/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3365212]

Can we please discuss how shit Tao Lin is and how shit postmodernism is in general?

[Anonymous No.3365227]

sam drank some kombucha. sam chatted on gmail. sam added friends on myspace. sam ate a vegan muffin. sam looked at stuff.

If the point of Tao's work is to make me fucking loathe millennials and hipsters more than I already do, then I guess gif related.

[Anonymous No.3365228]

again?

man, that's all we do lately.

go to sleep Tao Lin. You are not welcome here

[Anonymous No.3365242]

>>3365228
I actually don't really come here, but I just finished reading Shoplifting From American Apparel and it's quite literally the biggest pile of shit I've ever subjected my eyeballs to. I had to know if others felt the same.

[Anonymous No.3365308]

>>3365242
It's not THAT bad. If that's the worst you've read then you're not a very adventurous or eclectic reader.

[Anonymous No.3365337]

>>3365227
No, you don't get it, they ate whale. Whale is big, it takes a long time to eat. That's why they ate it again the next night. And the next night. And the next night...

[Anonymous No.3365363]

>>3365337
KCGreenohshitthat'sagoodjoke.jpeg

Sarcasam face

[Anonymous No.3365378]

>>3365363

it is a good joke. it's very funny.

[Anonymous No.3365382]

>>3365378
I can't tell if you're joking. I hope you are

[Anonymous No.3365388]

>>3365337
>Read poem
>Think it's a pretty shitty joke, but actually pretty good by Tao Lin standards
>Three Taos out of five
>Watch video someone sent me of Tao Lin reading the poem
>most painfully autistic thing I have ever watched in my entire fucking life jesus fucking christ holy shitting fuck cunt christ alive fuck

[Anonymous No.3365566]

at kinko's i blew-up the slide of the amoeba's ass 10,000,000 times
i took the amoeba ass photos out in the taxi cab and quietly said, 'oh my god'
at kinko's i said, 'are you sure you can't make it any bigger?'
i sweated and fell down screaming, 'it can't go any bigger, it can't go any bigger!'
i called my mother and hanged up sweating
i removed the bed, table, desk, and chair from my room
i pasted amoeba ass photos on the floor, ceiling, and walls
i fell down masturbating
i stared at the $100,000 electron-scanning microscope on the computer screen
driving home from the biochemical store i fell out of the car screaming, 'amoeba ass is so hot!'
in my room i broke the microscope and rubbed the slide sample on my face
i very quietly went to the corner of my room and sat down shaking
i hugged myself and stared with a worried expression and quietly thought, 'there are five billion hot amoeba asses on my face'

[Anonymous No.3366394]

>>3365566
Jesus.

[Anonymous No.3366402]

I don't see how the latter follows from the former.

[Anonymous No.3366424]

winter is taking its last breath and i an taking my last xanax. i wonder what mike's doing.

[Anonymous No.3366435]

>>3365212
Tao Lin has nothing to do with postmodernism

[Anonymous No.3366507]

Tao Lin's post-ironic, if anything.

[Anonymous No.3366509]

>>3366507
novel insight bro

[Anonymous No.3366512]

I like Tao Lin because nothing he writes means anything.

[Anonymous No.3366515]

The moment one Tao Lin thread expires, another springs up.

Are you sure he doesn't use /lit/?

[Anonymous No.3366516]

tao lin is good, i like his writing

[Anonymous No.3366519]

Some of his articles are funny as hell in a surreal, abstract way.

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2010/top-10-animals-that-dont-have-asses/

[Anonymous No.3366528]

Tao Lin would be respected more if he wasn't so popular.

[Anonymous No.3366550]

>>3366528
None of us would have heard of him without /lit/. How is that popular...

[Anonymous No.3366556]

Let's just be real for a second

Tao Lin would be nothing without HRO and I think that's very indicative about his overall level of improtance

[Anonymous No.3366557]

Tao's work reminds me of the English narratives my fuckwitted classmates used to write. I grew up in a town predominately populated by rednecks, so I don't see how anybody can call him a decent author...

[Anonymous No.3366558]

Tao Lin is a terrible writer, but I have to agree with the other posters in this thread that he is unique and important as a modern writer. He is one of those writers who is not respected in his own time, but later he is lauded as a genius.

[demiurge No.3366559]

>>3366519
that wasn't bad at all.

[sage No.3366564]

>>3366557

Except he's being ironic. Unlike your bumfuckian friends, he *could* theoretically write better, he just chooses not to. In doing this the talent is transfigured into irony, and the wasted potential is then recycled in a lossless fashion to produce meta-irony, a byproduct of ironical production parodies.

[Anonymous No.3366575]

>>3366564
This is why I hate Tao Lin. He is so much more complex than meets the eye, and I can't decide if he's a genius or an idiot. Judging from the more intelligent posters on /lit/, I guess he's a genius.

[Anonymous No.3366576]

>>3366564

So being a douchey hipster is better than being a hick?

[Anonymous No.3366582]

Get this fucking stupid shit out of my /lit/.

[Anonymous No.3366584]

>>3366575
Reminds me of goddamned Gertrude Stein. Fuck her

[Anonymous No.3366602]

>>3366584
Those are the ones who become famous. Tao Lin isn't appreciated now, but in 30 years he will be the modern Gertrude Stein, remembered for his boundary-breaking originality.

[sage No.3366605]

>>3366576

Better how?

I think Tao Lin has read more books than the average american for his age, I think he knows more about grammar and syntax than the average american, and I think he is capable of writing better than the average american using most any metric.

I wasn't insulting anyone. Bumfuckians. They live bumfuck nowhere. They fuck bums for fun because they can't fuck any other. They bum fucks for free funtime like the dirty fuck fucking bums they are.

I wasn't insulting anyone.

[Anonymous No.3366620]

Tao Lin is the same old recycled realistic existential white people crises - Tao actually, says this - but with a bunch of pop culture references mixed in and prose stripped of most literary and aural devices. It's not interesting on an intellectual level because the substantive material has basically been addressed by the existentialists fifty years ago, and a lot of intellectuals, and authors, since, and Tao's writing doesn't grapple with the problems. It's not interesting on a rhetorical level, largely, because the prose is systematically anesthetized. Nobody was really doing that besides him, though it is a tendency in Hemingway, then Carver, as well as Beckett. Maybe Beckett was already doing it.The one thing he has going for him is psychology and its manifestation, dialogue, which do match up with the world today.

[Anonymous No.3366630]

>not liking this poem

a poem written by a bear


let me go eat some salmon

why are there coke cans in the river

what if i wore a bullet proof vest during hunting season

i’m a bear; i walk in the forest and look at the river and the river is cold

i saw campers today and they ran away and i was alone and i destroyed their tent

let me go scratch my paw on a tree

let me go eat a salmon

last night i cried onto my salmon

the salmon was sad but it still wanted to live

it wanted to swim and be sad and i ate it under moonlight

i saw a moose scream the other day

it screamed quietly under a tree

i felt embarrassed and sad and i thought, ‘oh, no; oh god, oh my god’

sometimes i climb a tree and sit there and sing very quietly

sometimes i want to go to a shopping mall and chase the humans and claw them

i’ll ride the moose into the shopping mall and ram the humans

the moose and i will ride the escalator and i will hug the moose and the moose and i will cry

i will eat the moose

i don’t care

i will scream and throw the bubblegum machine from the second floor to the first floor

i felt compassion for the salmon and now i don’t care anymore

i’ll walk into a parking lot and chase a large human and hug the human and cry

i’ll walk into a house at night and push the humans off the bed

i’ll stare at the bed and i’ll feel fake

[Anonymous No.3366660]

>>3366515
We know for a fact he uses /lit/

[Anonymous No.3366707]

>>3366660
I believe we're getting a mention in Taipei

[Anonymous No.3366712]

>>3366707
I really hope so. Can't wait for that book.

[Anonymous No.3366735]

>>3366712
it will be yet another blast. pop a beer, sit with a Tao Lin book, enjoy real life.

[Anonymous No.3366976]

>>3366435
Post-postmodernism then?

It's all fucking garbage. Every millenial and self-referential hipster should holocausted.

[Anonymous No.3366982]

postmodernism is important though

[Anonymous No.3366985]

This feels relevant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3xe-Wxio1o

Think some.

[Anonymous No.3366990]

>>3366976
He is post-ironic. Which is great for him, because if he wrote what he wrote seriously then he'd by laughed out of the literature community.

Under the guise of irony, he can go "I meant it be shit, it's irony. You just don't understand." and everyone will go "OH MY GOD SO MODERN."

It's clever in a simple, pathetic kind of way.

[Anonymous No.3366995]

>>3366982
No. No it isn't. It has spread like a cancer through academia and as a result greatly cheapened it. You know who else thought postmodernism was important? Hitler.

"A new and magical understanding of the world is on the rise, one based on will rather than truth. There is no truth, in either the scientific or the moral sense."

It's a cargo cult. It seeks to duplicate the form of rational inquiry, while lacking the substance. It's children dressing up in parents' clothes, and complaining about things they don't understand, like taxes and sciatica, for no better reason than that is what they see adults doing with their time. Monkey see, monkey do.

Postmodernists believe that if they make their terminology sufficiently obscurantist, sesquipedalian, and circumloquatious, nobody will notice the lack of substance. To a large extent, they are correct in that belief. Hence the copious amount of dipshits that legitimiately believe Tao Lin is "genius" when in reality he's just an on-the-spectrum kombucha drinking hipster faggot that doesn't conform to rules of grammar because there ARE no rules, maaaaan.

When you start getting to ideas such as "science is sexist because it probes the natural world (which is the sacred feminine) against its will, thus committing rape" it's time to throw the document in the fire. It's important to leave a lot of room around the fire, though, as you've probably underestimated how much postmodern "literature" is totally worthless.

Yes, I mad.

[Anonymous No.3367007]

>>3366985
So basically hipsters got tired of being shit on so now they go with the postmodern belief that EVERYONE is a hipster (even if you're a math nerd)?

Yeah, no thanks. Total garbage.

[Anonymous No.3367011]

>>3367007

How is it a post modern belief to state that in the information age, everyone enjoys being some degree of ironic and/or unironic pastiche of interests that exude a certain amount of cultural capital?

Why don't you talk about that, instead of just throwing around hipster and postmodern then dusting off your hands and calling it a day's work?

[Anonymous No.3367013]

>>3367011
My entire life is ironic. Everything I do is designed to be as ironic as possible, even this post.

Irony is wonderful because it strips me of having to take responsibility for any of my actions.

[Anonymous No.3367014]

>>3366995

You're very angry at things you don't understand or don't want to understand. You're just having a knee-jerk, conservative (in the non-political sense) reaction to different ideas. You should examine that.

[Anonymous No.3367017]

>>3367013

Actually, it doesn't. It just requires a different sort of responsibility. You have a responsibility to the irony, containing all the burden and weight and anxiety of any other responsibility, especially ones stemming from the dangerous phrase "my life is X".

[Anonymous No.3367023]

>>3366995
i don't see how any of what you said explains how it isn't important. it's not important because you don't like it? ok.

[Anonymous No.3367029]

>>3367011
>cultural capital

You almost hit the nail on the head with that one.

Postmodernism is the the cultural logic of late capitalism. Thus, it renders postmodernist philosophy complicit with the prevailing relations of domination and exploitation in the world. Postmodernists sing a song long intoned by bourgeois historians of various persuasions. It goes far beyond the reaches of "I'm a white suburbanite but I enjoy gangster rap" and other nonsensical ironies.

[Anonymous No.3367040]

>>3367029

Ironically, that's a postmodern idea that postmodern thinkers have come to realize. Which is kind of obvious. People were silly to think you could critique a system like capitalism and not expect it to eventually account for that critique.

But what comes next is still a big ass mystery. Especially because we're not sure we believe in "before" and "next" anymore.

[Anonymous No.3367046]

Read an excerpt from Shoplifting. It wasn't THAT bad. I kind of enjoyed it, but grew bored of it. I think that's the problem (in my opinion) with Tao's work. He fails to engage the reader, and just goes on and on with his monotonous and repetitive style.
Maybe it's just 47deep13me.

Also, is name dropping/brand dropping a part of Tao's style?

[Anonymous No.3367050]

Tao Lin is basically an American Asian skinny "artsy" hipster version of Zizek. A conscious charlatan peddling bullshit.

[Anonymous No.3367051]

>>3367050
Zisek is at least vaguely literate.

[Anonymous No.3367058]

Everyone ITT should take a look at this. It's a good read:
http://reason.com/archives/2000/02/01/reality-principles-an-intervie

[Anonymous No.3367082]

So I've only read shoplifting, and I must say I wasn't too impressed with it..

Was the simple prose, absence of emotional description, and monotonous story meant to convey the vapidity of modern society? That the younger generations are so disaffected and numb to everything that goes on around them that they simply have no opinion on anything? Can't bring themselves to care about anything?

Because if that's not the message of Shoplifting, then I can find no redeeming factors at all.. Not that it's even that deep a message.

Please tell me everything else of his isn't as dull as that?

>mfw when finishing Shoplifting
>on my kindle
>reading a version I pirated
>still feel ripped off

[Anonymous No.3367086]

>>3367082
You can't criticise it because it's ironic.

[Anonymous No.3367103]

>>3367086
What about if I'm criticizing it ironically?

[Anonymous No.3367107]

>>3367103
Oh shit, he found a loophole.

[Anonymous No.3367110]

>>3367082
>reading a version I pirated
>still feel ripped off

The story of my life; basically almost every book ever.

[Anonymous No.3367130]

i think tao lin is pretty funny. people who don't like tao lin obviously don't find him funny. i'm not sure why.

[Anonymous No.3367142]

>>3367130
Autism.

[Anonymous No.3367145]

>>3367082
I've been meaning to read this book, just to see with my own eyes if it is as bad as people label it, but I can't find a damn ebook version. Seriously.

[Anonymous No.3367167]

Tao Lin haters are either the kind of people that need car chases, explosions and/or orcs to keep their interest, or the kind that need big long books with big words from long ago that are 'Serious Reading' in order to deem something good.

They have something in common though. They can't into sincere contemporary autobiographical fiction. It provides escapism nor pretense and therefore doesn't work as a tool or accessory in their personal schemes. Also, it's way too subtle for those kind of people.

[Anonymous No.3367169]

>>3367167

They are "either" this or "that"?

No "middle" ground?

[Anonymous No.3367174]

>>3367169
The middle ground are perfectly ok with Tao Lin

[Anonymous No.3367177]

>>3367169
Sure, there is middle ground. There are people who don't enjoy Lin's fiction for legitimate reasons. These are not the people angrily making threads about him on the internet though. I wouldn't call them haters, just like I don't call myself a cod hater because I enjoy salmon more or something like that.

[Anonymous No.3367190]

people hate him because they see too much of themselves in his writing and his persona, except he has embraced it and is successful, and they have repressed it and are failures.

[Anonymous No.3367191]

>>3366516
His books have good material. It can be read for long bouts of time. His style of writing is completely unique. It is like a pearl. I am Chips Hanson, a Man of Mystery. Like a riddle

[Anonymous No.3367198]

>>3367167
I cannot recall ever reading such an egregiously dishonest book. I say dishonest because I can only imagine Lin wrote this book as a litmus test. People who like it are clearly people he will be able to defraud further. I almost wonder if he managed somehow to track down the addresses of the people who liked his book because those are fresh couches to crash on when he inevitably gets evicted. The reason I say this book is dishonest is because it cloaks the naked and smarmy ambition of a talentless writer behind subcultures that ultimately have little to do with the emotional vacancy represented in Lin’s words. This book mines many counter-cultural ideas, mainly those of vegans, Crimethinc and hipsters, and tries to pass off the hucksterism of the author as an honest look at those cultures when it is really just shitting all over everything.

This book is so foul that I didn’t even have to second guess myself. This book is such an egregious piece of shit hiding behind what many consider to be hipster culture that it sickens me that people got taken in by it.

We are left with a book that seemingly deliberately echos elements of an existentialist classic but is devoid of any real philosophical focus. The writing style is tiresome, repetitive and outside of some mildly humorous scenes, devoid of merit and offers no trade off in terms of novelty, experimentation, social relevance or even basic interest for suffering through it. The protagonist, Sam, who is a stand-in for Tao Lin in this autobiographical novella, lives a squalid, pointless life, showing his humanity only when he is being a complete dick. The story goes nowhere, conveys nothing, and is so poorly written that if the goal was to cause the reader to recoil in horror at youth deadened by media and reduced to soulless utterings of brand names and stupid conversations, it failed because the only horror is the book itself.

[Anonymous No.3367202]

>>3367198
>We are left with a book that seemingly deliberately echos elements of an existentialist classic but is devoid of any real philosophical focus.
You seem to be deriding something for not being pastiche of books from 50-100 years ago.

[Anonymous No.3367203]

>>3367198

[Anonymous No.3367206]

postmodernism in general isn't shit.

[Anonymous No.3367212]

>>3367206
It really is. When you finish your first year of college you may realize that.

[Anonymous No.3367214]

This book is not about the disaffection facing some members of a generation who have not known life without invasive technology and as a result have difficulty making choices that would prove their humanity. This particular meaninglessness of life does not come from without – it comes from within. Sam is empty and so is Luis but others in this book don’t exhibit this level of emptiness. But instead of interacting with humans who are fully in this world and having it change them, Sam just looks at them through numb eyes and reacts with a soulless incapacity to feel. And if there was some sort of meaning behind the numbness, I could stomach this book. Meursault in The Stranger is very clear about why he is so flat – there is a disgust for humanity underneath his every action and inaction. There is no such clarity in Sam/Tao. This is a book about a narcissist who has no self. It is about a self-absorbed asshole who is incapable of examining himself and the world around him, and a character like this hardly deserves a novella built around him.

[Anonymous No.3367216]

>>3367198
Sounds like you just decided it's all dishonest for no good reason.

Your other criticism basically amounts to not liking the style and subject matter, which are paired perfectly in his work. Your dismissal of Tao Lin is dismissing The Old Man and the Sea because you dislike fishing and old people.

I'd say you belong to the second category of haters, seeing your fondness of being overly wordy and pretentious. On the other hand you seem like one of the first category, because everything needs to have clarity and focus and conventionally packaged sets of ideas or you get confused.

[Anonymous No.3367217]

>>3367212
Next you're going to start unironically calling people "kid" - right?

[Anonymous No.3367224]

>>3367216
It's excerpts from a particularly scathing review you can read in its entirety here:
http://ireadoddbooks.com/shoplifting-from-american-apparel-by-tao-lin/

[sage No.3367228]

>>3365242
Yes, the consensus is that tlin is garbage. The defenders are all subpar readers who want lit lite.

[sage No.3367230]

>>3365308
What? Adventure? Sipping Starbucks and inner monologue is not eclectic.

[Anonymous No.3367231]

>>3367217
Here's a neat little quote for you to chew on, kid:
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage."

[Anonymous No.3367232]

>>3367224
Oh, one of those "I'm going to be unreasonably over the top mad for comedic value" pieces that haven't been funny since Maddox was funny. That explains a lot.

[Anonymous No.3367233]

I said unironically

[Anonymous No.3367237]

>>3367232
I don't think much of what she wrote is unreasonable, especially if you read the whole review.

Personally, I was furious when I finished reading the book. If that was what Tao was going for, then congrats to him I guess.

[Anonymous No.3367243]

Apparel looks short and the language is notoriously simple. How long would it take me to read just to see what the fuck's what?

[Anonymous No.3367257]

Postmodernism and modern capitalism goes hand in hand.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0TkbQBWouA

[Anonymous No.3367263]

The fact that the phrase "try-hard" exists proves our culture is dead.

[Anonymous No.3367267]

>>3367263
Isn't that supposed to be used with respect to something completely trivial like playing a video game?

[Anonymous No.3367274]

I've never read anything by him. I'm going to now, just to see what all the fuss is about.

[Anonymous No.3367276]

>>3367267

1. A face-saving insult used by someone who is feeling inadequate. Basically accuses anyone who is better than them at anything of putting in effort. Doubles as an excuse for sucking by implying lack of effort on the speaker's part.

[Anonymous No.3367290]

>>3367243
25 minutes tops.

[Anonymous No.3367292]

>>3367243
Less than two hours. I don't know why people are reading Shoplifting though his best work was Richard Yates

[Anonymous No.3367295]

>>3367276
It's one of those words that once had an appropriate use, but has since turned into justification for inadequacy/inferiority.

Like 'hipster' and 'edgy'. Although edgy does apply to a lot of people, and should be used as often as possible

[Anonymous No.3367297]

>>3367263
the word "contrived" served the same purpose for many years before it

[Anonymous No.3367334]

>>3367292
I'm 25% in and it'd have to be a hell of a lot better than apparel to make a difference.

[Anonymous No.3367346]

This thread is embarrassing.

This board is a joke. Why the fuck do I keep checking back in?

[Anonymous No.3367347]

>>3367346
Go to bed, Tao.

[Anonymous No.3367360]

Whenever I read his shit poetry I get the feeling that one day during his time at NYU he read this book and decided he could do it too, only he'll add bullshit 21st century American cultural trappings to make it "original."

[Anonymous No.3367375]

Why is gmail chat so popular amongst hipsters? I've seen so many reference it.

[Anonymous No.3367379]

>>3367375
>Sam uses internet explorer

[Anonymous No.3367396]

>>3367375

What's wrong with gmail chat? Shit's handy. Everyone already has a gmail account, and your address book is your friends list. It's like an instant messaging client with very little hassle.

I dunno why it's popular among hipsters, but I think it's genuinely nice chat client.

[Anonymous No.3367403]

>>3367334
To clarify I'm now at a chapter where it's pretty much like asking someone for their drunk recollection of a night out. Except unlike any other time people do this in writing, there's no fucking point being made. Nothing is revealed, it's like a slice-of-life anime written by a fucking retard.

[demiurge No.3367420]

>>3367375
young people, the hipster demographic by and large, are more internet savvy than not, and gmail simply happens to be the best visible option.

if you're using hotmail you're either old or a luddite

[Anonymous No.3367429]

>>3367420
So the irony being that if you use live you're a... hipster?

[Anonymous No.3367448]

>>3367420
I use gmail too, but if I want to chat with my friends I'll either call or them or *GASP* interact with them face to face - which apparently is something the post-hip, post-ironic pharmaceutically mind-numbed hipster zombies are completely incapable of.

I commiserate with Tao Lin on maybe one point: I hate this fucking planet most of the time and it makes me want to kill myself.

[Anonymous No.3367457]

>>3367448
This is why I love the chapter in infinite jest regarding the rise and fall of videocalling. It's spot on.

[demiurge No.3367459]

>>3367448
> I'll either call
>implying money

>interact with them face to face
>implying proximity

>post-hip, post-ironic pharmaceutically mind-numbed hipster zombies
>implying you're any better

yawn

[Anonymous No.3367468]

>>3367448

[Anonymous No.3367482]

>>3367448
>*GASP*

Just kill yourself.

[Anonymous No.3367523]

>>3367457

IJ is completely spot-on, and not just with the videocalling. Everything you need to know about modern culture in the West is in there.

[Anonymous No.3367538]

TL seems like a less-funny version of Hipster Runoff

[Anonymous No.3367550]

>>3367448

But sometimes a call isn't what you want. A call requires a bit more of both party's attention. If you just want a casual chat, gmail chat (or some chat client) is much better.

I'm not sure why you would purposefully cut yourself off from something that is useful and comes to you at no cost to yourself. I mean if you just don't like chatting online, that's cool I guess, but there's nothing wrong with doing it.

[Anonymous No.3367560]

>>3367523
It covers a lot but let's not go that far.

[Anonymous No.3367575]

>>3367198
I like this Anon the most.

[Anonymous No.3367579]

>>3367560

I think it's a pretty fair claim. The book is enormously underrated.

[Anonymous No.3367618]

>>3367482
>>3367459
Did you two hipsters forget to drink your kombucha and take your benzos today?

[Anonymous No.3367639]

>>3367538
>implying Hipster Runoff is funny

[Anonymous No.3367653]

>>3367448
Sometimes people are genuinely taken aback when I call them. It's always "Well why didn't you text?"

[Anonymous No.3367664]

>>3367653
Too much human contact is overwhelming for some.

[Anonymous No.3367668]

>>3367237
>mfw I just started reading Shoplifting and I'm already dead inside

Thank you /lit/ for the ebook. Turns out my uni's library has some of his books, so I'm never paying for his shit.

[Anonymous No.3367678]

>>3367653
>aspie can't handle tha fact that phone calls are a lot more invasive and demanding than a quick text

[Anonymous No.3367689]

>>3367678
>thinks phone calls, a completely voluntary procedure, are invasive
>calls someone an aspie

Go OD on your risperdal prescription, you egregious hipster cunt.

[Anonymous No.3368487]

>>3367403
Okay now I've finished it:

HOLY FUCK that was easily the worst book I've ever read. Easily. All the characters are the same autismal fuck you'd just love to give a ringing slap to. Nothing interesting happens. At all. Sam goes somewhere, he has boring conversations with people whose names can be substituted for each others. Sam does this again. and again. now the book is finished.

Did this guy make decent money off this? It's fucking painful to read.

[Anonymous No.3368666]

>>3368487
Tell me, what's Ulysses about?

[Anonymous No.3368896]

>>3368487
Tell us more about your pathological dislike for mirrors.

[Anonymous No.3368916]

>>3366550
this

[Anonymous No.3368920]

>>3366558
but his style is not unique. that's the whole point.

you think writing like an autistic four year-old is somehow clever?

the only reason he got published is because he looks gay and homo is considered cool by the mainstream

[Anonymous No.3368923]

>>3366602
I never heard of Gertrude the bitch and will probably never hear from her after this thread.

good riddance

[Anonymous No.3368924]

>>3368920
>you think writing like an autistic four year-old is somehow clever?
2deep4u

[Anonymous No.3368925]

well Tobias had already explained why Tao Lin is a shit. And we've had multiple threads on the subject.

Lin, if you're reading this; feel free to continue canal-fucking yourself with the pandamocha, but suck up a drillboat while you're at it.

PS: I loved you in Driving Miss Daisy

[Anonymous No.3368930]

>>3367668
go burn the books or damage them by tearing out key pages of the plot.

[Anonymous No.3368982]

I have not really heard any reason as to why post-modernism sucks other than some random emotional arguments. Anybody care to elaborate?

[Anonymous No.3368995]

>>3368982
relativism, pseudo-hermeneutics, and a bunch of bullshit ideas

also: it's against progress

[Anonymous No.3368997]

>>3368666
prose
>>3368896
good one

[Anonymous No.3369014]

>>3368995
>it's against progress

This.

[Anonymous No.3369016]

>>3368982
Taken from philosophos.com's philosophical connections.

"Modern philosophers for the most part consider the world to be knowable either directly through sense-experience or through reason, or indirectly — our knowledge being in some sense partial and 'filtered' through Kantian categories, or through a variety of contingent conceptual schemes. Modern philosophers are thus, we might say, either 'strong' or 'weak' realists. Post-modernists, by contrast, claim that no such access to the 'real' world is possible: there are no epistemological foundations, be they a priori or grounded in experience; and notions such as the 'metaphysics of presence', or the 'mind' or language as 'mirroring' or representing nature, are not tenable. There are only linguistic structures, social discourses within which we are confined. There is no way we can get outside of language to investigate whether supposedly true statements do in fact correspond to 'reality'. Language is doomed forever to be chasing its own tail. We can of course adopt a different social discourse, but this is but to engage in another 'conversation', as Rorty puts it."

These are the issues at hand.

[Anonymous No.3369017]

>>3368982
its completely impotent

[Anonymous No.3369033]

>>3369016

For me, these "postmodern" ideas sound like the babblings of snarky contrarians who do not in any way love wisdom nor attempt to look for it. Some people are just not cut out for philosophy.

[Anonymous No.3369042]

>>3369033
I find it refreshing

[Anonymous No.3369046]

>>3369016
I still wonder how people come to these postmodern conclusions about how nothing is "real" because everything we know is just a byproduct of linguistic structures. Are they that bored and disenfranchised with the world?

[Anonymous No.3369050]

>>3369033
>>3369046

don't feed the trolls

[Anonymous No.3369051]

>>3369042
What exactly is refreshing about finding meaning in absolutely nothing?

[Anonymous No.3369059]

>>3369051
are you guys seriously trying to comfort yourselves by accepting to most convenient "truth"

I feel that this supports post-modernism even more by showing that people just create the truth that they want to believe

[Anonymous No.3369064]

>>3369059

erm, doesn't the post-modernist become hoist by their own petard at this moment? that is to say, what are they doing making positive statements about linguistics or social constructs or blabla when it's just another instance of "creating the truth that they want to believe"?

[Anonymous No.3369065]

>>3369059
exactly. post modernism inherently implies it's own retardedness
but people pretend it's still serious stuff. ironically, of course

[Anonymous No.3369070]

>>3369064
idk, im not a pomo scholar Im just asking questions but does post modernism eversay that fictions are inherently a bad thing?

[Anonymous No.3369071]

>>3369059

i mean, you do realise that much of postmodern thought involves the devaluation of science, philosophic systems, or like a person said above, progress in general?

[Anonymous No.3369072]

>>3369064
Not from a postmodern worldview. It's only an issue in a modernist/positivist's worldview really.

[Anonymous No.3369076]

>>3369059

sorry, i misread your sentence here.

I feel that this supports post-modernism even more by showing that people just create the truth that they want to believe

[Anonymous No.3369080]

>>3369059
What you mean is unclear, are you criticising the people that dismiss postmodern thought because they aren't comfortable with the conclusion?

Or is postmodern thought the most convenient truth?

[Anonymous No.3369082]

>>3369072

positivists certainly made it possible for postmodernists to attack sciences by attempting to replace language with symbolic logic. but postmodernism still takes the coward's way out when it comes to the problem of universals, problem of knowledge, or any problem in philosophy for that matter, all in the name of "language games". tell me, does a man who does not enter a society still play a language game when he ponders the essential nature of a tree or rabbit or himself or whatever?

[Anonymous No.3369083]

Ummm General Tao!

[Anonymous No.3369084]

>>3369080
the former

[Anonymous No.3369089]

>>3369071
is progress inherently a "good" thing?

[Anonymous No.3369093]

>>3369082
A language game isn't specifically a post-modern idea, it's taken from Wittgenstein. And in the context of the idea of a language game, that point is moot, see philosophical investigations. Either the guy can communicate his ponderings through a public language made up of language games, or he's using a private "language" that we can't discuss.

What you probably want to talk about are the rejection of meta- and grand-narratives and an embrace of local narratives, right?

[Anonymous No.3369096]

>>3369083
ive tried to watch this interview a few times but i can never stand more than 10 seconds of it

[Anonymous No.3369097]

>>3369083
That video made me rage so hard that I shit blood for a week.

Seriously, he was acting like a total aspie and that hot girl was still giving him the "I want to fuck you eyes" the whole time.

[Anonymous No.3369103]

>>3369096
ADHD
Americans Don't Hate Distractions

[Anonymous No.3369105]

>>3369096
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2BJSV8Q1Yw

It's literally the worst thing on the internet.

[Anonymous No.3369119]

>>3369097
>that hot girl

uh... nah brah

[Anonymous No.3369122]

>>3369105
Why does he...
pauses so much?

[Anonymous No.3369123]

>>3369119
Her presentation is as unflattering as you can possibly imagine but I reckon she'd be hot if she wasn't wearing like a full tee untucked and curly hair ponytailed

[Anonymous No.3369126]

>>3369119
Pleb. Emily Gould is easily an 8/10. Too bad she used to work at Gawker and has shit taste in books.

>in b4 racist shit about her heritage

[Anonymous No.3369127]

>>3369105
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2BJSV8Q1Yw

Oh, the spaghetti. I thought the whole sperg act was just something he did in his writing, but apparently that's how he actually is...

Doesn't this guy lecture somewhere? What the fuck?

[Anonymous No.3369128]

>>3369122
Asperger's and copious amounts of adderall.

[Anonymous No.3369129]

>>3369126
>she used to work at Gawker and has shit taste in books.
Well, she did give Tao bad reviews.

[Anonymous No.3369130]

>>3369128
Doesn't that shit make you all hyper like amphetamines?

[Anonymous No.3369138]

>>3369123

Fair enough, it would probably bump her up a bit.

>>3369126

She's a six. Forehead is way too tall IMO, it's legitimately distracting and I'm not trying to nitpick. Might drunk hook-up with. She's definitely not an eight, bro.

[Anonymous No.3369154]

>>3369138
>Forehead is way too tall
You should see her elbows.

[Anonymous No.3369157]

>>3369130
Not if you actually need it. Most hipsters abuse it.

[Anonymous No.3369162]

>>3369157
I never understood how giving hyperactive children speed slows them down

[Anonymous No.3369180]

>>3369162
Because it's a dopamine releasing agent. It helps with thought processes.

This article explains it well:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/rethinking-healthcare/now-we-know-why-ritalin-works/380

[Anonymous No.3369196]

What about Bolaño? I think 2666 was a good book. Not saying it's Proust or Faulkner, but still...

[Anonymous No.3369277]

I think if postmodernism were connected to a more muscular Western tradition of epistemic rhetoric and deflationary metaphysics, it might be going places/better-respected.

[Anonymous No.3369279]

>>3369277
>it might be going places/better-respected
Missing the point there.

[Anonymous No.3369282]

~40% of this thread has read tao lin. feels spurious. imagine spending ~100% of my time away from here. feels better.

[Anonymous No.3369295]

>>3369277

ya philosophy is patriarchal construct

[Anonymous No.3369342]

>>3369279
>>3369295
But it can't be ALL identity politics (the newest tribalist cancer IMO) can it? If there's nothing transcendent in human nature, pulling us toward the future then civilization (as in, the process of becoming civilized) must be socially constructed, not discovered. Rhetoric, instead of being slaved to commerce as it currently is, could be one of the best tools for postmodernist intellectual inquiry and civic 'good'--with a little 'g'.

[Anonymous No.3369344]

>>3369126
I read her book, And The Heart Says Whatever. I picked it up at the Borders going-out-of-sale fucktastrophe. I saw the picture on the back and was like "Oh, that chick made salad with towelin."

It was very okay.

[Anonymous No.3369356]

>>3369282
Go away, Tao.

[Anonymous No.3369359]

>>3369342
>If there's nothing transcendent in human nature, pulling us toward the future
That's a grand-/meta-narrative, so yeah, in pomo the idea of progression like that is rejected.
>then civilization (as in, the process of becoming civilized) must be socially constructed, not discovered.
"The process of becoming civilised" would be another meta-narrative. More fundamentally, the idea of being "civilised" is a social construct, so the idea of "becoming civilised" is somewhat meaningless in the way you seem to be using it to me.

[Anonymous No.3369370]

>>3369344
>be a 20 something pot smoking hipster girl in Brooklyn
>lead a boring as fuck life
>think you're worthy enough to have an autobiography

Fuck her and fuck that book.

[Anonymous No.3369373]

>>3369344
would deconstruct the metaphysical with him/10

[Anonymous No.3369377]

>mfw I know Tao has read this thread and is probably reading it right now because he has Google alerts that tell him when /lit/ posts about him

[Anonymous No.3369405]

>>3369359
So if the current pomo conception of how society and civilization works hinges on meta-narratives jostling together for (partial, contingent, and ephemeral) supremacy, why have none of the tools used to extend the scope of the most powerful meta-narratives been refined not by academics but in marketing departments, focus groups, etc.--people devising better ways to make money?

I thought the pomo conception of truth meant that intellectual inquiry and philosophy could (where new refinements are to be made) could only be therapeutic now. What happened to that?

[Anonymous No.3369418]

>>3369370
The book does have some funny lines, but most of the time there's this distracting undertone of anxiety, like "Well I'm living my life the way I want to but am I still being successful in a way that doesn't conform *too* much to my parents' success-paradigm?"

It's pretty much a given that any autobiography written before the age of 30 is going to be balls-out awful.

So, who's going to read Lena Dunham's book?

[Anonymous No.3369438]

>>3369377
Fucking Tao Lin posting about knowing Tao Lin.

[Anonymous No.3369451]

>>3369405
>I thought the pomo conception of truth meant that intellectual inquiry and philosophy could (where new refinements are to be made) could only be therapeutic now. What happened to that?

Not who you're responding to but, that thing is postmoderism isn't really a thing. Not in philosophy atleast. It's more of an epithet used towards ideas are/were common in continental thought (e.g. anti-realism, social constructivism, Hegelianism etc. Saying this or that is postmodern isn't really clear.

[Anonymous No.3370638]

>>3369126
Heritage? That just looks like skin cancer to me.