/lit/ - Literature

Guaranteed replies, in b4 trolls, etc

I've read a few articles and interviews here and there, and I've only started Infinite Jest but I love this guy so far. What a great man we now miss

No. Just no.

>>1213982

I realized he was a genius after watching an interview he did on German TV.

>>1213987
What was so special about this interview that 20 minutes of conversation can make you think he's brilliant?

>>1213994

Well really it just got me interested in him, then I read IJ.

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/823228/David-Foster-Wallace-im-Interview-%25282003%2529
#/beitrag/video/823228/David-Foster-Wallace-im-Interview-(2003)

That was interview I don't know if that site is still up.

I like DFW and I agree with this guy. >>1213994
I realized he was a genius after reading Brief Interviews With Hideous Men

WHO?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5IDAnB_rns

David Foster Wallace was like a young man going to an Episcopalian church. He delighted the people there because he indicated to them that their model of reality wasn't dead. He found it worthwhile to write a big novel of ideas. But he did it badly. It's kindest not to compare Infinite Jest to Gravity's Rainbow or The Recognitions, and indeed none of the old men and women he charmed wanted to put him to that test, which they never imagined he could pass. But the irrelevance he'd condemned himself to by his very values ended up being the death of him. He couldn't find enough value in the communitas to enable him to continue. When a young man stops going to church, the old people feel sad, but not for long. They half-expected it; young people don't have our staying power, they think. And so David Foster Wallace left the old men and women behind, with their once-read copies of Infinite Jest on the bookcase bearing witness to how much faith they still felt capable of before... before Bush, before the war, before the crash. In his photographs, Wallace looks more quaint with every passing year, with his casual dress and his ludicrous headband, signifiers of an outdated concept of youth, as irrelevant as the notion of writing a 1000-page novel on the meaninglessness of life.

No, OP, he wasn't the voice of the last two generations. He may yet be the voice of the gap - the difference, that feels much greater than probability would indicate it ought, between the generation who were 18 in 1996 and the generation who were 18 in 2006. Today so many of the previous generation's enthusiasms and worries look naive in a moving way.

>>1214012
Ist ein Problem mit dem ausgewählten Beitrag aufgetreten.

Thanks for the link, though. I have no idea what it says but maybe if I check in a week it'll start to work, spontaneously.

>>1214061
Oh wait it probably says "this video only plays in certain countries." So it's unlikely to get going for me, unless I move.

>>1214061
>>1214064

it's back on youtube now

see >>1214038

I'm going ot save it in case it gets deleted again

>>1214038
He's so blinky and mumbly. It's like watching Hugh Grant ramble on about literature.

Has anyone read The Broom of the System, his first novel? I've never even seen it mentioned on this board.

>>1214060
>>a 1000-page novel on the meaninglessness of life.
is that what you got out of it

>>1214104

Yes. It's awful too. Flippancy and wangst.

>>1214109

That's what it is.

>>1214120
:1

>>1214113
So a lot like Infinite Jest, just shorter?

>>1214188

Shorter and shallower, yes. A smaller container of the same liquid, let's say.

What the hell website can I use to download Youtube videos? I'm trying to save the interview and can only manage to download the first part.

>>1214210

Use VDownloader, bro.

>>1214120
May wanna re-read IJ bro.

>>1214217
Thanks buddy.

>>1214222

Why? It's not particularly good.

>>1214222
Pretty sure that's the last thing I want to do.

>>1214038
Oh God the reaction faces...

>>1214231
Don't worry, I'm capping them for use in future /lit/ threads.

>>1214242
>>1214231

He seemed to have a bit of a superiority complex (his essay about a cruise), but was so worried about his appearance and degraded himself. It was like he thought he was the best humanity had to offer, but that is a poor example.

>>1214677

>>1214688

>>1214687
DFW thought he was the best humanity had to offer, and that upset him because he was a bad person?

Do you remember the name of the essay?

>>1214694

>>1214716

>>1214731

>>1214755

>>1214770

>>1214677
>>1214688
>>1214694
>>1214716
>>1214731
>>1214755
>>1214770
>>1214773

I'd just say he was a good writer. The voice of our last generation? No.

>>1214060
>[...]a 1000-page novel on the meaninglessness of life.

Wow. Just wow. 7/10.

>>1214773

>>1214801
Here's an animated coffee cup, but I suck at GIFs

>>1214797

That is what it is.

>>1214038
Why isn't he wearing the bandanna in the interview?

>>1214872

i think it's a deeply flawed book but i disagree with you.

the meaninglessness of certain pursuits, maybe, or the interior emptiness people combat with those pursuits, but not the meaninglessness of life generally.

>>1214913

I don't agree, I think he goes further than that by imputation.

such a bro that dressing like a pearl jam fan from 1993 is acceptable

Just watched the interview.

He summed up what happiness is and what people think happiness is and how they're wrong very well.

lol the reaction images are great

Not even close. 2 books and a couple short stories doesn't make you the voice of two generations.

the most talented, perhaps. His body of work is too small to warrant "greatest" or the "voice of a generation" (or two) labels.

also, lol at the haters.

>>1215808
What does he know about happiness?

I've never read Wallace before, but I'm reading his Federer article now (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html).). Is this representative of his style? It's like the writing of a college newspaper sport "journalist."

If I'm not impressed should I not bother with him at all, or should I try a short story?

>>1216417

having never read college newspapers, what about it makes it similar to sports "journalism" in such papers?

If it's the gushing fanboiism, then that's kind of the point of the article as far as i understood. If it's the pretentiousness, then yes, that's how he writes most of the time and if you can't "get over it" you're not going to enjoy him. It took me probably 70 pages of Infinite Jest before i stopped getting annoyed by it.

I've never read his stuff before, and if I ever will, in the back of my head I'll always think "this is written by some guy who ends up hanging himself"

Good thing I read most of HST books before he shot himself

It's a pity he hanged himself. I would rather he'd shot his face off with a gun. That would amuse me as an image far more than just some hanging douchebag who never got over the grunge era.

>>1216436
The article isn't pretentious, it's self-conscious, cliched-image laden slog. The over-emphasized action describing a "Federer moment" reads like self-parody. Things like "jaws drop and eyes protrude," "my eye-balls looked like novelty-shop eyeballs," "TV tennis is to live tennis pretty much as video porn is to the felt reality of human love" are the sorts of trite, cheap, hackneyed, babby's-first-creative-writing-course imagery that drove me nuts whenever I read our university newspaper.

This article was written after Infinite Jest was published. He was at the apex of his career. His writing makes me cringe. It isn't complicated or difficult or obtuse or pretentious or complex or 2deepforme. It's simplistic, cheesy, and completely unbecoming of the New York Times. They should be embarrassed that it was published under their brand.

>>1216436
>pretentious

wat. no pretension in that article. just a dude that loves tennis. why is this word applied to DFW so much when, from everything i've ever seen, he really wasn't.

How to Read Infinite Jest (no spoilers) : http://infinitesummer.org/archives/215

I'm about 70 pages into IJ, too, and I love it

>>1216467
I get the feeling you haven't read anything aside from that article.

>>1216480
That's why I said
>Is this representative of his style? If I'm not impressed should I not bother with him at all, or should I try a short story?
>>>1216417

Are you trying to say that this article is a bad exemplar of an otherwise stellar body of work? Or should I just move on - DFW and I won't see eye to eye on how writing should be done?

I think he's pretentious and overrated. Not to mention that he actually believed in various nonsensical things, like 12-step programs and the ethical superiority of living a tedious life.

On the latter point: I think when his posthumous uncompleted book is finally published (soon) we are going to have a SERIOUS re-evaluation of whether he was really as worthwhile as he seemed after killing himself, which was the best career move he ever made.

>>1216467

Like i said, if you write an article titled "Federer as religious experience" it's pretty obvious to me that it's bound to be an exaggerated wankfest.

But, y'know, take from it what you want. If it sickens you so, feel free to not read anything else by him, it won't make you a worse person.

And just for the record, i'd put 2006 at just about the bottom of Wallace's career. He was 10 years removed from Infinite Jest, struggling massively with the followup, and pretty close to the beginning of a depression arc that led to his suicide.

Aren't you forgetting about me OP?

>>1216516
Will you stop posting that in EVERY DFW thread?

>>1216519
I'm not trying to shit over all of Wallace's work - I can't, because I've only read this article.

I'm wondering if 1) this article is representative of his writing style 2) if Wallace fans consider this article an example of good writing. If both these things are true, or if only (1) is true, then I can cross him off my list. But if this article is simply a bad representation of him I'd like to know that.

>>1216533
How about you just man the fuck up and read Infinite Jest and see for yourself?

>>1216523

I feel obliged to post it in every thread, I'm his fucking widow.

>>1216522
For as much hate as Wallace gets he's still miles ahead of where Franzen will ever be.

Every time Franzen writes about the guy you can feel his face contorting and turning green. He was even a prick at his (DFW's) memorial service.

Why David was friends with him is beyond me. It probably has something to do with his limitless compassion and understanding.

>>1216488
Sorry, I have a hard time differentiating various anons most of the time.

As far as this article is concerned, I feel that it would make more sense to a serious tennis nerd. I think that the article is richly/finely detailed and I find all of it pretty fucking interesting. And when he uses those lines that bother you (novelty-shop eyeballs, jaws/eyes protruding, etc), well, that's simply how people talk about Roger Federer. When you talk about Roger Federer you're pretty much forced to talk hyperboles, because he's just that fucking good. Or at least he was when this article was written, as Rafael Nadal is the current hotness.

Also, comparing his writing to first-creative-writing-course students is kind of excessive. I never encountered writing that was close to approaching what was in this article.

Though I'd suggest reading other DFW materials beyond this article. I wouldn't call this article bad, but I wouldn't call it one of his best works either. Harper's has a good number of essays available online, if you're curious. I also believe that his essay on Michael Joyce (an obscure American tennis player from the 90s) is available on Esquire.

Of course, if you still hate DFW after checking him out more thoroughly, then I apologize for wasting your time.

>>his limitless compassion and understanding.

I think there's a big difference between a pretentious poseur who popped dexedrine and overwrote novels and, say, Mother Cabrini.

>>1216539
If you've read all of Infinite Jest and were so impressed, why can't you scan a five page article and say whether it's a good representation of his style?

>>1216557
This is why Wallace is a terrible choice to promote on 4chan. Sincerity and effort don't mesh well with jaded children.

>>1216553
Thanks, you've been really helpful. I'll forgive this article its hyperbole and take your word for Federer's reality distortion field. I'll try another of DFW's essays and see how it goes.

>>1216544

>He was even a prick at his (DFW's) memorial service.

how?

>>Sincerity and effort don't mesh well with jaded children.

Sincerity and effort also don't mesh well with art.

As for effort: there's a reason why describing a work of art as "labored"---as when I say "Infinite Jest" is a rather labored and laborious satire---is NOT a term of praise.

And as for sincerity.....well, didn't Oscar Wilde say that all bad art is sincere?

Infinite Jest isn't a satire, so I guess your statement becomes null even before the opinion is posited.

>>1216617
Yes it is, it's just a very bad example.


>>1216523
It isn't him who usually posts it, it's me. Others have said it as well, because it's true. David Foster Wallace was as dead as Jane's Addiction before his suicide.

>>1216632

I guess some parts of IJ could be considered satirical, but valuing truth and sincerity over irony and sarcasm is a central theme, and in that sense it's more of an anti-satire.

And I'm not sure where you're getting your information about him being unpopular before his suicide. It may have improved the commercial success of his books (I, for example, heard about him directly because of his death), but he's been well-respected in the literary world at least since IJ.

>>1216672

You need to learn what satire is before attempting this nonsense.

I'm getting it from experience. Nobody but nobody was talking about him any more, he was as passe as the Minidisc.

>>1216672
>well-respected in the literary world
>Infinite Jest
lolno

>>1216632

Please help me. What is it satirizing?
Media? Drugs? AA? Quebecois? Tennis?
Maybe you can help me understand.

>>1216739
I always thought it was supposed to be a satire of the time's information overload, everything-at-once, moving-all-the-time culture.

Very overrated. Whenever I read him, I get the impression he was trying to impress everyone with how smart he was. Which not good writing makes.

>>1216701

It's on the list of 100 Best Novels of the 20th century

>>1216755
Was it his diction, his sentence structure, or his content that made you think that? What did you read by him?

>>1216757

Whose list?

>>1216755

I think there is some truth to what you're saying, but I don't think it's that he was trying to show off. A lot of his work is about how American culture revolves around instant gratification, particularly in the realm of entertainment, and as a counterpoint to this he deliberately wrote in a style that required effort to read.

>>1216777

Only not done well. No, he wrote badly. Thus sticking it, to the man.

The fucken

douchebag.

I wish to got someone had snapped the crime scene, the dead man's semen dripping down his 501s. It's what his fans deserve to see.

>>1216773

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1951793_1951942_1952423,00.ht
ml

He looks like a fucking idiot... and no, I haven't read anything by him.

>>1216796
Cool contribution to this thread, bro.

>>1216792

OH! HAHAHAHA! TIME magazine! Who gives a fuck what they think? They cater to an audience that doesn't have time to really care or educate themselves in a subject.

>>1216786

So basically your criticism is, "I didn't like his book". It's a legitimate complaint, but it doesn't really support your argument that he was just trying to make himself look smart.

>>1216800

More valid than anything said in his defence.

David Foster Wallace was a great prose writer like Elliott Smith was a great operatic tenor.

It's all fussiness and fustyness and trying to be like a generation whose equipment he couldn't attain.

>>1216806

1: I'm not that guy you think you're answering.

2: Wallace is of no interest to anyone but a tiny minority who miss Bill Clinton real bad, and his unfinished rigmarole of crap is about to go thud louder than anything since The Runaway Soul.

>>1216739


That's an interesting idea, but then it's a satire of itself.
I understand that parts of the book are satirical. All the movie stuff is mostly satirical, but I don't think the novel is a satire. I'm willing to accept that I'm wrong. Maybe is a media satire? What with the tape and the addiction combined with the sports and the intense focus on the majors.... oh great now I'm convincing myself.

>>1216819

It's not thorough-going enough to be a good satire, but you see? It is an attempt at one, spoiled by the post-modernist soft-soap which is endemic of this writer.

>my face when people keep claiming that David Foster Wallace is irrelevant, yet they keep making posts about him.

>>1216814

I'm not very familiar with American politics, so I don't see the relevance of Bill Clinton. In any case, I love his prose and you apparently don't; I don't see how we can do anything more than agree to disagree.

I don't have particularly high hopes for The Pale King, and anyone who does is fooling themselves. I expect what there is to be well-written, but I don't expect it to form a coherent story.

>>1216835

If it wasn't really a satire, why are you so convinced that it was supposed to be one?

is there a better commentary on all of modern american life than i.j.? if there is i havent found it.

>>1216838
Speaking purely for myself, I do it to ruin your attempts to have an enjoyable conversation about him, because it's immoral to enjoy work that sucks so hard.


>>1216842
Fine, if that means you stop posting about him, whatever.

I think The Pale King will read even worse than everything else he wrote, because it's not 1996 anymore. Seriously, DFW is man of his period. Read Infinite Jest again. It's quaint.

>>1216857
>I do it to ruin your attempts to have an enjoyable conversation about him

confirmed for NO LIFE WHATSOEVER

>>1216857
>DFW was a man of his period.
Pretty much. His writing is as relevant to today as his clothing style.

>>1216835


What do you mean by thorough-going? That's not an english phrase construction that I recognize in any useful context.

I think that if it is satire, which I'm now not so certain that it isn't, that it's quite good satire.

I really tried to hate this book. Really hard. I tried but this person kept telling me to read it and be patient. I was so angry, full of anger and I didn't see things getting better.

I thought he was a mediocre writer. Was not impressed. But then I got to page 300 and something happened. And I finished the book.

It's really good.
I'm sorry angry dudes. I like it. And I tried to hate it.
It's a well-written book. And it deserves a good amount of the praise it receives.

>>1216857
>because it's immoral to enjoy work that sucks so hard

Cool, so you're an elitist asshole, good to know.

And I read Infinite Jest for the first time this year, so I don't see your point.

>>1216857
>I think The Pale King will read even worse than everything else he wrote, because it's not 1996 anymore. Seriously, DFW is man of his period. Read Infinite Jest again. It's quaint.

>Pretty much. His writing is as relevant to today as his clothing style.

Your prejudices make Gadamer sad

>>1216852
No, try reading what I said again. It's an attempt at satire that fails. It's a bad example of the species, an example of satire done badly.


>>1216856
Wonderful, like those old guys who don't bother punctuating their emails because 'it's the new age, with the hippidy-hop'.


>>1216860
It's easy to do, you guys are so slow moving.


>>1216862
Someone else who's paying attention.

>>1216864
That's because you don't know the language properly. Thorough-going, or thoroughgoing, is an established word.

You're a dope. Now you realise I'm right, you pretend it's good satire after stating for many, many posts that it wasn't. A book so good you don't even know what it's intentions are, or can't be bothered to find out. What a writer, DFW, your hero. You make me laugh.

>>1216867
That's because you're a tag-along playing catch-up.

>>1216889
>A book so good you don't even know what it's intentions are, or can't be bothered to find out.
Maybe he's a New Critic lol

>>1216896

I doubt it.

No. I like him though.

>>1216889


You're very sensitive, aren't you?
I didn't accuse you of using a non-word. I accused you of using a phrase that I don't recognize. I was simply asking for clarification or further elucidation.
Sorry if that makes you upset. You can choose not to engage the request if you like.
Calling me a dope makes you look bad.

It has been a while since I've read the book and so my own thoughts on it aren't particularly clear. Besides, I'd rather talk about the book than simply make declarative statements.

Anyone who writes a novel and manages to get it published, especially such a difficult work, is in some form a hero of mine.
He's by no means my favorite writer, but what he created is a work of beauty even if the prose is sometimes clunky.

I'm really glad that I was able to see the beauty in this book.

>>1216908

Aw, that's nice.
>>1216908

>>1216857
The worst part is when you get a little older and somehow wind your way back to it and see everything you refuse to see now. And all this trolling and mockery and antagonism and belittling and discursive name-calling produced very little other than preventing other people from trying to enjoy something. The thing that separates Wallace from many other writers is the consistency of his voice. From 'E Unibus Pluram' right into 'Good Old Neon' it's variations on the same thing. He kept putting on different skins. Or maybe more appropriately "forced" the reader to put them on. If any of this sounds like being made to dance for someone else I can assure you it was nothing he didn't already go through in his own head.

Try to imagine having the abilities he did. Think about how he thought about people like you already shutting him down because of how you perceived him. I respect that he was able to stop that line of thought long enough and consistently enough to get his work done. When people attacked his work he defended it. The thing that stops detraction claiming "empty style" is the consistent way he wasn't afraid to lift up his hood and talk about what was going on underneath. "Here's the Wittgensteinian pictures, this is my response to that, this is why I think it works. Here's why I used this word, this is why I'm paying attention to this." Like a magician who shows everyone how to do the tricks after the show and encourages everyone else to work on their own performance.

>>1216914

Now you're being disingenuous.

I'm glad you admit it's a bad book. I think this concludes the exchange.

>>1216916
lrn2post

>>1216920
His mature work (post-Girl with the Curious Hair) is consistent. He knew what he wanted to talk about in his work, and kept it entertaining. I don't believe I'm being talked down to. I'll forgive the fireworks of showmanship because I find them clever. I like it when people try to do something well. I like not having to worry about not being "cool" enough to deal with layers. When he obfuscates or tries to talk about big things he doesn't slap my hand for not getting it. He just tried something else instead.

And he was a proponent of the author properly researching his material. Which I don't see enough of in contemporary fiction.

>>1216920

In other words he never progressed, grew stale, then correctly murdered himself. I'm not going to 'get older and go back', he's a bad writer. When a writer needs to be protected from serious criticism by being talked about as though he was Jesus Christ, or as though the speaker was the kid from American Beauty, you know you've got a stinker. Read Gaddis, read Pynchon, read Barth.

>>1216916
>you can only post on 4chan if you are wild and crazy and derogatory guise

>>1216924

Yes, because you don't read enough.

>>1216920
Defending your writing against all critics is usually a sign of insecurity. If he was really sure that he'd done the right thing, he's just say, "Ok. That's what you think."

Have you ever seen the critique threads here on /lit/? The worst writers get line-by-line critiques showing what's bad. Instead of saying, "Thanks for your input. I'll consider it." they freak out and defend every word, trying to explain their complicated thought process in each case. The few people who post good writing, when they get critiqued, just say, "Thanks." Sometimes they'll incorporate the criticism in their next revision, sometimes they won't - but they're not going to try and explain their writing process.

If you can't get your ideas across without buckets and buckets of explanation outside of your own work, you've done something wrong. If you have to give interviews, write essays, scribble addenda all about your own book, you haven't succeeded.

David Foster Wallace did not succeed with Infinite Jest.

>>1216932
I have.

>>1216922

I think it's sad that you believe that you've said something when you haven't said anything at all.

You did not break anything down. You did not explore anything. You reacted like a rabid animal would react as it's dying. As the rabies eat at its brain.
I'm more than happy to entertain opinions that hold some water, but yours has simply been abusive rambling used seemingly to slake your strange thirst for the opportunity to feel intellectually superior. That superiority based on absolutely nothing.

>>1216944
If you're the person I was talking to, read them again, because you can't evaluate prose yet.

>>1216943
THIS GUY. THIS.

>>1216947

> mfw when DFW fans are also lousy, rhetorical writers

You seem to refuse to spare yourself any indignity.

>>1216932
>>1216951
stoplikingthingsidontlike.jpg
lol opinions

>>1216965

stopdislikingthingsilikeoryou'llnevergettobemotherteresa.gif

Smoke a dick.

>>1216947

> thinks rabies is a plural

>>1216951
I'm pretty sure there are two proponents and detractors at this point. I'm not, and I'm not saying that Wallace is better than Pynchon, Gaddis et al. I think he's addressing the human experience differently than they are. It's an apples and oranges scenario, I think we could leave the guys to people on a matter of preference ("If you're more pissed off you might appreciate Gaddis' vitriol more than Wallace's feel-good agenda") although there are ways to quantify one over the other if you really wanted to go into that. I don't really. To be honest I'm mostly trying to think of ways to promote Wallace to /lit/ unfamiliar with him as an alternative to all the critique of him that seems to crop up in his threads. Pandering to empathize with him might have been a bit knee-jerk- I probably went there because he's a bit more candid than authors generally are.

>>1216972
I've never read anything by him. You just seem mad for no reason and I wanted to make you madder. u mad bro?

>>1216982
I laughed at that too.

>>1216984
No, I suspected you were just trolling, I just took the opportunity to insult their punk asses again.


>>1216983
No, it's a qualitative difference. You're not going to get Wallace sold to these people while I'm here, and I remain here. I've read that shit. It rewards not, neither does it enlighten. David Foster Wallace is a dated, trivial waste-of-time, from the days when it was shocking and new to even admit that the characters in your book watched TV. He isn't for the ages because he isn't even for this year, and The Pale King, as I've said, is going to drop like The Runaway Soul. You're like someone touting Space Jam as a great movie. The dream is over. Turn your back and walk away.

>>1216982


Will you edit my novel for free?

Here is AO Scott's takedown of DFW from the New York Review of Books, published in 1999. Here's the link, and I'll post some relevant quotes related to the concept of satire in Infinite Jest

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2000/feb/10/the-panic-of-influence/?pagination=false

"...chapter headings indicate that action is taking place in the “Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad” or the “Year of the DependAdult Undergarment.” (The excremental associations of the products in question—a hemorrhoid medication and an adult diaper, respectively, in case you don’t pay attention to the commercials during the evening news—are indicative of one aspect of Wallace’s sense of humor....)

"Infinite Jest is, to my knowledge, the longest novel about tennis ever published. It is also a dystopian political satire set on a North American continent menaced by paraplegic Quebecois terrorists and splintered into new territorial arrangements, the most wildly metaphorical anatomy of drug abuse since William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch, and a tender, heartfelt, coming-of-age story.

"The novel’s Pynchonesque elements—the fact that part of the United States is now a federation called O.N.A.N., the symbiotic relationship between terrorists and law enforcement agencies, the shadowy career of underground filmmaker-turned-tennis-coach James Incandenza—feel rather willed and secondhand. They are impressive in the manner of a precocious child’s performance at a dinner party, and, in the same way, ultimately irritating: they seem motivated, mostly, by a desire to show off. And some of the novel’s broad satirical intentions—to warn us that corporations control everything and that entertainment is a drug—are familiar bromides decked out in gaudy comic dress."

>>And he was a proponent of the author properly researching his material. Which I don't see enough of in contemporary fiction.

"When information becomes free and universally accessible, voluminous research for a novel is devalued along with it."

--Jonathan Franzen, 10 Rules for Writing Fiction

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one

>>1217015
Who the fuck cares what Franzen has to say. All he does is tell people how cool he is and how he knew DFW

>>1217009
>They are impressive in the manner of a precocious child’s performance at a dinner party, and, in the same way, ultimately irritating: they seem motivated, mostly, by a desire to show off. And some of the novel’s broad satirical intentions—to warn us that corporations control everything and that entertainment is a drug—are familiar bromides decked out in gaudy comic dress.

>>1217015
I don't think Franzen is really in a position to be declaring "rules" about writing fiction, since he writes dogshit for fat midwestern housewives.

>>1217022

He writes for middlebrows, conservative middlebrows, I'd say, but your social profiling is significant. 'Fat midwestern housewives' - what visceral class antagonism! So that's how David Foster Wallace fans think, huh?

Thanks for the A. O. Scott link, anon.

>>1217022

Ten years ago---when DFW was writing a book on "infinity" that professional mathematicians declared was embarrassing in the extreme---Jonathan Franzen declined to be part of Oprah's Book Club for the precise reason that he WASN'T writing dogshit for fat midwestern housewives.

More to the point, I defy you to compare Franzen's essay "Perchance to Dream" (1996) with DFW's "E Unibus Pluram" (1993) and tell me who actually is making the more intelligent commentary on the state of American fiction in the more-or-less present cultural moment.

>>1217043

Look, can we deal with one shit at a time? Franzen is a vile reactionary would-be snob, but this is a thread about Wallace's failings.

>>1217043
And ten years, one memoir, and one book of essays later he's accepting another Oprah's Book Club invitation like a hungry dog already bowed with guilt at the fleas he's about to bring into the big house.

How'd you like 'Freedom?'

>>1217042
Not a DFW fan, just watching this thread because it's funny when srs bizniss retards get mad.
>>1217043
Stop trying to sound smart, penisbreath.

>>1217043
You don't happen to have a copy of Franzen's essay, do you? I can only find Harper's locked webpage.

>>1217057

I didn't think much of Freedom, actually. But I thought the Corrections was amazing.

>>1217059

I don't have to try to sound smart when I am smart. And yes, that's penis you smell on my breath. But at least it's my own penis.

Both Wallace and Franzen are appalling, but for quite different reasons. Wallace is ultimately more dangerous because what he attempts is many orders of magnitude more important than Franzen's suburban fatulence. A bad big novel of the sort Infinite Jest is is potentially more damaging in its influence than any number of Franzen crappies.

man, for a dead guy he sure makes people maaaaaaad as hell.

>>1217076

No he doesn't. The only people he makes mad are the fans who have to defend him.

DFW fans are like Kevin Smith shouting 'fuck DVD, laserdisc forever'. Their misprision is comical.

> But along with its fast-fading pyrotechnics, Infinite Jest also offers some genuine illumination.

No, A. O. Scott, no.

>>1217043

E Unibus Pluam
>This is a problem I see with writers engaging popular culture mediums, especially television. Here is a proposal for remedying this problem.

Perchance to Dream
>Here is a problem I see with the reader. I think we should ignore everything and continue doing what we've always done.

>>1217074
>dangerous
stfu

>>1217082
really? Effort/time spent is a pretty good indicator of madness on 4chan, and the longest posts in this thread come from people claiming he's bad.

>>1217091

They're both wrong.

>>1217107

>>1217107
You're a liar. What you're saying just isn't factual.

So, what is Infinite Jest actually -about-?
I mean, story-wise.
The only thing I see in reviews is that it is 'THE MOST AMAZING BOOK EVER' and it 'SHOWS THE NATURE OF CONSUMER SOCIETY'.
If it's about children at a tennis academy, it'd seem rather fun to read.

>>1217132
Quadripelegic Quebecois terrorists in a dystopic coporation-controlled future. And tennis.

Read Infinite Jest up to around p. 451. I say around because, though I think I pretty much have what is called an eidetic memory, it's not 100% accurate. I must say, I think Fight Club, published the same year, makes Infinite Jest seem like a really beautifully carved horse-drawn carriage in 1919. No-one really needed this shit anymore - the only person who had Wallace's problems with TV was Wallace. As a culture, America suffers from its writers' weakness for the State-of-the-Union address as a literary form. I think of Tao Lin, who's probably the nearest thing today to what Wallace was briefly in terms of status and audience relationship, and Wallace just seems like he's running on DOS, you know what I mean?

>>1217138
don't forget the junkies

>>1217140
>your post

>>1217132

It crosscuts plots and subplots of various failed novels until you start thinking maybe the potlach is the point. But it's not. The point is to build a major reputation on a basic lack.

>>1217149

What do you mean, bro? I don't follow.

>>1217132

Imagine if an overprivileged white undergrad saw Oprah for the first time, and thought he had to have an opinion on it in order to impress his teacher, whose out-of-touchness he (the student) misinterprets as intransigence. It's like that.

>>1217140
Confirmed troll. Staggering denouement.

>>1217161

His essential point is not invalid. Woe to the writer who is valued mainly because he's the youngest of the family. That can't continue indefinately. He also has the advantage of not being blinded to Infinite Jest's real worth by having slogged through the thing so doggedly that he wants to pretend he got a return on the investment, unlike the DFW defenders on this thread.

>>1217140
Go away Tao Lin, no one likes you.

>>1217190

I'm not Tao Lin, dawg.

>>1217181
>not having finished the book makes you more qualified to comment on it

Cool argument, bro.

>>1217214

Not having finished the book because he knew it sucked makes him more qualified to criticise it than people who finished it like a bucketful of rice pudding then pretended it was a transcendant work of beauty.

>>1217221
Why you gotta hate on rice pudding man? Rice pudding is delicious

>>I think of Tao Lin, who's probably the nearest thing today to what Wallace was briefly in terms of status and audience relationship,

WTF? I don't like DFW much, but he's nowhere near as awful and pointless as Tao Lin.

More to the point: status? "Broom of the System" was published by Viking; "Infinite Jest" and the to-be-released "Pale King" are published by Little, Brown.

Little, Brown's author list includes: Donald Barthelme, John Fowles, Malcolm Gladwell, Pete Hamill, Norman Mailer, Nelson Mandela, Stephenie Meyer, Rick Moody, Erich Maria Remarque, J. D. Salinger, Alice Sebold, David Sedaris, Gore Vidal, Evelyn Waugh, P. G. Wodehouse. Meanwhile Viking publishes Saul Bellow, Graham Greene, Thomas Pynchon, Jack Kerouac, and Stephen King. (Among others.)

That is a good indication of DFW's "status" as a writer.

Meanwhile, Tao Lin's work is published exclusively by "Melville House Publishing", which was founded in 2001 and which publishes mostly non-fiction, translation of out-of-copyright works, re-issues of dead writers, and....Tao Lin.

Tao Lin is precisely what Gawker called him...a "stunt novelist". Comparing his banal shit to DFW's work is like comparing Chris Crocker's "Leave Britney Alone" video to "Citizen Kane". And like I said, I'm not even a DFW fan.

>>1217250
Protip: Tao Lin is used on this board to derail a thread. It's like Ayn Rand trolling to the extreme. If we ignore him, he'll go away.

>>1217250
My God, I love when someone gives Tao Lin a good bashing.

>Brofist

Anyways, I'm gonna step aside while dudes foam over the great debate.

>DFW: GOOD OR BAD? HE CAN'T BE BOTH!

>>1217258
He posts on here all the time.
Every once in awhile hell start a "Tao Lin is the greatest ever" troll thread and when it reaches +100 replies or so he links to it on his twitter.

Thus I am secretly paranoid that every poster on this board may or may not be Tao Lin.

>>1217288
No CourageWolf you are the Tao Lins!

And then CourageWolf was Tao Lin.

>>1217140

Get out of here, Tao.

>>1217232

Bucketful, though.


>>1217250

> appeals to authority

Sure is middlebrow in here.

In fact, the person comparing him to Tao Lin was being complementary to Tao Lin - your post has no relevance to anything.

Franzen never declined to be on Oprah's book club you guise, he just said that he was worried dudes wouldn't read his book because of the Oprah sticker, which made Oprah super butthurt

Just sayin'

Should he be on this?

>>1217132


It's about obsession.
The media thing is only one part of the whole. Really, he uses a lot of crass elements to make a unified statement.
It's difficult for some people to parse out and that's perhaps the greatest failing of the book. It's really only accessible to obsessive personalities.

>>1217375
absolutely.

read infinite jest -- it hasn't aged a day.

you have to get to at least page 500 before it really gets going, obviously, but from that point it becomes the greatest novel in the history of earth, and only better and better towards the end. love it soomuch

>>1217867

No, it's just not a unity.

>>1217895

HAHAHA, that's because by page 500 you're desperate for it to work so you pretend it is working, but it doesn't work! Wallace was right to chose his death, he'd fucking earned it.

>>1217900
how far did you get faggot? the cover? you're out of your element

>>1217904

That's what David Foster Wallace fans sound like.

>>1217904

You will never have a successful thread about David Foster Wallace here. He was a piece of shit.

David Foster Wallace was like a young man going to an Episcopalian church. He delighted the people there because he indicated to them that their model of reality wasn't dead. He found it worthwhile to write a big novel of ideas. But he did it badly. It's kindest not to compare Infinite Jest to Gravity's Rainbow or The Recognitions, and indeed none of the old men and women he charmed wanted to put him to that test, which they never imagined he could pass. But the irrelevance he'd condemned himself to by his very values ended up being the death of him. He couldn't find enough value in the communitas to enable him to continue. When a young man stops going to church, the old people feel sad, but not for long. They half-expected it; young people don't have our staying power, they think. And so David Foster Wallace left the old men and women behind, with their once-read copies of Infinite Jest on the bookcase bearing witness to how much faith they still felt capable of before... before Bush, before the war, before the crash. In his photographs, Wallace looks more quaint with every passing year, with his casual dress and his ludicrous headband, signifiers of an outdated concept of youth, as irrelevant as the notion of writing a 1000-page novel on the meaninglessness of life.

No, OP, he wasn't the voice of the last two generations. He may yet be the voice of the gap - the difference, that feels much greater than probability would indicate it ought, between the generation who were 18 in 1996 and the generation who were 18 in 2006. Today so many of the previous generation's enthusiasms and worries look naive in a moving way.

>>1217909

drop dead troll + gtfo /lit

>>1217900

Have you ever had a real addiction? I don't mean playing counterstrike for a weekend straight necessarily, but that could work if you did it for a year.

>>1217914

No, I am a real reader, as such it is my right to be here.

>>1217915

Oh great, now the junkie sentimentalists weigh in. David Foster Wallace's reputation is fucked.

> appeals to authority
>Sure is middlebrow in here.

I wasn't appealing to authority. I was pointing out that DFW at least had reputable publishers, whereas Tao Lin's work is more or less vanity-publishing.

>In fact, the person comparing him to Tao Lin was being complementary to Tao Lin - your post has no relevance to anything.

In point of fact he was being complimentary, not complementary. But I suppose that's an appeal to orthographical authority.

The relevance of my post was to say that---whatever you think of DFW (and I think he's currently overrated)---comparing him to a nonentity of Tao Lin is nonetheless an insult to DFW and his actual level of art / ambition / skill. I think DFW is less important than his raving fanbase currently believes. But I don't think ANYBODY genuinely believes Tao Lin is an important (or even good) writer.

Or rather I should say: I can respect, even as I disagree with, anybody who makes extravagant claims for DFW's greatness. I think he's "good but flawed" rather than "great". But honestly Tao Lin is, or should be, beneath critical discussion. Tao Lin belongs to the history of self-generated publicity, not to the history of fiction.

>>1216984
No, I suspected you were just trolling, I just took the opportunity to insult their punk asses again.


>>1216983
No, it's a qualitative difference. You're not going to get Wallace sold to these people while I'm here, and I remain here. I've read that shit. It rewards not, neither does it enlighten. David Foster Wallace is a dated, trivial waste-of-time, from the days when it was shocking and new to even admit that the characters in your book watched TV. He isn't for the ages because he isn't even for this year, and The Pale King, as I've said, is going to drop like The Runaway Soul. You're like someone touting Space Jam as a great movie. The dream is over. Turn your back and walk away.

>>1217921

That's an appeal to authority you fucking idiot! He had ESTABLISHED publishers, yes. No, Melville House is not a vanity press.

Your other comments are beneath consideration. Tao Lin doesn't earn murder with his every sentence. This makes him superior to David Foster Wallace. There is no discussion.

It looks like this thread is back and more trollerific than ever!

>People who actually read Infinite Jest are unqualified to comment on it.
>If you don't like Infinite Jest, you obviously couldn't finish it because it was 2deep4u.

I'd love to have a good discussion about DFW on /lit/, and I think we've had a few in the past, but it's obvious that today is not the day for that. Please just let this die.

>>1217932

You will never again discuss this author on here. I'm sick and tired of the insolence of the whole pack of you.

>>1217935

What exactly is it about DFW that makes you so butthurt?

>>That's an appeal to authority you fucking idiot! He had ESTABLISHED publishers, yes. No, Melville House is not a vanity press.

Okay, then name another living writer of fiction besides Tao Lin whose fiction is published by Melville House.

Also, what "authority" is being appealed to here? The authority of a publishing house that has actual standards? I was making a point about judging writers by their publishers, which is NOT an appeal to authority.

At this point, though, I'm assuming you're a paid shill for Tao Lin, if not indeed Tao Lin itself, so I guess this is pissing into the wind regardless.

&mmm...

Can't we agree to disagree a little bit trollers?

DFW is amazing, but his genius also hurts him sometimes, when he is drawn into obsessive overlabored writing about crap.

I mean, even though I would die for DFW, I acknowledge that there is some bad writing by him. Just try reading Oblivion, Girl with Curious Hair and Brief Interviews w/ Hideous Men. They're about half good, half bad. But the good stories... like John Billy -- are absolutely amazing.

Don't believe me -- read it yourself. p. 90
kathspeaks.googlepages dot com/ WallaceDavidFoster-GirlWithCuriousHa. pdf


I really do think that if the good outweighs the bad in the end. and that he'll be an immortal writer. but the pale king will probably fall more towards the bad side, based on the short stories from it that were published

how are people seriously falling for a dfw vs. tao lin troll bitchfight

please tell me this is just one guy fighting with himself

>>1217943
Read what I said. It's not DFW, it's his scummy fans.

>>1217944
It's pissing into the wind because you've no argument. I could list FIFTY presses that aren't famous enough for your pig-like New Yorker-reading mind to respect that nonetheless published key works. Grove Press introduced Burroughs and made their living from pornography. There's no contradiction. You're appealling to the authority of worldly prestige. I am not Tao Lin or an employee of Tao Lin. I've read his work and Wallace's. Tao Lin's is better - he just understands what the novel is for better, and isn't so consumed with the desire to impress Grandpaw by writing exactly as he did.

http://mhpbooks.com/book.php?id=356

Lee Rourke's The Canal is published by Melville House. Sorry he isn't 'gilt culture' enough for you.

>>1217951

Alright then, what is it about DFW fans that you're so butthurt about?

>>1217960

I'm not butthurt. Read the thread. Read all of the thread. Read the guy who goes from claiming it's a masterpiece, to denying it's a satire, to admitting it's a satire, to admitting it's not a masterpiece. Look at all the other special pleading, the evidence of bad taste, of sentimentality, of wooly thinking.

It'd be great if someone could post a bunch of stories so we can get to the max-out level and get this pig deleted.

>>1217970

People are bad at arguing? On /lit/? This is unheard of!

And whoever it was who repeatedly claimed that people who stopped reading partway through were more qualified to comment on a book than people who read the whole thing is just as bad.

In any case, vowing to prevent any discussion of a specific author sounds pretty butthurt to me.

In the interest of making this thread less shitty, would you mind explaining why you would categorize IJ as satire and what it satirizes? I wouldn't have called it a satire, but then I don't know much about literary criticism.

>>Grove Press introduced Burroughs and made their living from pornography

Grove Press also published Samuel Beckett, Genet, and Pinter. They weren't mainstream but they were reputable: they were summed up by John Updike in an essay entitled "Grove Is My Press And Avant Is My Garde". Whereas....

>>Lee Rourke's The Canal is published by Melville House

I can see that you too have looked at Melville House's website, as I did, and discovered, as I did, that---besides the automated text generator known as "Tao Lin"---this is the only other contemporary fiction writer they publish.

And I haven't heard of him or read him either.

I'm not obsessed with "gilt culture", whatever the hell that is---a not-particularly-meaningful pun on "guilt culture"?---I'm just saying that it's worth noting that, when a writer has more self-generated online publicity than actual readers, like Tao Lin, and you can't find a copy of his work at a Borders or Barnes & Noble, it's worth asking: who the fuck is this person and why should I care?

But I can't believe I'm even deigning to argue with somebody who believes that a writer who "understands what the novel is for" would write a book in which the main characters are named Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning, and who communicate largely by IM and facebook-post. Please tell me how that is "understanding what the novel is for" better than David Foster Wallace. Because honestly if you want to defend Tao Lin as a writer rather than a self-forced-meme, you have a lot of work to do.

I'd rather read nothing but Kitzo Hekotormos for the rest of my life than read a single sentence by Tao Lin.

>>1217944
That's a dumb argument. Most of Joyce's works were published by small, private presses with very little history.

>>1217987
Read the thread. We've been over this.

>>In the interest of making this thread less shitty, would you mind explaining why you would categorize IJ as satire and what it satirizes?

I would say that---especially in our "post-9/11" world---the treatment of political terrorism in IJ (Quebecois separatists in wheelchairs) is "satirical" rather than anything else.

I would say that the handling of consumer culture---particularly the poo-based humor of "The Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad" and "The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment"---is broadly satirical in nature. (Cf the much-remarked "excremental vision" of noted satirist Jonathan Swift.)

I would say that a novelist who regularly gives names to characters like "Madame Psychosis" (IJ) or "Biff Diggerence" (Broom) is engaged in broadly satirical characterization.

The stuff about tennis and the stuff about addiction is not particularly satirical. It's also not particularly interesting, and in some bits it's downright unpleasant.

>>1217988

'Gilt culture' is social climbers' idea of 'culture', as represented by the Stuff Rich Folk Like. I know Grove's history backwards and for you to cram in some quick research you've done is pathetic. John Updike's view of them doesn't concern me either, he's the kind of pig you are.

Of course I don't have to defend anything, you don't know what the novel's for. The clue is in the name. It isn't meant to be about how people lived 60 years earlier. I'd rather you died than continued to fart out your non-opnions here, you shit.

>>1217990

If you are seriously comparing Tao Lin to James Joyce, I will make it my purpose in life to backtrace your IP address, track you down, and throttle you with my bare hands.

>>1217999

Okay, so you blew Barney Rosset, therefore my arguments are invalid. Congrats.

And I find it hilarious that you accuse me of liking "Stuff Rich People Like" while you are attempting to defend a writer best known for a book called "Shoplifting From American Apparel".

Or is that a profound metaphor for Tao Lin's outsider-ness from "Gilt Culture" while at the same time his desire to steal the overpriced tee-shirts which represent a countersubversive canonical status which nonetheless defies the dominant cultural hegemony?

>>1217998
I'm not actively reading this thread anymore, but this was on page one.

What the fuck bro? The events of 9/11 do not change authorial intent. You could say that people could READ the work satirically but whether or not the author intended it to be satirical (the satire in the book only goes far enough for gags, the true plot and impetus for the novel is a humanistic tale of the broken family) is affected not one iota for proceeding events.

Interesting aside. DeLillo's Mao II came out in 1991 and has this creepily oraclesque passage describing terrorism alongside the world trade center (still two years before the first terrorist attack even happened!) as a new replacement for the "dramatic story" the literary figure previously fed us as a culture. Check it.

>>1217998
I'm not sure you can judge a book satire by an attitude that came about 5 years after it was published.

>>1218000

No, you'll just cry. The situation is comparable - the kind of pig who quotes John 'Wifeswapping and that's IT' Updike would have thought Joyce was a load of rubbish in 1922.

>>1217999

You shouldn't be mad because rich people have good taste

>>1218013
>>1218012

I said *especially* in a post-9/11 world. For fuck's sake, they bombed the World Trade Center 3 years BEFORE Infinite Jest was published, they just didn't knock it down. Not to mention that political terrorism was a REAL phenomenon for a long time before DFW wrote the novel. And some people viewed it seriously rather than satirically. For example, 5 years before IJ was published, a serious opera about the subject of political terrorism, based on a real event---Adams's "The Death of Klinghoffer"---received a lot of press and was considered somewhat controversial. It is a serious artistic treatment of the subject of politically-motived terrorist violence, in a way that Quebecois separatists in wheelchairs are a satiric treatment of the same subject.

DFW happens to view terrorism satirically in IJ. This has become *more* apparent since 2001, but it was also perfectly apparent in 1996.

Neither of you actually address my point, which is that I was trying to respond to the anon who wanted to know what would lead someone to consider Infinite Jest as being--in part, if not wholly--a satire, or satirical. The handling of terrorism in the novel is one such thing.

>>1218010

What do you mean, 'attempting to defend'? You've no right to an opinion, you're just chasing the money.

>>1218012

>Interesting aside. DeLillo's Mao II came out in 1991 and has this creepily oraclesque passage describing terrorism alongside the world trade center (still two years before the first terrorist attack even happened!) as a new replacement for the "dramatic story" the literary figure previously fed us as a culture.

and it's true. writers WISH they still had the power to influence culture and society the way terrorists do today.

I love DFW but he was so fucking sad. I just want to be like, cheer up man, but he's dead.

>>1218014

I didn't make any claims for Updike's quality, and I was quoting from his literary criticism not his fiction.

Then again, you are making claims for Tao Lin as an artist, you are not worth arguing with.

>>You've no right to an opinion, you're just chasing the money.

And Tao Lin---who SOLD SHARES IN HIS NOVEL "Richard Yates"---is NOT chasing money?

>DFW is the greatest writer of the last few decades and the voice of the last two generations
>222 posts and 31 image replies omitted

Sigh.

>>1218038

How do you feel about anal sex while reading

>How do you feel about anal sex while reading

Why not. As long as I'm on top, and it's not Tao Lin.

sage

>>1218028
You've no right to an opinion.

What? WHAAAT? YOU FUCKING IDIOT IT MAKES NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE IT'S STILL EXPRESSIVE OF THE PIECE OF SHIT'S OPINION.

>>1218031
He sold shares to enable himself to quit work and do the writing he knew he had in him. I'm sorry it never gets mentioned in the work of your preppy favorites, but most people have to work to get money.

>>1218038
Isabelle I respect your opinion and hold it in high regard. I'd love to hear you chime in on the topic if you're feeling up to it.

>>1218043

I can't speak for anyone else, but I find that it makes reading rather difficult.

>>He sold shares to enable himself to quit work and do the writing he knew he had in him

If that was the writing he had in him, I wish he'd go back and get a day job again.

It's official, Infinite Jest and David Foster Wallace are /lit/'s ITAOTS and Jeff Mangum

>>1218074

HAHAHA, how original.

>>1218084

No, that's a respectable album and songwriter.

>>1218071

On the topic of Wallace? I'll be happy to tell you what I think about him, but it’s probably already been said.

On the one hand, he’s not untalented. “The Depressed Person” was very well-written.

On the other hand, there’s something excessively self-indulgent about the content and styling of his prose that is a tremendous turnoff. “Octet” is a great example of everything I dislike about him. That’s not to say that I have a problem with postmodernist prose. I don’t. What I dislike about it is this sort of latently “ironic” smugness, a sort of smirking and self-congratulatory flatulence that seeps through the language on the page. Most of what I’ve read by Wallace makes me feel like a friend of the titular depressed person, who, if you’ll recall, was not only depressed but incredibly clingy and needy and weirdly manipulative – a codependent control freak.

So I guess he’s a talented writer insofar as he’s able to capture clinginess, but I find reading it to be more an imposition than anything else.

I didn't get too far in Infinite Jest. I'll probably try again this summer when I have more time. The thing is, I don't think most books deserve to be as long as they are, so when I see 1000 pages in front of me I groan. There were some parts I really enjoyed. Like the opening scene with Hal and the college officials, or Hal being interviewed by his father, or Orin and the way he deals with mornings, or all those footnotes on the movies Hal's father made or that Ebonics section with the poor black girl. But for all of that there was also that that stuff about the Quebec terrorists and such could have been done better. Wallace is better when he's developing a character, in particular when he focuses the habits and obsessions of said character.

Authors, seriously, unless your book is actually an anthology that is thought by millions to be the word of God, 600 pages maximum.

>>1218097
Thank you. As always, you're brief and I don't doubt the literary authority you're speaking from.

>>1218097

yo i don't think he's bein ironic.

readers like yourself are only used to seeing that sort of cringey sincerity used for the purposes of irony and/or satirically elucidating something "gay" or "stupid" about "contemporary culture"

but he really means it. he's pretty feel-good.

>>1218171

Phoney, Christian, 12-stepper David Foster Wallace makes all his fans sound like the kid from American Beauty.

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIL

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIDSSSSSSSSSS!

http://mhpbooks.com/catalogue.php?category=2

Most of these are new writers. The Updike guy was talking shit.

>>1218182
>Phoney

Have you read Good Old Neon? He addressed the issue of feeling like a "fake" in it, and I think it was probably quite autobiographical.

I agree with the person you responded do: Wallace did not like irony. He was heavily influenced by postmodernism, and I think his response to it was to write with as much sincerity as possible.

And I'm not sure what you're trying to imply with the "Christian 12-stepper" bit. His beliefs don't agree with mine; does that somehow make him a bad writer?

>>1218211

Moral seriousness and the kind of smiley twinkly Xtianity embodied by 12-step programs is incompatible. It isn't a neccesary precondition of his badness, but it is an element.

>>1218211

He knew he was fake. He was a bad writer but he wasn't, ultimately, a bad person. He did the right thing and ended his life.

>>1218221

I still don't understand your point. Why would having certain beliefs somehow prevent your from speaking openly and genuinely about those beliefs? Do you think that he was being disingenuous when he described the power of AA meetings in Infinite Jest?


>>1218232
>He did the right thing and ended his life.

Are you the same person that keeps saying this? Because it makes me (and I expect most other reasonable people) take you less seriously every time you say it.

>>1218275

He was speaking as a proselytizer.

No, many different people have said he did the right thing when he commited suicide. I am only the latest. It's true. It doesn't matter what you think if you like his work, you aren't going to praise him here and your feelings on the matter aren't going to be respected.

>>1218285

Perhaps he was, but he stated his beliefs sincerely with no irony and no lack of introspection. Which, you'll recall, is what I said in the first place.

>you aren't going to praise him here
whoops too late

>>1218294
HIGH MORAL SERIOUSNESS IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH HIS POSITION, HIS WORK IS THEREFORE ILLEGITIMATE.

Try all you like, but you're not going to sell him here. This thread is about the traducing of his readers, and his candidacy for murder.

Well now

gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 we're gonna fuck these whiners where they breeeeathe, these whiners where they fucken breath tra la la gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 we're gonna fuck these whiners where they breeeeathe, these whiners where they fucken breath tra la la gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 we're gonna fuck these whiners where they breeeeathe, these whiners where they fucken breath tra la la gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 we're gonna fuck these whiners where they breeeeathe, these whiners where they fucken breath tra la la gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 we're gonna fuck these whiners where they breeeeathe, these whiners where they fucken breath tra la la gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300

>>1218303

Illegitimate in what way? As a moral philosophy? I don't regard his work as philosophical, I regard it as good literature that I enjoy reading.

>This thread is about the traducing of his readers
>traducing

Ooh, a word I don't know! Allow me to look it up.

>traduce: to speak evil of, esp. (now always) falsely or maliciously

Wait, what? Did you just admit that you're misrepresenting my position?

>>1218316

gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 we're gonna fuck these whiners where they breeeeathe, these whiners where they fucken breath tra la la gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300

>>1218319

Exactly! I'm so glad we've come to an agreement on this.

>>1218316
If you knew anything about serious literature you wouldn't ask this shit. HIGH MORAL SERIOUSNESS. LOOK IT UP, YOU STAIN.

>>1218321

gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 we're gonna fuck these whiners where they breeeeathe, these whiners where they fucken breath tra la la gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300 we're gonna fuck these whiners where they breeeeathe, these whiners where they fucken breath tra la la gabbba gabba gabba gabba going to 300

>>1218327
>>1218319
>>1218314
we accept you, we accept you, we accept you, one of us

>>1218328

nigger nigger nigger nigger shut your fucking trap up nigger nigger nigger nigger shut your fucking trap up nigger nigger nigger nigger shut your fucking trap up nigger nigger nigger nigger shut up
shut tha fuck -
nigger nigger nigger nigger shut your fucking trap up nigger nigger nigger nigger shut your fucking trap up nigger nigger nigger nigger shut your fucking trap up nigger nigger nigger nigger shut up

Occult! Christians continue to insist that Alcoholics Anonymous is compatible with Christianity because of its so-called Christian roots. That is because of its early connection with the Oxford Group, which is now called Moral Re-Armament (MRA). The founders of AA were involved in the Oxford Group movement during the early days, but there is no record of either Bill Wilson or Bob Smith professing Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord or as the only way to the Father. Neither is there a record of them believing or teaching that the only way of salvation is by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross.

>>1218322

No, sorry, I really don't know anything about serious literature. I just like books. My brief searching for the phrase "high moral seriousness" didn't come up with much; perhaps you could explain it in terms that a poor plebeian like me could understand?

Frank Buchman, a Lutheran minister, began a movement which he originally called "A First Century Christian Fellowship." In 1928 the name of the movement changed to the "Oxford Group." The other leader of the movement, who was influential in the development of AA, was Samuel Shoemaker, rector of an Episcopal church. The thrust of the movement was experience rather than clear biblical doctrine.

Buchman explained that "he never touched any doctrine in any of his meetings, as he did not want to upset or offend anyone."1 (Emphasis in original.) By keeping his doctrinal beliefs to himself, Buchman was able to appeal to people of all religious persuasions.

The following is Wilson’s description of the Oxford Group:

The Oxford Group was a nondenominational evangelical movement, streamlined for the modern world and then at the height of its very considerable success. . . . They would deal in simple common denominators of all religions which would be potent enough to change the lives of men and women.2 (Emphasis added.)

However, there is some evidence that the founders of AA did have opportunity to hear the Gospel,3 but instead of receiving Christ as Lord and Savior and experiencing freedom in Christ and victory over sin through faith in Christ alone, Wilson and Smith took only what they wanted from the Oxford Group. Here we will examine three aspects of what AA borrowed: guidance, surrender, and moral principles.

>>1218338

You're a idle piece of shit, fuck off.

>>1218340

No, I'll tell you - read Eliot's criticism.

DFW ruined literature to just this extent, that fucks who deserve to lose everything they have, such as you, step up and befoul it

>>1218338

It occurs to me that I just used sarcasm while praising Wallace for his sincerity. Isn't that a bit ironic?

Wilson was accustomed to asking for guidance and then stilling his mind to be open to the spiritual world, which for him involved various so-called departed spirits. Wilson does not identify any specific entity related to the original writing of the Twelve Steps, but he does give credit to the spirit of a departed bishop when he was writing the manuscript for Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, which constitutes Wilson’s commentary on how all of the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions are to be understood, interpreted, and practiced.

When he wrote the essays on each of the twelve steps, he sent some to Ed Dowling, a Roman Catholic priest, to evaluate

.
13. Ibid., p. 59.
14. Pass It On, op. cit., p. 275.
15. Ibid., p. 280.
16. Ibid., pp. 278,279.
17. Ernest Kurtz. Not God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous. Center City, MN: Hazelden Educational Materials, 1979, p. 344.
18. Shoemaker, op. cit, p. 44.
19. See Bobgan & Bobgan. 12 Steps to Destruction: Codependency/Recovery Heresies. Santa Barbara, CA: EastGate Publishers, 1991, pp. 88,89.
20. Ibid., p. 46.
21. "What is MRA?" Moral-Re-Armament, 1885 University Ave. W. #10, St. Paul, MN 55104.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.

In short, the Christian roots included: (1) Evangelists like Dwight L. Moody, Ira Sankey, and Allen Folger. (2) The rescue missions like Jerry McAuley's Water Street Mission, later headed by S. H. Hadley. (3) The YMCA lay workers who conducted conversion and revival meetings in Vermont, particularly following the Great Awakening of 1875. in St. Johnsbury. (4) The Salvation Army gained wide notice for its work with derelicts and drunkards in the slums. (5) The Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor--founded in Williston Church, Maine, in 1881 and in which Dr. Bob became active in his North Congregational Church, St. Johnsbury.

> mfw this is better literature than IJ

ITT

There's something pretentious about men who sit as though their balls were OUT TO HERE.

I have shit myself

smells like beef up in here

>>1218364

What if your balls really are out to there

>>1218373

I mean seriously if I'm wearing boxers or god forbid going commando--my enormous balls are at my knees

And that's during winter

>>1218373
Then he was hung in more ways than one!

HAHAHAHA! THE FUCKER KILLED HIMSELF, AND HE'S ALSO GOT BIG LOW BALLS! CLASSICAL.

Instead of spending all of your time trolling 4chan, why don't you take just a few minutes to read the Gospel? If you don't believe in it, don't you at least owe it to yourself to read it for yourself so you can have more knowledge about it? Christ Jesus is promising you Eternal Life if you accept the sacrifice He made for you. That's it. When you accept Him with your heart, He does the rest. It's the easiest decision you will ever make and also the most beneficial.

>>1218379

I've read the Gospels many times, thank you.

My balls now smell of game bird. Turkey. My balls smell of turkey now, because the wet liquid shit got on them and mingled with sweat and the faint trace of spermatozoa.

>>1218394

I. M. David Foster Wallace, 1996 - 1996,

'west side, dawg'

I think you have to admire this on some level as an epic achievment in psychotic rage.

My balls is raw from rubbing.

>>1218398

I'm not psychotic, but you will be called mad if you refuse to lie about art.

My hand stinks of shit, the brown deep under the nails.

ARCHIVE THIS SHIT YO

>>1218402

lolwut?

>>1218407

I evaluated David Foster Wallace honestly. Read the thread if you want to know what I'm talking about.

"I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" (Gospel of Matthew 10:34)

Christ came to this earth with a mission. The moneylender incident had a purpose, he was freeing his Father's house from the scoundrels.

WIIIIIIIFE BEATA CHRIST

DAVID WAAAALLLLLACE,
MENTAL BOTTTLLLEEEEEE

HE IS DED NOW
I CRY
HE IS PASSED AWAE
AND I WEEP SOME WHEY
FROM MY LITTLE JAP'S EYYYYYYYEE

>>1218415

HAHAHAHAHA! FUCK OFF! That's *pathetic*...

I love the smell of my own body, and the substances it produces. I love the musk of cloaca.

I feel my balls in my hand

I feel my balls

so frickin nice

you know how much I fucken like it

So we're about fifteen posts from oblivion now. Excellent.

Anyone want to talk about David Foster Wallace? Any fucker?

>>1218426
You and I are the only people on /lit/ right now. Why don't you chill out, have a drink or something.

>>1218432

I'm perfectly chilled. Providing you don't want to talk about David Foster Wallace, could you possibly just post random exerpts from stuff while I go get a glass of lemonade?

>>1218437
No, asshole. You're the reason this board becomes a clusterfuck. The discussion was uncivil but at least was /lit/-related until you started freaking out and copy-pasting nonsense. Go pull a Wallace. I hope you drown in your lemonade.

>>1218439

HAHAHA, no matter. No, I don't make this board anything. A board where David Foster Wallace could be praised would be worthless. I am a pillar of the community. I didn't freak out - I made the decision that the discussion was at an end.

The songs were all mine - it's important you know this. I wrote all the songs myself. Half the replies, even the insults, were also me.

So we're all agreed, then: DFW was indeed the greatest writer of the last few decades.

>>1218456

No, he was shit, and knew it.

>>1218458

What? Lies and slander, however could you say such a thing!

HE WAS SHIT, HE WAS SHIT, HE WAS FUCKING FUCKING SHIT, HE WAAAAAAS SHIIIIIT, HE WAS SHIT SHIT SHIT.

Yes, I think we're all agreed he was shit.

We've got about seven to go.

Alright, time for a new topic.

Harry Potter is the greatest writer of the last few decades and the voice of the last two generations. Yes?

I'm not going to let you enjoy this - end of thread.

ia9rgujqe9gnmqigjm0ermqe0griúe0f-ojiegpijw gripjqw griqjp35y p3rg-ioj9wDNV9OKIKJ FM;

the funny thing is

I never read David Foster Wallace.

And when he came back to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand, and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was way out.

But I believe in high moral seriousness and sensibility. He wore his hair long, had three names, and wore a fucking bandana. No good.

Dearest /lit/,

This thread is a perfect example of why we can't have nice things.

>>1218475

I had a nice thing once but then my sister stole it. Fucking bitch I'll kill her.

... and if you believe that, then I wish you joy of it.

>>1218475

No, it's a perfect example of what happens if you try to praise bad books in my presense.

>http://mhpbooks.com/catalogue.php?category=2
>Most of these are new writers. The Updike guy was talking shit.

Look, you braindead shitweasel. Firstly, I'm not the "Updike guy", I don't even fucking LIKE Updike, I just referred to something he said about the fucking Grove Press. But more to the point....

FOLLOW YOUR OWN LINK. Jules Verne, Benjamin Constant, Italo Svevo, Christopher Morley, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Hans Fallada are not NEW WRITERS. Svevo took English lessons from James Joyce. Jewett corresponded with Henry James on the subject of historical fiction.

Of the 12 works of fiction published by this particular house, the MAJORITY are by people who are DEAD. THAT WAS MY POINT.

>>1218489

At last, the triumphant return!

No, wait, you're still dumb. Sorry.

>>1218480
God forbid we discuss literature on a literature board. I'm glad you're here to make sure that will never happen.

Your tastes > my tastes, immoral to like an author you don't, bla bla bla.

>>1218489

HAHAHAHA, no, the majority are by previously untranslated European writers you assumed were also dead when you recognised some dead names. It's a serious press, they have absolutely nothing to apologise for, except for disqualifying themselves from your definition of seriousness by not being able to afford the middlebrow payola that dictates your taste. Quote Updike, smear yourself in his fucking blood. It's all one to me. You declare yourself to be counted with the enemies of literature. End of discussion, really.

>>1218498

>HAHAHAHA, no, the majority are by previously untranslated European writers you assumed were also dead when you recognised some dead names.

No, I read the list of names and saw JULES VERNE and SARAH ORNE JEWETT (authoress of "The Country of the Pointed Firs") and THE OTHER PEOPLE I JUST LISTED AND REALIZED THAT THEY PUBLISH 12 WRITERS OF FICTION, OVER HALF OF WHOM ARE *REPRINTS*. ARE YOU FUCKING RETARDED?

>>1218513

No, you are. You've just restarted this thread on the first page, when you know the exact same thing will happen.

>>1218520

You can blame me for a lot of things, but I'm not the person who restarted this fucking thread on the first page.

>>1218524

GOD DID IT

>>1218526

Well, in that case, I suppose he's the Higher Power under whom we should all acknowledge can help us with our diseases.

Although personally I'd rather have a desperate slobbering addiction to opiates than to be so feebleminded that I thought Tao Lin was an actual writer.

>>1218529

Well, you know, no-one gives a fuck what you think, you like middlebrow shit. If you didn't restart the thread, that may be the only decent choice you've made in your writing and reading life.

>>1218544

If Tao Lin's work isn't "middlebrow shit" what is it? Highbrow? Nobrow? Avant-garde?

Forgive me if I assumed that avant-garde writing made demands on readers apart from that they try to stay awake while reading it.

Forgive me if I assumed that experimental or artistic fiction consisted of something more than stringing together tedious chatlogs and nattering on about hamsters.

But what do I know? I revere James Joyce.

Whereas you seem to think that Tao Lin is in his company.

bumping so i can read this thread later

>>1218578

You're a middlebrow and you know it. If Joyce were a new writer you'd despise him.

Tao Lin is not of course on the level of Joyce, but no-one is. Tao Lin is just one of the many writers who have taken the baton and run with it. Joyce did not have this society to address, and Tao Lin has. Your idea of reverence is to ensure nothing comparable happens again. You're mistaken.

>>1218578

>nattering on

+1 for excellent word choice

- 1 for incorrect opinion.