sex when you had knowledge of having the physical faculties for it or wether you were brainwashed by society to seek it (at an age too young as well probably).
Sex is not what I seek so much as satisfying physical intimacy. Having sex with someone that I can share that with seems to me like it would be worth a lifetime of brainwashing.

>> No.22678299

>>22670782
I've only browsed /mu/ a few times and can safely say that it's a total shitshow of a board compared to almost every other board I've browsed on 4chan. /a/ is the only other board where there is completely pointless, toxic hostility for its own sake, and where the people that frequent it act like it's a perfectly normal way to discuss things.

/lit/ isn't anywhere close to as being as bad as those boards.

>> No.22678898

PoMo slop.

>> No.22679438

>>22678299
Drinking diarrhea is probably worse than drinking stale piss, but they’re both fucking shit regardless. You’re probably just desensitized to it (I partially am as I’ve been here 9-10 years, unfortunately) but the same trend of “pointless hostility and toxicity for its own sake” is very clearly present on /lit/. Nevertheless, I hypocritically continue to browse it despite knowing how bad it is of a habit and timesink, just like other bad addictions I cultivate, like drinking and smoking.

There are some very sweet, knowledgeable or at least dedicated posters really interested in literature (or even philosophy or religion, much as others dislike them being so big here) that they make it ALMOST worth it, but probably not quite.

>> No.22679892

Why was David Wallace so interested in particularly low-brow forms of cinematography?

>> No.22679920

>>22670123

I like his books but wish people would stop comparing him to Kurt Cobain and romantiscising his suicide

>> No.22680222

>>22670123
He will be remembered as the David Foster Wallace of his generation.

>> No.22680245
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22680245

1. I was browsing the internet as people do and saw a bit from some guy who wrote his thesis on IJ and formed a correspondence with DFW. Of his thesis, DFW said he, the guy, got like 1.5 of 4 "projects" correct, that DFW had 4 unsaid "projects" going on in the novel. What do you think those 4 projects are? I've heard some interesting answers from /lit/ before, so I want to kind of poll this again.

2. What do you think the closest real world correlative to Madame Psychosis is? As in, JVD and not the drug. What's sort of monologuing was she based off of? Link to an example?

3. Is Orin dumb because he's a quintessential jock, because of some injury whose notation I forgot/missed, or because of something else maybe more symbolic? How does he see Steeply as a buxom woman or associate Canadians with the Swiss? At page like 550-600 I was hit with this sense that he was REALLY dumb instead of more or less normal.

4. Do you think Luria P-- is Avril?

4. How fucked up is Mario supposed to look? Just a weird looking, mostly deformed kid or a literal fucking mutant?

6. When Mario is on his walk, he sees a "square-headed boy" through the window at Ennet House. Of what significance is it that he sees Gately as a boy? Like, Mario can figuratively see the good and/or innocence in people - is it that simple?

>> No.22680279

>>22680245
1. I will stick to my answer from your thread on this which was the only actual answer in that thread.

2. She is DFW's self insert.

3. Orin is average, mainly he relies more on emotion and instinct than thought which is also why he failed at tennis but succeeded at football. The Swiss accent thing is mostly a joke about the Canadian accent, you probably need to be a midwesterner to get it.

4. No, don't be a plotfag. Avril never leaves the ETA grounds and does not even go out doors, pretty much an agoraphobic and only deals with people on a professional level. Moreso we would have to ignore her past. She almost certainly was in the same separatist group as Luria P. when she was in college.

5 (Your second number 4.). As fucked up as is required to be freed from the pressures of society. Again, don't be a plotfag.

6. You assume Mario sees a difference between a 'man' and a 'boy.' But Mario sees the best in everyone and this mostly reflects on who Mario is.

>> No.22680285

>>22680279
I appreciate your thoughtful reply (again)

>> No.22680286

>>22680279
>1. I will stick to my answer from your thread on this which was the only actual answer in that thread.
Can you link it?

>> No.22680292

>>22680286
No but I can reiterate it, it is the analysis on the individual, familial, social and societal levels and how they all interact and have evolved to create a worst case scenario for the individual.

>> No.22680298

>>22680292
Cheers. Tried searching warosu but whatever I was searching wasn’t turning up anything.