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/lit/ - Literature

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1231119 No.1231119 [Reply] [Original]

Is Tao Lin the master troll in modern literature?

>> No.1231130

Bump because I need a serious answer

>> No.1231152

No. He's serious. People think that not liking him is grounds for an argument saying he's a troll, though.

Not really my cup of tea, personally

>> No.1231155

tao lin is the master faggot of gay town

seriously, fuck off nigger, don't you have something else to do like promote your books on some faggoty meme site or wear hipster clothes in front of old people so they can comment on your youthful energy and potential?

fuck you, tao lin

>> No.1231156

>>1231152
Have you seen him answering questions at a reading for Bookslut? You can tell he's purposely saying things in extreme monotone and laughing at his own responses.

>> No.1231157

It's not trolling, it's aggressive self-promotion when there's nothing to promote. Calling him the bastard child of Andy Warhol and Yoko Ono is closer to the mark, except its an insult to Andy Warhol---and possibly even to Yoko Ono, which is really saying something.

>> No.1231161

>>1231156
He's on drugs most of the time. he did a reading on shrooms

>> No.1231163

>>1231161
When was this

>> No.1231164

For all those posting in this thread: you do realize that you are encouraging a "viral" "marketing" "campaign" for a "[st]unt-novelist"?

>> No.1231168

>>1231163
lrn2google

it'll come up, promise

>> No.1231170

I'm the OP, and I swear this isn't a viral marketing thread for Tao Lin. I saw all those threads he made the other day and was compelled to ask this question. Honest.

>> No.1231215

Never heard of him until now. Seems interesting. If he's enough of an ass to promote himself on 4chan, then he might be worth checking out.

>> No.1231234

>>1231170

Oh. Well. If you're serious about wanting to know if Tao Lin is any good---he's not. I mean, unless you think that there's some kind of value to telling banal meandering non-stories about people using facebook and twitter and trying to hookup with people that you chat with online. Which may be part of "the way we live now", but so what?

Look at the example of John Dos Passos. He's a modernist writer who wished to include all the technical apparatus of the new media and the cultural innovations of his day as part of his subject matter and his method: so as a result his grand sprawling narratives include clippings from newspapers and texts from telegrams and whatnot. Eighty years on, it just looks strained (stylistically speaking) and the only thing that remains interesting about Dos Passos is the epic ambition. If you think about Tao Lin's work by comparison, you realize that---when you take away the fact that large portions of his fiction are just gChat transcripts or facebook posts or whatever---there's not really any ambition or anything new being looked at. It's just small dull domestic narratives about love in the time of apathy. And if I wanted to read facebook posts or gChat transcripts, I'd go make my own.

[continued]

>> No.1231239

So: beyond the idea that "this is a novel where posting on Facebook and IM-ing are important events in the characters' lives", there are no actual ideas in Tao Lin's work (if you happen to think novels are better with ideas in them, although not everyone agrees). There's a certain kind of obnoxious whimsicality or quirkiness (murderous dolphins! hamsters!), but lord knows you can obtain that sort of thing much better executed from any number of other sources. The only thing that *is* different here is the way in which Tao Lin is trying to assert his artistic credibility while at the same time realizing that, in a culture that doesn't value art for its own sake, the only way to make sure anyone has heard of you is to constantly spam every possible cultural outlet so that you can make sure people have heard your name. And that's worked because now, you're here telling me that you're not a "Tao Lin intern" nor are you Tao Lin "himself" and you're just interested after the thread the other day to know what he's like. Well, he makes some of his poetry available for free online. Read it. For people who enjoy that sort of thing, I suppose that's the sort of thing they enjoy. But for fucksake let's not confuse artistic merit with a new method of "branding" and "marketing" and "monetizing" oneself---if you want to think of three of the ugliest verbs of the present cultural moment, which are all more relevant to what Tao Lin does (in my opinion) than any concept of artistic originality or even merit.

>> No.1231255

>>1231234
>>1231239
Thank you for this post. I wish 'personal branding' would go away. I wish even more that personal branding wasn't expected out of everyone nowadays.

>> No.1231270 [DELETED] 

I think he's alright, I don't like his work but I like him as a person. I fucking hate his fans though. They try to be like him and it's extremely annoying. Though they might just be mocking him?
Pictures For Sad Children guy likes him and I liked him so I dunno, because Pictures For Sad Children is getting shitty lately. He needs to fuck off with the pretentious art.

Also, is Tao Lin on here the real Tao Lin?

>> No.1231288

>>1231234
>>1231239
Thanks. I've been curious why these threads have been popping up lately, although I've paid them little mind.

>> No.1231299

>>Also, is Tao Lin on here the real Tao Lin?

I think that---at least some of the time---it is. Tao Lin linked on his Twitter feed to the discussion thread about him on this board the other day, which implies he was at least following the thread if not actually posting in it himself.

But it makes you wonder if he noticed that there might be a purpose to the fact that the default on 4chan is to post anonymously. Frankly I don't care one way or the other about the tripfags. But when a tripfag who also is shilling for his new book appears, that pisses me off. If paid Hollywood publicity flacks were posting viral marketing threads on /b/ to promote "Paranormal Activity 2", how do you think /b/ would respond? Similarly: I don't care if Tao Lin has fake interns to spam /lit/ or he's spamming /lit/ himself, it's getting really fucking obnoxious, and I would seriously consider lobbying moot to give us a wordfilter to prevent any more Tao Lin threads.

>> No.1231319

>>1231299
u jelly faggot?

i makes da monies while u suck yo dick

heheheheheh

>> No.1231371

>>1231156
Could you provide a link to the video?

>> No.1231412

>>1231319

I wouldn't be jealous if Tao Lin did "make the monies" from his work, although I suspect he doesn't. Neither his novels nor his poetry are available on the shelf at a Borders or Barnes & Noble (I checked) which suggests that his appeal is considered to be limited, for a contemporary writer.

Honestly the only problem I have with him is that I just can't stand a writer who tries to compel our attention by other means when his work can't do it.

Like, I can't stand writers who present an outlandish autobiography as the reason to pay attention to their mediocre writing---as "JT Leroy" did, until it turned out that more creative effort had gone into creating that outlandish autobiography than had gone into writing the fiction. Well, in the case of Tao Lin, he's not pretending he's particularly interesting, he's just trying to send out the alert that he's a serious artist. Whereas once upon a time, serious artists relied upon their actual art to get that message across.

>> No.1231435

>>1231119

Is that a bag of his own pubic hair?

>> No.1231446

>>1231435

No, it's a bag of Miranda July's pubic hair.

>> No.1231449

>>1231446

I bet it smells nice.

>> No.1231471

>>1231449

It smells like patchouli, tuna salad, and banal self-satisfaction.

In other words, like Miranda July.

>> No.1231475

Not the video he's talking about, but... you know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_tibM6O7cQ

>> No.1231477

>>1231412

> implying I would know shit about that
> implying people who use their local chain bookstore as a criterion of relevance are worth hearing from re: lit

>> No.1231492
File: 10 KB, 453x399, fagthread.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1231492

>> No.1231495

>>1231475

Reminds me of this one creepy kid in my German class who did a presentation on Wagner. Nothing he said was interesting, his thesis didn't even make sense, and when people laughed at him, not with him.

>> No.1231498

>>1231475
>>1231156
In the videos on youtube, he does speak in a monotone throughout, but he doesn't seem to laugh at the stuff he says.
I don't know why I want to see this though.

>> No.1231512

> implying people who use their local chain bookstore as a criterion of relevance are worth hearing from re: lit

Look, you mouthbreathing jackass, why don't you fucking READ what I was talking about in that post. Somebody made it sound like Tao Lin makes a lot of money from his work. I think that's doubtful. First, he helpfully lists his yearly income on his blog. But beyond that, I was talking about Tao Lin's sales and his commercial appeal, I wasn't suggesting it had anything to do with his actual quality. His books are not readily available, which suggests he doesn't make loads of cash off them. That's all I was saying.

I already addressed what I think of his actual quality, soberly and at length, earlier in this thread. Why don't you read that criticism and respond to it, if you're a kneejerk Tao Lin fan.

>> No.1231514

ITT we take Tao Lin more seriously than he takes himself.

>> No.1231515

>>1231498

So that you don't waste your money buying copies of his books.

>> No.1231523 [DELETED] 

>>1231512

> implying you're work talking to

>> No.1231521

>>1231512
My local bookstore has two copies of Richard Yates. Your bookstore 'sucks'. Mine is 'better'.

>> No.1231522

ITT we give Tao Lin the only thing he craves, which is attention.

>> No.1231524

>>My local bookstore has two copies of Richard Yates. Your bookstore 'sucks'. Mine is 'better'.

Where do you "live"? Saint Marks' Place?

>> No.1231526

>>1231512

> implying you're worth talking to

>> No.1231529

>>1231526

>implying this is talking

>> No.1231531

Honestly, Tao Lin is a very superficial writer. Voice of a generation? Voice of a generation my bloody cock. To me he is just some insecure Asian male who became a writer to vent his frustrations and has done so to become successfully appease all the tools of hipster/YouTube Generation with his sentimental dribble. Tao Lin tries to be the Joyce of our generation, but becomes a mockery of all the Joyces before him.

>> No.1231533

It's worth noting that small presses and small runs can still involve a nice little sum for the author. If a book is expected to run 10-15k copies and then sell most of them, then the author gets an advance of $3-8k often times, and then royalties if it sells out. After that, there may be another run, but likely they'll want to just sell their next book.

So this guy, I see, must get a lot of his sales from Amazon. That's sensible. I'll bet that he got an advance around 6k on his books, and while that's not a huge amount of money, it's maybe a year's rent. It's cool.

>> No.1231546

>>1231512
This is 4chan. We would never give anyone the respect they deserve. So, it is impossible to just let Tao Lin go free like that. Tao Lin has made himself the Jessi Slaughter of /lit/. and very unlikely our sentiments of him will be favorable after what he has done.

>> No.1231549

Tao Lin is great. He's funny, he's to-the-point. He writes about people I don't wish would die. I read J. Franzen and I wish he had perished in 9/11. I read Joyce Carol Oates and I throw the book across the room with a roar of psychosis. I read Jonathan Lethem and I lose interest. I read Margaret Atwood and I want a rapist to come in and force the heroine's head under his shitting ass. Tao Lin's books are the right length, they know the place of the novel right now, not in my grandfather's day, and I come away from them happy and energised.

>> No.1231554

Regardless of what his advance was from Melville House for "Richard Yates", he already made more than that. You're forgetting the publicity stunt:

>What fame Lin has already achieved is a testament to his ability to master viral and unconventional publicity techniques. In July 2008, Lin sold six shares of "Richard Yates" online. The winning bidders gave him $2,000 each in exchange for 10 percent of the domestic profits that come from "Yates."

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/08/24/tao_lin

But seriously. Nobody would put his work into the same category as James Joyce. They belong to the same category as The Pet Rock.

>> No.1231556

>>1231531

This is funny because you probably think Joyce went 'too far' and like John Updike because he reminds you of the smell of your grampaw's tobacca spit on your genitals.

>> No.1231561

>Read Richard Yates
>Dear sweet fucking christ.
>hate protagonist
>Hate female lead
>Feel fucking horrible at the end of every segment
>Happy as fuck when I finish

I mean seriously, holy shit, has anyon on /lit/ read this? It made me feel awful.

>> No.1231565

>>1231561

I read it and I thought it was a laugh and a half. What made you feel bad?

>> No.1231566

Joyce? Lin is so far removed it's not fair to say even he thinks he could compare. They should not be used in the same sentence.

>> No.1231569

So people hate Tao Lin because he promotes himself? Well, how the fuck is he supposed to make money? His writing isn't mainstream enough to garner attention on its own. He HAS to self-promote. And he's good at it.

If you hate him because of his writing, that's pretty ridiculous. He may not be to your liking, but whatever, it's not like he's getting any unwarranted praise.

>> No.1231573

>>1231566

He's nothing like him, and never even mentions him as an influence. I guess if you have only read five serious authors, everyone has to be compared to them because you can't see the wider net of interrelations.

>> No.1231577

>>1231549

Out of curiosity, how old are you? I mean, the writers you just listed are all probably closer in age to your grandfather than to you anyway. Lethem is 46; Franzen is 51; Atwood is 70; Oates is 72. If you feel like they're writing about your grandfather's generation, it might be because they're PART of your grandfather's generation.

And when you say "he doesn't write about people you wish would die", what does that even mean? Literary characters aren't alive. Did you mean that you wish the Lamberts in "The Corrections" or the Berglunds in "Freedom" would die by the end of the book?

Or did you just mean that Tao Lin writes about ordinary lives of ordinary young people with ordinary Internet connections and ordinary iPhones, and so therefore you can "relate" to them?

>> No.1231581

>I mean seriously, holy shit, has anyon on /lit/ read this? It made me feel awful.

A friend had a copy, I started reading to see what the fuss was about. The only thing that made me feel awful is that people are taking it seriously.

>> No.1231602

>>1231577

OK, name me some good authors the same age as Tao Lin. I'm 25.

I mean wishing the characters would be murdered within the action of the book, and that it would be described explosively with lots of detail, because they're so fucking boring they've lost the right to be alive. But Franzen I actually wish would himself be dead, because his characters aren't real at all, they don't feel like anyone has ever lived like that. They don't communicate naturalistically or interestingly non-naturalistically.

It's not just an identification thing. I like Dennis Cooper, Peter Sotos and Chuck Palahniuk as well, and I can't identify with their characters, as they tend to be insane or more susceptible to consumerism than I have ever felt.

>> No.1231607

ITT: Tao Lin discusses with himself

>> No.1231610

>>1231602

Also, I like Kathy Acker, and if she was alive she would be much nearer to the age of Atwood than to my age. Literature is about identifying with others.

>> No.1231611

Tao Lin writes so he can sell to the masses of hipster schleps the scraps of his ersatz fiction.
The thing about him is that he does this in one ironic gesture just as a shrug to the recycled garbage that is the nonconformist American hipster youth subculture. As a young Asian male college graduate, I jelly of all the money and fame he has made from taking advantage of his opportunities.

>> No.1231614

>>1231565
Just, I don't know, the whole tone of the novel really seemed to get me down. The way that Haley Joel Osment talks to/treats Dakota Fanning. It was all just so negative

>> No.1231617

So Stephanie Meyer is the second-place Master Troll?

The author who destroyed 250 years of classic horror is only second place?

>> No.1231618

>>1231610

Others, I should add, who are very different from them. Those writers only write about people like them, with all their values, and not in a way that makes their perspective interesting to consider, but makes you wish they'd suddenly get caught up in a spree-killing.

>> No.1231623

I don't think he's fooling anyone. I genuinely think he thinks his writing is good as a straight-forward tale of urban life in the 21st century.

>> No.1231625

>>1231614

To me that's part of what was so funny. I think I see what you mean, though.

>> No.1231627

Tao Lin: The Hipster Stephanie Meyer

>> No.1231629

>>1231611
Or maybe he just writes shit because he wants to write it.

Tao Lin himself has stated that there is no greater meaning to his work. It's all on the surface. None of it is ironic or trying to make a statement; everything he writes is literal and lacks intentional meaning.

So yeah. Not as deep as you think. Which I think is a GOOD thing, since, I dunno, it seems to be something that very few authors try to do or admit to doing.

>> No.1231642

>It's all on the surface. None of it is ironic or trying to make a statement; everything he writes is literal and lacks intentional meaning.

How is that not ironic? Intentional superficiality is more or less an ironic act itself.

>> No.1231644

>>1231617

No-one gives a fuck. Genre writing is about money and only money. It's like saying the internet has damaged the porn movies. I don't give a fuck, I just want to masturbate and then go do something else. That's what's happened. Twilight is shit. Dracula was shit. Anne Rice is shit. It's all shit. That shit doesn't happen. It's just someone masturbating and writing with their free hand. Why should I even give a fuck? It plays its role in the marketplace and then it's gone. I can only think I would ever care if I had written that kind of stuff and had it turned down by a publisher. I don't care. Maybe if you read real books about people, and kept them in mind when you went into the world, you wouldn't be so fat. It's not appealling to look at you when you're so fat, and so loud, laughing your loud laugh so that people will think you enjoy your life, but they can see you don't, they can hear your fake enthusiasm, they can hear your self-loathing, they can see you're trying to forget you have to live in your body. Stop reading vampire shit. It's a waste of your mind. You owe it to yourself. Lose the weight. Remember to be sanitary.

>> No.1231645

>>1231642

It's only "superficial" because his plots, characters, settings are all terrible.

Aiming low and succeeding is not ironic.

>> No.1231649

>>1231645

No-one answers me when I tell you why he's good.

>> No.1231650

>>1231642
Lacking intentional meaning is the definition of ironic. How would that qualify as sincere?

>> No.1231656

>>1231642
I dunno. I'll just post what Tao said himself because I don't want to have to think and formulate my own argument.

"Charles Bock said something about “ironic distance.” I honestly don’t think that anything about Richard Yates is ironic (or any more ironic than the average communication, in that I think there’s probably always more than one meaning to every communication), in that the sentences are literal and direct, and the meaning that I intend, firstly, to convey with each sentence is almost always very close to the literal meaning that each sentence conveys."

>> No.1231667

Just read Tao Lin's 'The Levels of Greatness A Fiction Writer Can Achieve in America'. Thank God we have someone who GETS literature at last, after all these fucken worthy Quakers.

>> No.1231676

I like Tao Lin because he pisses off the middlebrows, who think literature is fiction and fiction is cabinet-making. Anytime anyone who thinks time and effort can substitute for sheer will and talent gets upset, I feel glad. Anytime the half-decrepit never-wases who haunt creative writing workshops get pissed, I feel glad. Anytime the novel changes in the direction of containing more of life and less of horseshit, I feel glad. Tao Lin makes me triply glad. Tao Lin for Congressional Medal.

>> No.1231684

>>1231656
There needs to be a distinction made for why he wrote Richard Yates and the language used to write Richard Yates. His underlying intention of writing Richard Yates is ironic, but the language is presented in a way that seems it is not.

>> No.1231695

>>1231656

> In place of narrative momentum and escalating emotional complexity, the book offers passiveness and anomie. In attempting to explore boredom, Lin recreates boredom. In attempting to write about obsession, he embraces narcissism. If this was his goal, mission accomplished. But the achievement is a low-hanging fruit, and its rewards are limited. By the time I reached the last 50 pages, each time the characters said they wanted to kill themselves, I knew exactly how they felt.

>from same review he cited

>> No.1231697

>>1231684
But did he outright state what that intention was? Or are you just assuming that you somehow know his underlying intention?

>> No.1231706

Fucking irony, how does it work?

>> No.1231709

>>1231697
So what is exactly is the point of producing literature that is purposely left to itself with very little inherent significance?

>> No.1231718

>>1231709

Because he's a writer. Writers write. That's all there to it.

>> No.1231720

>>1231709
I can state what I personally believe the purpose is, and provide proof. I can't state that "Tao Lin's underlying intention was [x]" and use that as proof that the work is ironic.

>> No.1231726

>>1231720
SO FUCKING POSITIVIST, MAIRITE?

>> No.1231730

I can't take most of the Tao Lin haters seriously because they all seem so childish and immature. This thread has one guy who is talking about why he doesn't like Tao Lin rationally unlike other posters (Courage Wolf comes to mind only because he's a tripfaggot) just shit on site like a retarded baby. I guess I'll have to read his stuff now to see if it actually is worth while.

So what is a good Tao Lin book? For the guys who hate him, which book exemplifies his faults, and for the guys who like him, which book of his did you like the most? I don't know if the Tao Lin hate comes from just plain hating Tao Lin (which is dumb as fuck. I hate Harlan Ellison and think he's a terrible person but I still love his work) or if he's actually that bad of a writer.

>> No.1231736

>>1231644

+1 for the most awesomely brutal post I've seen in a long while.

>> No.1231738

>>1231726
It's literary criticism, from what I can remember. Never assume you know what the author's intentions were and use those assumptions as self-evident proofs. Or something. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. But it sounds kind of right.

>> No.1231743

Seriously, you are all the perfect costumers for Tao Lin. Read about the subject matter of books about young American hipsters and hikikomoris fucking around with technology and whining about their worthless lives. Lin targeted this site for its userbase. You fit exactly into his type of character. So, what does it feel like to be used?

>> No.1231747

>>1231644

Spoken like a true hipster.

>> No.1231750

"Genre fiction" is not a genre. Stop using that term, /lit/. You not only come across like an asshole, but an ignorant one at that.

>> No.1231759
File: 36 KB, 512x384, 113-Costumers.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1231759

>>1231743
>costumers

>> No.1231765

>>1231743
Relatable characters are usually a good thing. Also products tend to be exposed primarily to their target demographic.

>> No.1231773

>>1231765

Relatable characters are terrible if you're self-loathing. ;)

>> No.1231784
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1231784

>>1231765

>> No.1231792

>>1231765
So are you justifying the literary merit of Tao Lin's work from his business perspective?

>> No.1231887

this dude is from hipsterrunoff. we should never let that shit spread here at /lit/

>> No.1232022

>>1231887

Tao Lin is not hipsterrunoff.

His online presence is simply to compensate for his inability to afford an agent and publicist.

His work and live appearances are not gimmicks but are actually a true representation of his actual personality.

Tao Lin is a person who deviates extremely from all normal social conventions. His life has been significantly affected by his inability to conform.

We are lucky enough to have someone who can communicate this unique and estranged life to the rest of the world by means of writing.

I love Tao Lin. His works will only be truly appreciated posthumously.

>> No.1232033

>>1232022
GTFO Tao Lin or Tao Lin's publicist

>> No.1232036

forgot my SAGE

Geez, stop this promotional shit. Shit's gettin old yo.

>> No.1232038

>His works will only be truly appreciated posthumously.
They say that about every shitty writer.

>> No.1232044

>>1232022
yall trollin

>> No.1232054
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1232054

>>His online presence is simply to compensate for his inability to afford an agent

Protip: you don't pay somebody to be your agent.

An agent is somebody who actively seeks out talented writers, and then represents them by submitting their work to publishers, magazines, etc., and takes 10 percent of the writer's income from whatever work the agent is able to get. In other words: an agent works on commission.

If Tao Lin lacks an agent, it's not because he can't afford one. It's because no literary agents in New York who represent novelists think his work is worth their time / effort.

For example, the well-known literary agent Amanda "Binky" Urban represents Haruki Murakami, Toni Morrison, Cormac McCarthy, and Bret Easton Ellis. She is not their agent because they can "afford" her. She is their agent because she thinks they're talented and sufficient numbers of readers (and mainstream publishers) also agree.

>>I love Tao Lin. His works will only be truly appreciated posthumously.

In that case, the sooner the better.

>> No.1232077

>>1232054
Well I am a fan of a woman's pubic hair.

>> No.1232086

Ive seen alot of threads about this guy lately/ Whats so good about his works?

>> No.1232127

>>Just read Tao Lin's 'The Levels of Greatness A Fiction Writer Can Achieve in America'. Thank God we have someone who GETS literature at last

I just read it. It's imbecilic.

Like: if he somehow thinks better of Noah Cicero because Noah Cicero is

>Ignored by all print, for-profit media except in foreign countries.

then why does Tao Lin keep a blog in which he obsessively tracks his own recent reviews in mainstream culture outlets like the New York Times and London Review of Books? Because he finds it amusing?

And if Tao Lin believes that a writer like himself or Noah Cicero is engaged in web-publication and self-publication for reasons of artistic purity and freedom, then why is Tao Lin so excited to be published on actual paper? Why doesn't he just stay online?

Like: if Tao Lin thinks that there's some kind of food-chain hierarchy in which a novelist like Jonathan Franzen way outranks Jane Smiley, why did Jonathan Franzen here---

http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Jonathan-Franzens-Favorite-Fiction-Books/24

----recommend 3 separate works by Smiley as among his favorite works of fiction? (He only picked one by Faulkner.) Is that condescension on Franzen's part? Noblesse oblige? Moreover when Lin claims of Jane Smiley (and the writers he lumps in with her) that they are

>thought of by most critics, writers, and journalists to be primarily romance authors or perhaps "self-help" authors

are we meant to believe that Tao Lin has access to what "most critics, writers, and journalists" think about her? Especially since Franzen's recommendation of Smiley seems to indicate otherwise.

[continued]

>> No.1232131

Like: how does he know Don Delillo and Thomas Pynchon don't have email accounts? Pynchon's "Inherent Vice" was in part about the invention of the fucking internet.

And all his talk about whether someone has a MySpace page doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. Is he saying that Anne Tyler doesn't have a MySpace page because she doesn't have to promote her own work and interact directly with fans in order to get published, unlike Tao Lin? I think it's more likely that Anne Tyler doesn't have a fucking MySpace page because she's 70 years old.

Also: on what fucking planet is Philip Roth the be-all and the end-all of greatness in American fiction writing, with a status to which all might aspire? Toni Morrison has a fucking Nobel, but she doesn't make it into this ill-informed status-seeker's view of the literary hierarchy.

Unless it's all a joke that I'm not getting? Or it's meant to be taken as an accurate portrait of what things seem like to a 26-year-old writer who has "published" several "books" but still can't get any respect from the critical establishment?

But you recommended I read this because Tao Lin "GETS literature". Sorry, I just don't see it.

Even Norman Mailer's "The Talent in the Room" was less craven, and better informed, than this farrago.

>> No.1232152

>>1232131
>>1232127
seconded

I see no artistic value about using the internet this way. Tt's internet-for-the-sake-of-internet, it's like the recent spat of episodes of The Office where technology and gadgets interrupt activity. There's nothing patently interesting, it's just a desperate grab to find something new under the sun. It's like that never ending series of news articles with headlines that can be roughly translated into: "Web 2.0 does it again! How the internet made an event happen"

The compelling thing about the canon roster of literature is that the authors lived interesting lives--else had a supreme imagination--and told their story in the way they wanted or needed to tell it. Tao Lin isn't telling a story, he's an echo chamber. Meta-commentary and meta-meta-meta (ad infinitum) writing has been done before and it's never any more interesting than as an exercise or cognitive pissing contest ala Nabokov. Even there, Lolita was less meta in the sense of Lin's echo chamber and more a serious engagement and challenge of popular Freud analysis. This guy's a hack and needs to refocus his creative energy into something substantive. Yeah, he gets a lot of discussion, but it's all just dry heat and the smoke will clear with enough time.

>> No.1232164

>>1232152
I really liked your post. Very well said.

Although, I still <3 Tao Lin.

I never took the literary community to be so closed minded, but in retrospect, it has been all along.

Within the diversity and multiplicity of different styles of music, there exists a great diversity of different styles. From very minimalist to very formal, there exists a style of music which caters to almost every possibility of enjoyment.

The academic connotations of literature would explain the excessive pretentiousness and limited diversity.

>> No.1232174

>>1232164
I don't think anyone's being closed-minded here, I think Anonymous' dissatisfaction is merely a reflection of the merit in Tao Lin's work. That is to say, there is none.

Okay, so there's no substance in the text, and the focus is more on the secondary experiences that come from reading the text. Either in web communications (like the one we're having here), on your goddamn Kindle or a print copy if you have the gall to do such a thing, apparently. There, too, there isn't anything exciting going on, nor do I think it's that funny, clever, witty or original. I feel like there is more attention generated about technology disrupting our social world than actually takes place. Tao Lin and Franzen being two different people cashing in on this critical interpretation of our age. And I think people who have half a wit understand that's his angle and he's working the internet more than he works his text, and the text is what counts. Ginsberg and Keroac experimented with the reading process but they were less in the realm of fiction literature.

>The academic connotations of literature would explain the excessive pretentiousness and limited diversity.

I don't think it's that. The experience of reading a book has always been about the text and the reader. There's an element of STORYTELLING in the best works. I don't dismiss Lin because his work doesn't have any academic or scholarly merit, I dismiss it because it's flim-flam, hocus pocus, not worth my time. Like I said, I don't even find any value in it as a humor thing.

>> No.1232519

Tao Lin is a troll, but he's also sincere. I've read some of his and while it was kind of funny, I don't think it would be something worth reading in its entirety. It reads like a blogpost from Hipster Runoff or something similar and I guess it's targeted at that generation.

A writer so fixed on cultural trends like he is will undoubtedly come off as very dated in a couple years.

I feel like Tao Lin would be best as a script-writer, being the new Judd Apatow.

>> No.1232549
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itt: eighty percent of the posters are tao lin (including myself hehehehe).

>> No.1232551
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I guess you could say that he has no Tao-Lin-t?

>> No.1232557

>>1232551
You cheeky bastard, you made me laugh.

>> No.1232558

>>1232551
You are my favourite person right now.

>> No.1232565

Guys why can't the slanty-eyes and the darkies write conventional literature

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>>1232565

>> No.1232573
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>>1232570

>> No.1232585

He's about as lolrandum XD as a 12 year old girl.

Try finding a story of his that doesn't include mentioning hamsters for no reason.

>> No.1232616

>>1232565

Because they're too busy being SUBJUGATED.

>> No.1232811

Now now. Let's not be racist.

The fact that Tao Lin is a Chinaman is entirely unrelated to the fact that his writing is inane and pointless and makes you want to rip your eyes out.

>> No.1232919

Yeah, he's obviously American. He speaks English, yeah? And was born there?

>> No.1232927

>>1232152
I think you should read his book before you make comments like this. He does not use the internet in the way that you say he does. Other, older, people over praise and over accentuate his mentions of technology because they can't fathom themselves writing about it as naturally as he does. It's (Richard Yates) not a scifi book that happens to take place in 2006, the internet just exists, much like a salad does.

>> No.1232929

>>1232811
>Chinaman

Don't throw compliments around. I bet he couldn't lay rail to save his life.

>> No.1232935

>>1232929
he may not be able to lay rail, but he can lay pipe

tao lin is a sex god

>> No.1232949

Hi, Tao!

You still come here?

I knew you needed to be around people that are dumber than you to make yourself feel better, but is lit really the only place for that?

I mean, come on, isnt there some kindergarden for mentally challenged kids around where you live (because I recognize that you can't go to that elementary school anymore since the first graders keep beating you up and taking your american apparel money)?

>> No.1232959

>>1232919

Yes, technically Tao Lin is "American" but the preferred hipster nomenclature is "Chinaman", utilized so that you can distinguish an Asian-American of Chinese descent (such as Tao Lin) from Americans of other south Asian, east Asian, or central Asian ethnicities.

According to the Modern Language Association Stylebook for Political Correctness, the generic term "Asian-American" falsely implies that South Asians (Indians, Pakistanis, Tamils, or Jhumpa Lahiri) fall under what is termed the "yella umbrella" (the conglomeration of ethnic and/or linguistic identities comprised by Non-Ainu Japanese, Non-Uighur Chinese, North Koreans, South Koreans, Best Koreans, Trobriand and/or Hawaiian and/or Samoan and/or non-Pitcairn Pacific Islanders, and don't forget Filipinos!)

Of course, the ever-influential Trobriand-American lobby has been protesting this designation by the MLASPC on the basis that, being naked brown savages, they properly do not fall under the so-called "yella umbrella" but at this point, the debate has merely fallen into hopeless deadlock and name-calling, with privileged white college professors with tenure loudly accusing matrilineal Stone-Age tribesmen who collect cowrie shells of racism and (because of the cowrie shells) deep complicity with hegemonic capitalist praxis.

After all, nothing is more easily or joylessly demystified than the affectation of aloofness from "the political" practiced by South Seas savages in grass skirts.

>> No.1232964

>>1232519
His books are not at all focused on trends. There's nothing remotely trendy about RY, it's very anti social, it's very different and atypical and tame and full of ennui. The only tech he names by name is gchat.

RY is very much an evocative mood book, it's very sincere and real, and only ironic in the sense that other writers prefer things that are dramatic and fake. (read the Bock review on NYT for someone that doesn't 'get it')

Read something other than trollish posts on Gawker, like a real book of his and TL will make a lot more sense.

>> No.1233012

>>other writers prefer things that are dramatic and fake

There are 365 days in a year (366 in leap years) and on most of those days, nothing interesting happens.

Novelists tend to write about the days when something interesting does happen, on the grounds that this is actually interesting, not because they're trying to be dramatic and fake.

Tao Lin writes about the other 364 days and considering that I can have that experience 364 days of the year without reading about it in Tao Lin's insipid prose, I still don't understand why I'm supposed to take an interest.

I have tried reading his stuff. What wasn't tedious was silly, and what wasn't silly was tedious.

I have come to the conclusion that Tao Lin's books may very well serve a good purpose, but the phone book is softer on the ass AND gives you something interesting to read while you shit.

>> No.1233072

TL has fans for a reason. It's not because we like books that are boring.

>>1233012
I feel like you're overgeneralizing or applying too extreme of a description to his books based on things like the Bock review without actually giving it very serious consideration. All of his books are about events that have had a great impact on him. RY is about a clearly important relationship. It's not about the other 364 days.

The comparison might be damning, but I would compare RY to something like Honey and Clover or K-ON for the Hipster set. I assume you guys know what those are since this is 4chan.

Anyway if you have read his books but still dislike them, then I rest my case.

I'm going to submit, as a final statement, that understanding Tao Lin takes more than cursory effort, and an ability to find and appreciate irony.

>> No.1233171

>>1232959
Get tha fuck out, Tao.

>> No.1233433

bump

>> No.1233464

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2BJSV8Q1Yw

>> No.1233465

sage. die.

>> No.1234349

Tao Lin is where it's at.

>> No.1234450

His awkwardness seems like performance to me, especially if you consider people who are genuinely awkward. These people would not garner so much appreciation as Tao Lin seems to receive.

Though by performance I am thinking something more akin to Spinal Tap or Die Antwoord or Sacha Baron Cohen who, when in their roles, blur the line between what is genuine and what isn't. But as I said earlier, a genuine awkwardness would not garner so much appreciation, and this is because awkwardness tends to be estranging for people, yet Tao Lin is awkward enough to give others the perception that he is different without making them feel exceedingly uncomfortable.

And this leads me to believe that Tao Lin is not so much a troll as I think his demeanor is an aesthetic choice. Whether you could consider his writing to be modern literature, that's subjective. I certainly wouldn't consider it unworthy of mainstream appreciation to the extent that the mainstream ethic seems to appreciate what it is to be "fresh" or "unique" without inherently having the estranging quality that genuine uniqueness brings. As for the literary value of Tao Lin's work, that all depends on who dictates what is literature these days, and if that includes participants of the hipster aesthetic, well they're as mainstream as one gets.

>> No.1234454

Tao Lin kinda undermines the potential of internet centered narrative, writers such as Hitori Nakano (author of Train Man) have far greater mastery over the idea that just because a story takes place on the internet doesn't mean it has to be boring. Train Man is essentially a ripping Tom Clancy yarn as created by a Japanese man about a dorky otaku who meets a girl on a train and decides to put that hentai magazine down for a sec and go after 3D ladies for a change. The whole internet of Japan basically cheers him on so he grows some balls.

I cite it as one of the greater examples of internet lit, Google Project Densha to see what I mean.

Earlier examples of Internet Lit like The E Before Christmas is based around office email interactions and the corporate espionage that goes around there. That was an interesting read.

However, with no conflict and all marketing of an awkward personality, an internet read just comes off as crib notes from IM conversations.

>> No.1234456

I spoke with him once. 'Twas a very unpleasant experience.

Something tells me that's what he was going for.

>> No.1234462

>>1231234
>>1231239
are YOU tao lin "himself"?!?

>> No.1234464

I thought that Tao Lin was funny, and there was little else remarkable in what I read. But at least he was funny.

>> No.1235045

>>1234454
You're dumb

>> No.1235070

I thought the preferred nomenclature was chink.