/lit/ - Literature

OP I highly rec The Pale King by DFW. Outside of an entire subplot about a character going through exactly how you're feeling, the book speaks to the benefits of sacrificing being cool for a greater purpose and that you should ultimately learn to embrace and find peace in through your true societal role rather than chasing some fleeting visage.

This thread :^)

Also The Pale King cuz I thought that reading group thing was gonna actually work out

>>11772025
His short story "Forever Overhead" is probably my favorite of his and one of the reasons is its descriptions that I think any guy past age 13 can relate to. The story is about a boy's 13 year old birthday pool party. Heres a small description of semen:

The smell is, more than anything, like this swimming pool: a bleached sweet salt, a flower with chemical petals.

I think some anons will think im being sarcastic here, but I honestly think this is one of the few stories Ive read that has unique ways describing a boy's adolescence. Coming of age stories for boys almost always seem to be about courage in one way or another, its almost never about the boy's body. If it is there is no emotion about it. Some other character makes a comment about how theyve grown, a lot of the time from a girl to grab a male reader's attention. After a small description of their bodies is simply that they are just stronger, stranger, lengthier, etc.

This story isnt even really about this. There is a lot more going on about the pacing of the story, and what exactly is happening at the end of the story. Its been years since I read all of DFW's short fiction. Out of everything, I cannot forget chemical petals.

/lit/, if a hiring manager for a restraunt comes up to a group of men and women and says "Anyone want a job? Only the women though"

Is that sexist? Does his intention matter?

>>10528199
>I'm sorry, do you think that with the car, being a product of Henry Ford who was an antisemite, has tucked away in its cylinders some hatred of the jews like an ideological gremlin hidden in the thermodynamics of combustion?

I just want you to know that you are the good that is left of this board

>>8728447
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>>8730069

Read Cratylus

Get fucked

Did DFW ever release the original designs he had for the cover of IJ that were rejected and replaced with fucking clouds?