/lit/ - Literature

David Foster Wallace used to talk about the increasing gap between literary and genre fiction. Genre fiction was becoming more broad, more catering to public taste, while literary fiction was becoming more esoteric, more academic, and less widely read.
It's a very popular opinion on /lit/ to say things like "literacy was a mistake," but are you really okay with the slow death of high literature? Do you really want high literature to never be relevant again?
Even the world of film, which has been plagued for the last decade or so by superhero slop, is capable of producing a film like Oppenheimer, which, whether you like the film or not, or think Nolan's a hack or whatever, is a film that simultaneously satisfies the art film crowd as well as made almost a billion dollars. Is it possible for a literary writer to pull off this compromise and become as popular as Dickens or Hemingway were?
Thanks for reading my blog.

DFW on American masculinity in Good Old Neon:

>America’s culture had a uniquely brutal and alienating way of brainwashing its males from an early age into all kinds of damaging beliefs and superstitions about what being a so-called ‘real man’ was, such as competitiveness instead of concert, winning at all costs, dominating others through intelligence or will, being strong, not showing your true emotions, depending on others seeing you as a real man in order to reassure yourself of your manhood, seeing your own value solely in terms of accomplishments, being obsessed with your career or income, feeling as if you were constantly being judged or on display, etc.

Is he right bros?

>inb4 "this isn't just America" culture wars
I think he's just saying it's more pronounced here (which I agree with)

DFW on American masculinity

>America’s culture had a uniquely brutal and alienating way of brainwashing its males from an early age into all kinds of damaging beliefs and superstitions about what being a so-called ‘real man’ was, such as competitiveness instead of concert, winning at all costs, dominating others through intelligence or will, being strong, not showing your true emotions, depending on others seeing you as a real man in order to reassure yourself of your manhood, seeing your own value solely in terms of accomplishments, being obsessed with your career or income, feeling as if you were constantly being judged or on display, etc.

Is he right bros?

>>19402284
I have unironically never encountered this in a book and have only heard about DFW doing it in real life.

>>17862076
start with the Greeks and ends with the New Sincerityists. After that just read books that come out every year and make your own judgements about their quality.

>America’s culture had a uniquely brutal and alienating way of brainwashing its males from an early age into all kinds of damaging beliefs and superstitions about what being a so-called ‘real man’ was, such as competitiveness instead of concert, winning at all costs, dominating others through intelligence or will, being strong, not showing your true emotions, depending on others seeing you as a real man in order to reassure yourself of your manhood, seeing your own value solely in terms of accomplishments, being obsessed with your career or income, feeling as if you were constantly being judged or on display, etc.

Was he right?

>America’s culture had a uniquely brutal and alienating way of brainwashing its males from an early age into all kinds of damaging beliefs and superstitions about what being a so-called ‘real man’ was, such as competitiveness instead of concert, winning at all costs, dominating others through intelligence or will, being strong, not showing your true emotions, depending on others seeing you as a real man in order to reassure yourself of your manhood, seeing your own value solely in terms of accomplishments, being obsessed with your career or income, feeling as if you were constantly being judged or on display, etc.

Was he right?

>>16160082
90s books by gen-xers.

>>15854497
NOOOOOOOO YOU CAN'T JUST WRITE "A PRIORI" WHEN "BEFORE" WILL SUFFICE IT'S PRETENTIOUS WHEN YOU SAY "A PRIORI" AND YOU NEED TO ALWAYS USE SUCCINCT LANGUAGE

>>15745759
It was the 90s.

why do people call him a hypocrite?

How far was he off transitioning?

He knew this was coming, didn't he?

>publishes a 41 page work about killing himself
>actually goes through with it years later
Absolute madman

Unironically, what is "Irony"? and why does he hate it so much its literally just another form of modern humor

This nigga ended his life.

Is the final literary redpill that he was right about everything?
including killing himself?

>America’s culture had a uniquely brutal and alienating way of brainwashing its males from an early age into all kinds of damaging beliefs and superstitions about what being a so-called ‘real man’ was, such as competitiveness instead of concert, winning at all costs, dominating others through intelligence or will, being strong, not showing your true emotions, depending on others seeing you as a real man in order to reassure yourself of your manhood, seeing your own value solely in terms of accomplishments, being obsessed with your career or income, feeling as if you were constantly being judged or on display, etc.

Was he right anons?

>America’s culture had a uniquely brutal and alienating way of brainwashing its males from an
early age into all kinds of damaging beliefs and superstitions about what being a so-called ‘real man’ was, such as competitiveness instead
of concert, winning at all costs, dominating others through intelligence or will, being strong, not showing your true emotions, depending on others seeing you as a real man in order to reassure yourself of your manhood, seeing your own value solely in terms of accomplishments, being obsessed with your career or income, feeling as if you were constantly being judged or on display, etc.

Was he right anons?

Does it become clear why he killed himself when reading his work or was his depression a separate, clinical thing?

So I’ve begun plowing through Infinite Jest in EARNEST and I guess I don’t have a grasp of literary irony at all. Who can redpill me on Irony? Three characters—yes, three—all have an ironic drug addiction where they are in denial that they have a problem. How is this approach earnest? What thesis must I read to perceive this work as great art?

ITT: writers you suspect were eggs

>"...there’s such a thing as a really bad writer, a pretty good writer, a great writer..."
somehow I thought DFW would be able to see through this sort of bullshit, but no

He saw NOTHING of the irony and lack of sincerity that would become the world, having died in 2008

If he was alive today he would probably kill himself all over again if he knew what we'd become