/lit/ - Literature

I read him for the first time the other day. He's john green but edgier and somehow even more insecure and it comes across in every sentence.

>>9595878
He'd have made a better motivational speaker/preacher he clearly saw himself as some post-modern intellectual jesus.

>>9595894
if you look at The Pale King it's clear he was all out of ideas, I think had he not decided to take the easy way out he would have gone the celebrity author JK rowling route and tweet about politicians he hates and make his living from the lecture circuit.

The guy is a hack. Read Alan Moore.

>>9595878
He writes about unhappy people. When you spend your whole life on the concept and factors of unhappiness it is no surprise that you want to help people out of that state. Of course it would be ridiculous for a group of individuals stuck in the solipsistic trap of lit to ever understand that, rather you'd prefer to criticize anyone who thinks that there is an alternative because you know better

>>9595978
oh I think we all know the alternative Wallace chose in the end he killed himself because he was a sadcunt

and there's something terribly sad and banal about that.

>>9595878
Is the pic related? I don't find that quote smug.

>>9595878
I can't stand your smug style

>>9595885
>>9595894
>>9595907
>>9595983
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHY CAN'T YOU FUCKS LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

fine you've convinced me he's shit and I'm dumb for liking him. every time I look toward that infinite jest sitting on my shelf I hear the smug collective voice of /lit/ reminding me I got memed. Every time I hear or read one of his hallmark tier catchphrases I think about the hypocrisy of it.

YOU WIN /LIT/ YOU WIN

every love story is a ghost story

>>9595878
Yeah man, he was definitely pathetic

>>9595987
I don't even care if you're baiting; the pic is a joke, it lifts some of the "catch phrases" from DFW's 'This Is Water' commencement speech.

>Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

>>9596032
I worship female feet desu

>>9596032
>Great insight into the human condition.
What a smug bandana-wearing bitch.

>>9596040
; _ ;

>>9596032
>worship the four noble truths

Wot?

>>9596032
>>9596048
DFW quotes are like hallmark cards, they only seem meaningful and deep if you don't give them too much thought or think about the person who wrote them.

although why anyone would take advice from a chronically depressed drug addict who killed himself and fucked 3's is beyond me.

>>9596056
Why would you not take advice from a chronically depressed drug addict? He is warning you, bub.

>>9596032
hes right though

>>9596060
>don't be sarcastic or you'll be sad
>go grocery shopping on the weekend when it's not so busy
>be nice to people because they might be having a bad day
really makes me think

>>9596056
Anon David Foster Wallace is a celebrated author who published numerous books and essays so I really don't understand how you can blithely dismiss him like that.

If he was really so forgettable, how come he hasn't been forgotten?

>>9596048
He was so fragile regarding criticism that he assumed anyone who disagrees with him must be an evil sarcastic cynic afraid of being human

>>9596048
>>9596032
He's right desu
Atheists btfo

>>9596066
Anon part of being a talented writer is taking mundane things and presenting them in an interesting and engaging way. Your critique is like to reducing "Moby Dick" to a book about whale watching.

>>9596070
Anon John Greene is a celebrated author who published numerous books and essays as well

>>9596082
Which is why I wouldn't casually dismiss him as a "hallmark card."

>>9595878
Is that quote from John Green?
It could be if he was more of a try hard.

>>9596070
Asides from when you mentioned essays everything you just wrote could be written about J. K. Rowling.

I'm not that anon but I don't find his thinking deep, powerful or anything beyond merely good at best. It's no surprise that his bookshelf was filled with self-help books because that is the same level of profundity displayed in his books; cheap, easy platitudes. Hell, one of the big moral underpinnings of Infinite Jest is that simple, cheesy self help stuff works.
Also the hypocrisy of the man always annoyed me. For all his talk of sincerity his writings couldn't feel any farther from it, and learning about his life it is obvious he didn't practice it either.

>>9596070
I don't really think his celebrity and the fact that he's remembered lend his ideas weight. There are many authors who are remembered and venerated who aren't actually very good. Christopher Paolini, JK Rowling, Tony Robbins. all their fans would reply the same way if I dismiss the wisdom of their idol but all I'm saying is think about >>9596048 quote for a second

it's rather similar to Freud method of diagnostics in that it's provocative and unfalsifiable. but essentially it's a strawman argument guilty of the practice it condemns, it's nothing but cynical transcendence of cynical transcendence.

>>9596078
what does being a talented writer have to do with DFW?

>>9596102
>>9596110
David seems to have really gotten under your skin. For such a mediocre writer, it looks like he's provoked a strong reaction from you. Is that art?

>>9596125
>2 posts pointing out the flaws DFW's writing
>you mad bro?
so this is the power of nu-sincerity?

welcome to the water friendo

>>9596134
How can writing be "flawed?"

>>9595996

Ya got meme'd, son.

>>9596141
By being ironic.

>>9596161
I am sincerely asking you to prove that irony is a flaw.

>>9596169
GWF Hegel already did it

I like dfw because he's so ridiculous

>>9596174
If irony is good enough for Shakespeare it's good enough for me regardless of what some Continental has to say on the matter.

>>9596186
irony =/= dramatic irony

>>9596169
I was meming you dip. But since writing can't be flawed I'll write you a flawless poem.

Memes of the deep
Rise to the surface
Like a wet fart
In the moonlight
BLAAARP

>>9596194
thats ironic

>>9596195
>>>/tv/

>>9596186
further (iirc), he sings the praises of R&J elsewhere in the same set of lecture notes

>>9596199
I really like this post. Its quality is as flawless as Dante's.

>>9595996
You are now ready to begin the next stage of your ascension. Go read Augustine's Confessions, and when you're done with that read Moby-Dick.

>>9595878

I've never read any of his work (well, i read that one speech and a short story) but two of my house mates are into him (both of them have read about half of infinite jest). They always go on weird moralist smug rants about how it's literally impossible to read IJ and be the same person at the end of the experience. They also go weirdly out of their way to be 'sincere', but in a really performative way.

his fanbase is probably the worst group of people in literature. they all seem like dudes who would put coke on their dick and then fuck a girl without telling her. you know the type. hipsters you see in their boots and oversized coats who hang out in libraries and look like they browse /lit/ we've all seen em

>>9595878
I wish David Foster Wallace was still alive so I could be his "audience pussy." I would ride that sweaty motherfucker's cock in his hotel room like a tennis ball being bounced on a tennis court.

>>9596995
Unfortunately for you I don't think he was a homosexual.

>>9596995
I wish he was still alive so we could see how nervous the memes he inspired made him.

>>9595996
>Reddit spacing

>>9597048
>capitalizing the first letter of a meme arrowed remark

>>9597034
>tfw you are not a homosexual
Women browse /lit/ too :D

>>9597047
How do you think DFW would have felt about the memes?

>>9597056
>killing myself right now

>>9597063
I think he would have put on a front like he thought they were trivial irony not worthy of his time but deep down he would have liked the attention and love behind them while being insecure because he wasn't sure they were sincere.

>>9597057
I'm now wondering if any male novelists ever got approached by groupies for sex.

>>9597095
I wonder what he would have thought of /lit/, Murakami and shit like 50 Shades of Grey, Twilight, or Harry Potter.

>>9597110
DFW did. It's in his biography.

/lit/s official position on DFW

https://strawpoll.com/yae8bs8

https://strawpoll.com/yae8bs8

https://strawpoll.com/yae8bs8

One time I read this DFW quote about a tennis star and laughed, but didn't realize it was DFW until the caption at the end and then I cried for the longest in my adult life.