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/lit/ - Literature

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4747324 No.4747324[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Why is Tao Lin so polarizing?

I don't get what there is to hate about him really. I mean, I get why people who aren't really involved with lit don't like his stuff, because it can be very dry, but why do /lit/izens hate him? Again, I understand as a person he can be annoying, but that doesn't change the way I look at his work.

>> No.4747362

>>4747324
bump

>> No.4747365

>>4747324
All of his annoying Aspergian mannerisms aside, there's nothing really engaging about his work. It covers depression and websites everyone uses, so I would assume any "hype" is more about his ability to make these themes not come off as cheesy as fuck.

>> No.4747391

because he's a maymay

>> No.4747412

>>4747324
Why is Milhouse so polarizing?
I don't get what there is to hate about him really. I mean, I get why people who aren't really involved with The Simpsons don't like his stuff, because it can be very dry, but why do /lit/izens hate him? Again, I understand as a person he can be annoying, but that doesn't change the way I look at his work.

>> No.4747435

Some people are preteens, others are not.

>> No.4747569

>Lin has developed a large following on the internet, and has become infamous on 4chan's /lit/ board, where the popular may-may 'Go to bed, Tao' came about as the result of a spurious rumor that Lin was self-promoting lousy prose on the site.[56] The denizens of /lit/ jokingly refer to Lin as the 'Kafka of the Internet'[57] and humorously refer the author as the 'voice of a generation'.[57] In tribute to his fans, Tao Lin briefly "had an idea to title it [his latest novel] 4chan",[56] before deciding on Taipei. He has denied claims that he suffers from autism.

>> No.4747635

In my mind, there are two schools of thought in contemporary literature: minimalism and maximalism.

Your standard minimalist will often have dry prose, but will always have non-complex plot, character, and narrative schemes. This doesn't mean they're work is shallow, it just means more is left to the reader in the way of defining the meaning. This is what Hemingway did, and this is Tao Lin.

The opposite is maximalism, where the prose is long and the books longer. This style tends to lend itself to sprawling prose, but doesn't always. It's defined by dense narrative structure and characters who the narrator claims to have fully fleshed out. Think Faulkner. DFW is the contemporary version.

Like Hemingway and Faulkner were in their time (and after), Lin and DFW are extremely polarizing because their prose styles are polarizing. Largely, it comes down to preference; both have their merits. Non-polarizing authors tend to work the middle ground between minimal- and maximalism, people like Jennifer Egan and Junot Diaz. Notice that /lit/ never talks about these authors, but they're both well known in the literary community (or at least the Pulitzer Prize office).

Disclaimer: I do not believe any of the four contemporary authors that I mentioned are yet to Faulkner or Hemingway levels; it takes way more time to make that sort of designation. It's just a way of illustrating the point.