/lit/ - Literature

"After blearily looking at the internet a little, then peeing and brushing his teeth and washing his face, he lay in darkness on his mattress, finally allowing the simple insistence of the opioid, like an unending chord progression with a consistently unexpected and pleasing manner of postponing resolution, to accumulate and expand, until his brain and heart and the rest of him were contained within the same songlike beating—of another, larger, protective heart—inside of which, temporarily safe from the outside world, he would shrink into the lunar city of himself and feel and remember strange and forgotten things, mostly from his childhood."

every page is breathtaking

>>9757872
will they ever collaborate? pic related

this is it, friendo

does anyone know who michelle is

Let's be clear: Tao Lin is not a good writer

But I think his writing and his moderate success are important in that they show a generational malaise.

Character is substituted with drugs.
Experience with social media.
Philosophy with meaningless chatter between ageing hipsters

The most profound thing about his work is that its characters express a consistent lack of profundity in their own lives and exchanges.

So, how can we fix things?

Let's be clear: Tao Lin is not a good writer

But I think his writing and his moderate success are important in that they show a generational malaise.

Character is substituted with drugs.
Experience with social media.
Philosophy with meaningless chatter between ageing hipsters

The most profound thing about his work is that its characters express a consistent lack of profundity in their own lives and exchanges.

So, how can we fix things?

this, earnestly.

not much about the book but the cover, some with some nice one like taipei

>>9102342
you're proud you made it through "dubliners" and enjoyed it and you've tried getting through "portrait of the artist" and "ulysses" and "finnegans wake" but you can never make it past the first twenty pages so you think about your mediocrity pretty frequently

>>8884353
>book is literally 100% cookie cutter Mary Sue
>praised for its originality
In what possible universe?

Pic related, my pick.

It was shit.

i was tricked by this post-modern meme

I just finished reading this. It was pretty good. But one thing I don't understand about the ending did Paul die or was that the effect of the shroom trip? Can someone explain this?

This is an excellent novel. Don't listen to the memesters.

I never knew why /lit/ thought Tao Lin posted here until I read this book and saw that fucking 4chan reference in here.

Either way good, funny book. And no I'm not Tao Lin. It doesn't make much sense but it isn't pretentious in any overt sense. I thought it was gonna be pretentious drivel but it was actually a good read.

>>8035488

I think I've only seen this book posted in corn threads, which is how I think I found out about it, but has anyone read this? I finished it a few days ago.

My initial impression was that the novel would be a refreshing contrast to the older works I usually read, with all its modern references (including 4chan, desu) and simple prose. I did find it quite refreshing indeed, but also at times found it to be just a bit boring, or at least found myself wondering what the point was of reading a book chronicling some guys drug-filled life as he traveled around the United States and Taiwan.

Taipei reminded me a great deal of On the Road by Kerouac and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Thompson. In all three books I had the similar reaction of being somewhat entertained but wondering what the purpose of such a book was. When I reached the end of Taipei, I found that unlike Fear and Loathing, there was no overt message about modern society or the drug culture or the way we live.

Taipei for me was powerful kind of in the same way the end of Infinite Jest was. At the end of IJ I had a sort of 'holy shit' feeling, and I felt similar, but not quite as strong after finishing Taipei. I thought the way Tao Lin chronicled Paul's spiritual and mental "bottom" of his drug addiction was beautiful and allowed the reader to really feel the lack of feeling and malaise that comes with addiction.

Anyways, has anyone else read Taipei, or any of Tao Lin's other work? What did you think?