/lit/ - Literature

>Wallace once wrote Jonathan Franzen he was glad everyone focused on his debt in Broom of the System to Pynchon, because it meant they didn’t see how much he had taken from DeLillo.

What did he take from DeLillo?

>>23037901
In a letter to Franzen, he also said about Vineland:
>flat and strained and heartbreakingly inferior to his other 3 novels. I get the strong sense he’s spent 20 years smoking pot and watching TV

>It's good that they compare me to Pynchon, because at least they don't notice how much I take from DeLillo

What did he take from DeLillo?

>threw a coffee table at a woman
>raped a 17 year old while on tour
>stalked a 5 year old child
>pushed woman from a moving car
>threatened to kill a guy
buhhh but uh irony is the problem

As I've grown up more, the more I agree with his opinions.
Popular culture and religion are a means to infantilize and control people through nostalgia and dopamine addiction. It's something that I feel like I always knew but wanted to deny it.

>The time you enjoy wasting, is still wasted time.
What the fuck was his problem?

Zoomers and millenials are afraid of sincerity, of authenticity. It's honest and vulnerable, and they can't stand that so they cake everything in multiple layers of irony and self deprecating humor. That's why modern writers emulate Whedon's habit of horribly using bathos to drain stories of their gravitas just so he could get some cheap momentary laughs. It's a fear of being committed to the moment. Zoomers and millenials were trained to wish for stories to be campy and non-serious because it helps deflect criticism, it's like it pokes fun at itself to deter you from criticising it, to make you say "it's just a movie bro don't think about it, it's not meant to be serious." It's a defense mechanism for writers who aren't confident in their skill and want casuals to defend their work for them.

How did he know? He was literally right about everything. The irony mind virus has rotted the collective psyche away and people would rather die than be vulnerable in a moment of sincerity.

How did he know? He was literally right about everything. The irony mind virus has rotted the collective psyche and people would rather die than show vulnerable sincerity for more than a moment in their lives.

He killed himself because Roger Federer lost Wimbledon in 2008

Holy fuck, he really tried to save us all.

How do you escape the trap of irony?

How much detail is too much detail? How much analysis is too much? How much verbosity is too much? How much critical thinking is too much?

Thoughts on DFW? I’ve considered reading his stuff but the guy himself sounds like a complete tool.

>Americans are shallow, superficial, stupid, immature and infantalized, who's culture consists of nothing but corporately created dopamine deliverer schlock rather than having an actual culture or history.
I mean... is he wrong?

>I am even smarter than myself
>I am too smart for my own good
>I am so smart I must end it!

>Americans are shallow, superficial, stupid, immature and infantalized, who's culture consists of nothing but corporately created dopamine deliverer schlock rather than having an actual culture or history.
I mean... was he wrong?

Post-modernism is replete with this BS --- I find most of the authors to have far less insight into culture and life than I do, yet I'm supposed to pretend that their half-baked utterances about human emotion and the human condition are some product of deep philosophical grounding and reflection. It's a joke. They aren't fooling me, at least.

Then you have unwitting audiences, like the ones on this board, who have even less insight than the authors, who think these people are geniuses. Wallace talks about the banality of TV culture. Wow, my 4th-grade teacher told me about that, and then I built on that insight in high school. From what I've heard Foster say about it, I could teach him a thing or two on the subject.

Film grapples with all the same issues as literature, it just mirrors the stories back to us using a different medium. You don't hear the writers, directors, and actors posturing in this way. Listen to an interview with Sydney Pollack, or Scorsese, or Hitchcock, or John Schlesinger, or any other great director. There's no BS or pseduo-intellectualizing. Is there deep analysis? Yes. They understand the human condition as much as anyone else, as much as these so-called literary authors, but they are masters of the craft of FILMMAKING, and they talk about FILMMAKING with an expertise we don't have. And we learn from their interviews about that art. They aren't didactically trying to instruct us with some half-baked sophomoric insight they have, not realizing that we might have a much deeper grasp of the problem than they do.

With these literary people, they are supposed to be experts on STORYTELLING. And when you read a post-modern novel, it's abundantly clear that so many of them are not masters of their craft. They aren't masters of the human condition, nor are they masters of the writing craft, which is why so much post-modernism is CRAP.

His takes now feel more relevant than ever before. He took his own life before living in the hell world we live in now.

What's the best way to be sincere in your writing?

Goddammit. He was taken before his time. His work has more salience now than it ever did back then.

Goddammit. He was taken before his time. His work has more salience now than it ever did back then.

>>20511961
>and but so then

He was too good for this rotten world.