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/lit/ - Literature

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13416613 No.13416613 [Reply] [Original]

Quick run down on the towel man?

>> No.13416631

Spoiled brat of two loaded professor parents. Had an easy life. Don't feel bad for him.

>> No.13416635

>The Good
Infinite Jest
Oblivion
Consider The Lobster
A Supposedly Fun Thing

>The bad
The rest

>> No.13416645

>>13416635
Pale king is good you dummy

>> No.13416654

In my opinion no one’s suffered a decline in reputation on /lit/ as much as him excluding of course Camus. Debate me

>> No.13416662

>>13416645
Yes, i forgot sorry

>> No.13416664

>>13416654
He deserved it.

>> No.13416667

One of the most reddit authors of the 21st century. Don't waste your time.

>> No.13416669

>>13416654
>>13416664
What caused this decline?

>> No.13416675

>>13416631
>Neurotic intelligent professor parents make for an easy life
Spotted the child

>> No.13416676

>>13416654
Because newfag zoomers on the internet are the culmination of what he critiqued. Probably not, he is just white, male and oddly influential.

>> No.13416678

>>13416654
Why do you want a debate? I mean, i agree, back in 2014 people loved dfw. I think /lit/ tries to do that to some authors because about 90% of /lit/ is trolling. They tried with nabby the other year and it held for a few months until people called bullshit. I think its easier to spot dfws weaknesses than nabby, love both nonetheless, infinote jest is great

>> No.13416681

>>13416654
Only reason he was popular in the first place here because he is on the curriculum of most English programs. Literally undergrad pseuds baiting for homework or shilling their esteemed dear professors favorite book.
>>13416667
/thread.

>> No.13416696

>>13416654
/lit/, for all its pretensions, is pleb level when it comes to emotional maturity. Just like the average man in the street it delights in building something up and then tearing it down.

>> No.13416877

>>13416613
why does he wear the doo rag

>> No.13416927

>>13416696
Which is why we really should be promoting more classic Roman poets and libertines. But whatever, you got to hold on to the hits when that's what you're left with to be in this world.

>> No.13418140

Should this guy be read chronologically?

>> No.13418175

>>13418140
just jump into whatever work you are interest in, you're fine

>> No.13418536

>>13416635
>talking shit about Brief Interviews
it should have been you who roped

>> No.13418543
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13418543

You can learn all about his riveting life in the action packed adventure/thriller The End of the Tour. In it two neurotic, unlikable, introverted losers squabble about nonsense and whine at each other for two hours. Life changing.

>> No.13418671
File: 1.76 MB, 219x186, 1532309043825.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
13418671

>>13418543
>Segel as DFW

>> No.13418676
File: 554 KB, 295x221, 1506019550285.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
13418676

>>13418671
Fuck wrong image

This is the more appropriate one.

>> No.13418749

>>13416654
The shitposting around DFW goes in cycles. Most people on this board like him, with a few exceptions.

>> No.13418757

>>13416877
If I took that off him, would he die?

>> No.13418761

>>13418757
It would be very /back-to-tv/

>> No.13418764

>>13418543
This film made me so fucking mad. "My addiction is television, all that heartfelt shit about drugs in IJ is just a metaphor for American consumerism, etc..."

They fucking ruined him. The director was clearly projecting his bullshit onto him. This is the absolute pinnacle of dumbass, rich, Californian pseuds. And now more Californian pseuds watched this and drew conclusions about how shitty DFW was without actually reading his work and now that's a hot take.

FUCK California

>> No.13418784

>>13418764
You know lately I've come to appreciate misrepresenting great things as shitty just to dissuade the masses from indulging in and inevitably ruining said thing.

>> No.13418797

>>13418764
>all that heartfelt shit about drugs in IJ is just a metaphor for American consumerism, etc..."
That was undoubtedly part of the (very confused) point DFW was making in Infinite Jest about the nature of addiction in his society. It's not that it's drugs or consumerism, both are part of the same compulsive failure mode that people fall into searching for...i dont know exactly what he thought people were searching for honestly. He tied in accomplishments in society as part of the same bunch of things.

>> No.13418813

>>13418797
Yeah, it was definitely partly to illustrate his point, but to say that that entire half of the book is JUST a metaphor really takes away from its significance. DFW actually lived in a halfway house when he was battling alcoholism and I think that experience really shows through in the book. It feels genuine, and he writes about it so beautifully. The director simplified all that into "just a metaphor."

>> No.13418816

>>13418813
You're right for sure. I actually liked that movie just because it was kind of well done, but it doesn't really get to who DFW was in his entirety.

>> No.13418835

>>13418536
Brief Interviws sucks anon. The collection and the interviews

>> No.13418855

>>13416669
/pol/ happened, causing a reformation of angsty DEUS VOLT LARPING sending actual /lit/ posters away, ushering in a new era of shitty bait threads and new fags who don't know what /lit/ memes were good. Also he was accused of being a sexual predictor and those previous groups I mentioned will latch on to anything to deflower anything not PEPES and JESUS

>> No.13419241

>>13416681
>the curriculum of most English programs
doubt

>> No.13419294

>>13418543

even if it's not necessarily accurate it's still a good movie honestly
Segel is a pretty inherently likable actor even if he doesn't fit the role perfectly

>> No.13419345

>>13418784
Based. I do the same.

>> No.13419444

Was Lyle real?
Did the current kids at ETA literally all see him as some form of ghost/wraith?

>> No.13419668

>>13418140
the broom of the system is only for people who've memed their taste something bad

>> No.13419704

A product of his time. His works do capture a zeitgeist of a sort that many of the greatest fiction writers do, this zeitgeist just happens to be more ephemeral than most.

Despite what I would assume would be his neurotic denials at being tritely misconstrued, he does fit the stereotype of the tortured manic-depressive intellectual. Despite his overwhelming sincerity and impression of writing-to-capture-everything, his essayist-voice is a public persona that never gave the whole picture as the posthumously revealed episode of obsessively stalking Mary Karr showed, but this only makes him more fascinating rather than detracting from his work.

Writes in an encyclopedic footnote-ridden style to introduce non-linearity to his text, yet strangely enough for a post-post-modern (aprés garde?) author working through the 1990s-2000s seems to have completely missed the boat on hypertext or wiki-style writing which I assume would have been right up his alley had he put the time into studying this newfangled "internet" thing instead of unproductive stuff like being clinically depressed and hanging himself.

Surprisingly fun to read. Give him a chance.

>> No.13419712

>>13418813
Just because it's snowing on the map doesn't mean it's snowing on the territory.

>> No.13419784

>>13418757
It would be extremely sweaty

>> No.13419805

>>13419704
Best review of DFW I've ever read. I always imagine what would he write in a scenario where the internet is predominantly inherent in people's lives. It would be an even greater work than IJ.
Or maybe the post modern world was too much for him and that's exactly why he hanged himself.

>> No.13419822

I have a love hate relationship with Infinite Jest (and DFW). I read it a few years ago and have gone through periods of hating it with a passion and wanting to read it again. It's one of those books that you can only really enjoy if you're going through a sadboi/depressive period.

>> No.13419827

>>13419704
Agree with this.

>> No.13419848

>>13418543
R34 where

>> No.13419859

>>13418757

It would be extremely insincere

>> No.13419935
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13419935

>>13419805
>Or maybe the post modern world was too much for him and that's exactly why he hanged himself.

I relate to this.

>> No.13421013

>>13419822
Why? It's a comical novel

>> No.13421082

>>13416613
Infinite Jest is hilarious, exhilarating. It could only have been written by a young man and it contains in it great vivacity. It is a text born of a writer who also knew how to train and discipline and to push oneself. Several times it becomes possible to see Infinite Jest as a completely familiar near future and at others it is a completely bizarre wild and apocalyptic transgression from the human project.
>gigantic mutant feral babies wandering a mutagenic no mans land between Canada and Boston
>garbage catapults
>annular fusion curing cancer by giving cancer to cancer
>lyle
>all those physical deformities
>all those gruesome death scenes
>the fight with the Rooks
>microwaving yourself to death
>the comfort and security of ETA and NA
It is a feast. If you don't like it, I don't think anyone cares.

>> No.13421132

>>13419704
>Writes in an encyclopedic footnote-ridden style to introduce non-linearity to his text, yet strangely enough for a post-post-modern (aprés garde?) author working through the 1990s-2000s seems to have completely missed the boat on hypertext or wiki-style writing which I assume would have been right up his alley had he put the time into studying this newfangled "internet" thing
That's probably his only saving grace

>> No.13421137

>>13421082
It bothers me that he jump-started this whole ironic "zombies!" cult trend. Romero did it better frankly.

>> No.13421336

>>13421137
Did DFW mainstream sweat fetishism too? I've read all of DFW and cannot recall an instance of "zombies" let alone something that communicates with the pop-culture commercial exercises (Max Brooks etc). This is so digressive I have to imagine you're somehow contractually responsible for some sort of zombie IP and must insert this into wherever it seems tangentially germane to our cambrian crockpot club's cliquey conversations? Are you funnin' us, anon?

>> No.13421507

>>13421336
Err well it ain't easy but uh... a scientific approach to life and language leads one to generalize and import parts from other mediums, it's essentially a junkyard approach. To throw up a bunch of ruminations on the zeitgeist and wonder what it might denote for the near future isn't enough, and introducing witty connotations can't finish the job either. A Genuine approach requires specificity and something particular to the present day... connotation > denotation

>> No.13421571

>>13421507
then you may wonder what constitutes a connotative narrative rather than a connotative aside? I'm not entirely sure but I don't think you can start with MEMEs and work backwards. Infinite Jest is basically a kind of zombie movie, or T2 with a b-plot about humour. My guess is that there's something more absurd than tragic about America for the author and we would expect to find the nation itself onscreen. But you have to ask what warrants an author to flip from microcosm to macrocosm without really stumbling across interpersonal content that might be worthy of a novel. In the survival genre it's merited intrinsically, but the novel structure is more than psychology and experience, it's churning some form of radiant symbol content by limiting the characters to a few half-dozen people who embody absolutely essential conflicts.

>> No.13422206

why do memes suck so much?

>> No.13422231

>>13421132
Has there been any great literature that uses hyperlinks? This sounds like a choose your own adventure book but digital. How would you make it? Github?

>> No.13422250
File: 1.43 MB, 200x131, 1550027522107.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
13422250

>>13421336
>>13421507
>>13421571

>> No.13422447

>>13418757
it would be extremely depressing

>> No.13422469

The Broom of the System and The Pale King are both extremely funny and absolutely worth reading as long as you have a high tolerance for meandering postmodern bullshit. Infinite Jest is too - the fact that it's become a meme doesn't mean that it's not good, it just means that you probably don't want to go around raving about how good it is for fear of looking like a normie. The short story collections are much less good, desu, and so is the nonfiction.

>> No.13422479

>>13419935
This looks like an insect hive.

>> No.13422564

>>13418764
They definitely overemphasized his addiction to television. It was really a mask for his depression. The church dance at the end was in reality an AA meeting. It was how he converted to Christianity. Only thing it got right was his fondness for junk food, dogs, and low quality popular action flicks of the day.

>> No.13422603

>>13422231
http://www.anus.com/etc/prozakhistan/autoexec.htm

don't be scared by the anus.com, it's the American Nihilist Underground Society. he's being cheeky

>> No.13422914

>>13419444
ofc he was real, wth do you mean