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/lit/ - Literature

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[ERROR] No.2022229 [Reply] [Original]

You guys read this? http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/another-thing-to-sort-of-pin-on-david-foster-wallace.html

>The trouble is that his style is also, as Dyer says, “catching, highly infectious.” And if, even from Wallace, the aw-shucks, I-could-be-wrong-here, I’m-just-a-supersincere-regular-guy-who-happens-to-have-written-a-book-on-infinity approach grates, it is vastly more exasperating in the hands of lesser thinkers. In the Internet era, Wallace’s moves have been adopted and further slackerized by a legion of opinion-mongers who not only lack his quick mind but seem not to have mastered the idea that to make an argument, you must, amid all the tap-dancing and hedging, actually lodge an argument.

>Visit some blogs — personal blogs, academic blogs, blogs associated with some of our most esteemed periodicals — to see these tendencies writ large. My own archives, dating back to 2002, are no exception.

This doesn't bug me on, like, (lol) a Videogum post but God does it grate when it's the dominant style in a shitty Awl think piece or something of that nature.

>> No.2022276

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I am going to bump this while I type up a sorta response.

>> No.2022282

Good lord, that is my favourite online comic and I'd never stumbled across the DFW themed one.

>> No.2022286

I agree with the author's analysis of Wallace's voice, but, you know, do not really find its widespread usage to be problematic. I quite enjoy the self-effacing sincerity of people who write, you know, like this.

>> No.2022289

watching this thread

>> No.2022292

Pragmatic writing has its place, but what the author of the article argues for is simply an Orwellian sort of "say it in the least amount of words, get your meaning across fast" tactic.

Literature would be really fuckin' tiresome if that's all anyone ever did. Purple prose is fun sometimes.

>> No.2022300

So the author of that article seems to think that DFW was the first guy to do "the aw-shucks, I-could-be-wrong-here" thing--or at least, that DFW does it in some remarkable way that makes it importantly different than all those other people who did it before him. And the author seems to riff off this idea for most of the essay, until the final paragraph:
> Anticipating and defusing opposing arguments has been a vital rhetorical strategy since at least the days of Aristotle. Satire and ridicule, when done well, are high art. But the idea is to provoke and persuade, not to soothe. And the best way to make an argument is to make it, straightforwardly, honestly, passionately, without regard to whether people will like you afterward.
where s/he admits that people have been doing that sort of thing forever, DFW just did it in a "sooth[ing]" way. DFW did certainly do it to an extent that could be called soothing, but I don't think he was all that unique in it. Maybe something that makes DFW look all the more soothing is his use of slang and everyday language, sort of de-elevating his prose to the level of the everyday guy while still retaining it's intellectual edge. But I still think that the author is making a way to big of a deal over DFW suggestiveness.

Also, I don't think the internet, bloggers, etc. are imitating DFW so much as DFW was (and is) so relevant because that's how people actually talk and, importantly, think. Blogs and message boards and stuff like that occupy a space in between literature and real life conversation, so it would be only natural that we would take up that style on the internet.

Also, maybe we should be taking the prose style of blogs and internet commentators so seriously (see what I did there? I anticipated that someone was gonna call me out on writing in the style OP's article and rebuffed that shit before they even had time to type it. Awwww yeah that's meta as shit nigga)

>> No.2022308

I dunno whether any of you guys read Tiger Beatdown but I remember rolling my eyes at Sady trying to call out the posthumous weeping-and-gnashing-of-teeth deification of DFW as a phony posture adopted by Boys On The Internet, all the while writing in an aggressively conversational style that I saw as a bigger weirdo basement altar to MFA-holding America's favorite greasy-haired dead guy than any long teary obituary blog post could ever hope to be. Looking back, though, I honestly don't really know whether that style can be traced back to living roughly in the same generation as DFW and a bunch of McSweeney's interns influenced by him or if it's just, YOU KNOW, something that comes naturally to people born after the Eisenhower administration.

>> No.2022310

He actually puts graphs in his books?

I thought I was pretentious.

>> No.2022318

>>2022310

whats intrinsically pretentious about a graph

>> No.2022319

So, sincerity and an admission of fallibility isn't a desirable trait in an author? I've seen some morons in my time, but this guy takes the coke.

>> No.2022324

>>2022300
me again

So the author of that article is a lawyer. Which makes sense that she would say "the best way to make an argument is to make it, straightforwardly, honestly, passionately, without regard to whether people will like you afterward." But maybe this is not the best way to go about things if you are writing for a willfully reading audience. Like, I'm not gonna read your writing unless you pamper me [this ("pamper") brings up all sorts of really interesting implications if you've read "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again." DFW is always going on about how living in this time and place amounts to being babied and having all of our wants provided for, while at the same time his prose is sorta kinda like doing the same thing, I guess]. In the case of the author-lawyer of this article, s/he may have convinced me of something, but I don't think I'm going to read his/her work again. Unlike DFW, s/he is not just one of the guys.

The author also seems to miss the very important point that DFW was always second guessing and being all maybe-there's-another-way-to-look-at-it because there really is another way to look at it (if we take that old postmodern maxim for truth, that is). This brings up a whole notha slew of implications concerning the basic axioms of postmodernism which the authors seems to just throw out on whim without even considering.

Idunno, just my thoughts on things. I sincerely hope that at least on the not-so-formal parts of the internet people keep writing like this because it just seems more natural (like, I'm writing this now as it comes to my head, and I'm not gonna edit it) and chummy also.

>> No.2022326

>>2022319
I think she's like 25% saying it can be annoying to get at whatever the fuck he's trying to put out there when it's cloaked in this kind of respectably-folksy shit and 75% saying that it's repulsive when its influence shows up all over the writing of dumbass Paris Review editorial interns. And I'm Okay With That

>> No.2022328

>>2022324
I'm in complete agreement with your point about the author being a lawyer, and not a fiction or magazine writer.

This is like a doctor writing an article on how chefs should really sterilize their instruments more before cutting raw meat.

It's like a soccer coach telling a symphony orchestra that they should really focus more on their fitness levels.

It's irrelevant.

>> No.2022331

>>2022310
get a fucking dictionary

>> No.2022332

>>2022331
>doesn't know what "pretentious" means
>get a dictionary

Oh the ironing.

>> No.2022333

>>2022324
>So the author of that article is a lawyer. Which makes sense that she would say "the best way to make an argument is to make it, straightforwardly, honestly, passionately, without regard to whether people will like you afterward."

That's a great point! I'm sympathetic to her POV but embarrassingly I gave almost no thought to her law school/legal career.

>> No.2022336

I write like this without having ever read a sentence that I know was penned by DFW.

>> No.2022341

>>2022336
well, see, I think DFW writes like how people think and talk, so it just seems natural that a lot of people might write like him if they drop all of the pretense of writing differently than how we think or talk.

>> No.2022349

http://iwl.me/

According to this site I write like DFW. But then it's some cruddy text analyser and obviously can't tell you how you actually write. Interesting, nonetheless.

>inb4 everyone is Cory Doctorow

>> No.2022352

>>2022349

>>2022336, here

Apparently I REALLY write like Agatha Christie. lulwut.

>> No.2022353

>>2022332
definition:
>Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance or merit than is actually possessed; making an exaggerated outward display; ostentatious, showy.
source: oe motherfucking d

>> No.2022357

>>2022352
Yeah, the programming is a little... off, shall we say.

If you try to emulate the style of a writer, it invariably always says Agatha Christie or Vladimir Nabokov, at least in my experience.

>> No.2022361

>>2022349

hey me too!!!!

david foster wallace writer here

wtf? weird

>> No.2022363

He writes how he talks:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5IDAnB_rns

>> No.2022370

DFW appeals to the awkward, white, middle-class twat whose life experiences culminate to decades in educational institutions because that's what he was and that's for whom he wrote.

There aren't any stellar ideas in DFW. There aren't any originalities. There is only some white guy dressing up boring prose to look erudite.

>> No.2022397

DFW is a total bro.

>> No.2022403

>>2022370

That's just your opinion.

>> No.2022417

ok honest question

do gay guys like dfw? do lesbians have any use for him at all?

>> No.2022420

>>2022370
Most literature of note is written by upper-middle class people, who were university educated, you might as well attack him for being male, too.

I mean, how would you have it, low-income black guys churning out novels? Literature as written by DFW appeals to people like DFW, white, wealthy and well educated. And as such, can never sell as many books or have as big an effect on modern culture as say, J.K. Rowling or Dan Brown.

>>2022417
There was a thread by a gay guy not so long ago who claimed he was "totally doable" if that helps.

>> No.2022422

>>2022417
Who the fuck cares what gay people like? Stop treating them like invalids.

>> No.2022433

>>2022422
i was just wondering because when i was in college and he died the only people who i remember conspicuously shitting their pants over it on facebook were painfully straight indie boys and their girlfriends

>> No.2022441

I got dan brown, I am not ok with this

>> No.2022460
File: 23 KB, 404x375, 1312573232649.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
[ERROR]

>>2022433
>indie
I think the word you're searching for is "intellectual".

>> No.2022471

>>2022460
i certainly am not. i really don't think pearl-buttoned plaid shirts and a working knowledge of the fleet foxes discography consistently go hand-in-hand with "intellectualism" or even half-baked aspirations to same

polite sage!!!!

>> No.2022478

>>2022420
You're missing the point. Unless you're a privileged, white guy whose only real life achievement is a degree, Wallace has nothing to say to you. I'm white and college educated, and read Wallace, and even I was thoroughly bored.

The man had no interesting takes on anything, because he's never experienced anything outside mainstream, white people living and mainstream white people problems. Yes, many acclaimed authors were educated white guys, but they at least had diverse lives and could see beyond their noses.

>> No.2022482

>>2022478
>>white
>>white
>>white
>>white


KEEP IT REAL BROTHA


I hated on wallace cause i found him insincere in Infinite Jest; he came off as patronizing and boring. Then I read his essays, and I realized he knew was kind of a mediocrity, and he felt guilty as shit about it. Now I still don't like his books, but I emphasize with the guy, and dont' think he was just a hipster shill.

>> No.2022497

>>2022482
You... emphasize with the guy?

>> No.2022500

Oh the arrogance of the modern consumer, how it makes me ache with pity.

>> No.2022502

>>2022497
Wallace? Yeah. I think he wanted to write well and about serious topics, but was too chickenshit.

Imagine if Dostovesky was writing today, people would say he is bombastic and ridicolous, (because dostoiveksy is), but dostovesky also attacks interesting topics and people.

I think Wallace wanted to write like that, but was afraid of being laughed at.

>> No.2022503

>>2022478
I have to disagree with you here.
I'm lower-class, not degree educated, and haven't let a middle-class mainstream life by any means, and I still ID with Wallace and most of what he has to say. I never find him or his style patronizing, boring, or off the mark. Occasionally I disagree with things he has to say, but I don't believe he was only speaking to people 'similar' to him.
Many of the issues that he talks about (depression, addiction, boredom) are common among all races, classes, backgrounds. It's one thing to not like him, but to claim that his writing is only going to touch one group of people is a bit ridiculous, really.

>>2022482
>emphasize
lol'd so hard.

>> No.2022507

>>2022503
let--> lived *
fml.

>> No.2022532

I think from what I've read of his work, and judging this article, that no one exactly understands what they like about DFW or why DFW was good or even what impact DFW had on culture, they seem to just enjoy dropping his name and arguing about it.

This thread kind of backs that up. He doesn't seem genuine to me. Especially his speech to college graduates that I read awhile back, it was an interesting take on it but it was like he read the cliff notes and was taking about his personal exaggeration on the issue.

I'm fairly sure I'm not missing anything either. He is and was nothing special and his work is a testament to how much good brooding does.

>> No.2022551

>>2022503
Pretty much this.

Whining about "privileged educated white guys" writing for "privileged educated white guys" is something that I've only ever seen... "privileged educated white guys" do.

>> No.2023798

>>2022532
>no one exactly understands what they like about DFW or why DFW was good or even what impact DFW had on culture, they seem to just enjoy dropping his name and arguing about it.

if you read /lit/ too much you can conclude this about every writer ever to live

>> No.2023823

I always thought that DFW's appeal was rather obvious.

1. He was an honest writer
2. In an era of minimalist prose he was happy to write in a lengthy, "maximalist" style.
3. He was a sort of prodigy, writing fairly startling stuff from an early age.
4. He could write short stories, full length fiction and non-fiction all to a very high standard
5. He was a troubled person who killed himself

>> No.2023983

I rememeber when I read IJ last year, I couldn't stand the guy, but most of his other stuff is good. And his writing isn't nearly as middle-class focused as Franzen, Yates or sometimes Auster. I love those dudes.

>> No.2024248

source on that comic??