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/lit/ - Literature

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2887805 No.2887805 [Reply] [Original]

How can David Foster Wallace be exemplary of both postmodernism and 'new sincerity' at the same time?

>> No.2887821

Lots of writers 'straddled' literary periods or movements - it's because the distinctions are vague and it's impossible to neatly categorise any poet, dramatist or novelist that has ever lived.

>> No.2887843

>implying new sincerity is a thing
Anyone who thinks we're living in a "post-ironic" world needs to hang out with the under-25s. Just look how many views Lil' B has on youtube

>> No.2887877

>>2887843
A simple question: Is it possible for an author to be non-ironic in an ironic world? This hits me as an obvious yes but I might be wrong. If it is a yes then "new sincerity" can be a thing even if it doesn't define the majority of the literary world

>> No.2887880

wtf is new sincerity? I swear that term was just made up this month

>> No.2887884

>>2887880
It's pretty made-up, yeah. About as real as New Autism.

>> No.2887889

>>2887805
Because it's actually Elliot.

>> No.2887890

>>2887880
it's people trying to define a new movement in the arts, when there is no evidence of one. And if there is a new movement forming, there isn't enough evidence to accurately define it. I don't see the need to categorize any of this. If a new trend is forming, let it form. Then you can look at what came of it and categorize it to all your silly little needs. At least you can point out specifics to support the arbitrary view.

>> No.2887898

>>2887843
if you think lil b and his fans are being ironic, i love you from the bottom of my heart and hope you have the happiest life you can possibly enjoy

>> No.2887902

>>2887877
My point is that it's still a very tiny minority in art and literature, and that the post-irony has nowhere near the cultural weight /lit/ think it does; post-modernism is still the predominant form of thought

>> No.2887907

>>2887890
Bu-but... the capacity to notice new movements on their first steps is a desirable attribute in a critique. Some of them have made a career of such capacity. It is interesting to follow what one believes is something new forming, and more challenging maybe. Its exciting. Sure, you risk being wrong but it is an unimportant risk.

Captcha: asoccor questions

>> No.2887929

>>2887907
If you limit a forming trend to predetermined ideas that a critique set forth for a burgeoning movement, you will stifle what it would normally become. It is best to simply disregard what someone says a movement will be and just execute your ideas as you see fit.

For the sake of a curious theory, it doesn't do any harm, but people take these things too seriously I think.

>> No.2887935

>>2887843
>>2887884
>>2887890
It definitely is a thing. Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" is exhibit A, where what remains as real in a devastated, post-apocalyptic world is a father's love for his son. It's offered as raw emotion, unattached to irony. And it's the most popular and celebrated piece of literature in the last 10 or so years.

I could point to other things in music, fashion, and food, but for some reason the spam filter doesn't like me right now.

>> No.2887945

>>2887843
>>2887884
>>2887880

Nah, "new sincerity" has been a "thing" for a while. I mean, at least about as much of a "thing" as anything else.

And I wouldn't say DFW represents new sincerity so much as he predicted it. His postmodern fetish shows through much of his writing, imo.

>> No.2887950
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2887950

"Irony and cynicism were just what the U.S. hypocrisy of the fifties and sixties called for. That’s what made the early postmodernists great artists. The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates. The virtuous always triumph? Ward Cleaver is the prototypical fifties father? “Sure.” Sarcasm, parody, absurdism and irony are great ways to strip off stuff’s mask and show the unpleasant reality behind it. The problem is that once the rules of art are debunked, and once the unpleasant realities the irony diagnoses are revealed and diagnosed, “then” what do we do? Irony’s useful for debunking illusions, but most of the illusion-debunking in the U.S. has now been done and redone. Once everybody knows that equality of opportunity is bunk and Mike Brady’s bunk and Just Say No is bunk, now what do we do? All we seem to want to do is keep ridiculing the stuff. Postmodern irony and cynicism’s become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what’s wrong, because they’ll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. Irony’s gone from liberating to enslaving....

>> No.2887952

>post-irony

What the fuck?

>> No.2887953

>>2887929
You are right in that soe people take it seriously but surely that is not the critics fault? Besides, critics not only define movements as they see them but most respectable ones seem to understand that you can't fully define a forming movement and, therefore, track its evolution

>> No.2887954

>>2887890

Hey, lower caps guy, you really do talk a lot of shit about things you know nothing about about. The effect is something like a child throwing a tantrum over a loud noise whose source he can't identify. Please stop it.

Signed,
All of us.

>> No.2887955
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2887955

...

The problem is that, however misprised it’s been, what’s been passed down from the postmodern heyday is sarcasm, cynicism, a manic ennui, suspicion of all authority, suspicion of all constraints on conduct, and a terrible penchant for ironic diagnosis of unpleasantness instead of an ambition not just to diagnose and ridicule but to redeem. You’ve got to understand that this stuff has permeated the culture. It’s become our language; we’re so in it we don’t even see that it’s one perspective, one among many possible ways of seeing. Postmodern irony’s become our environment." - DFW

>> No.2887970

>>2887955

Wow, this is right up my alley. I tried reading another of DFW's essays (on television), but it just bored me and paled in comparison to other writings on television I've read. It was too phenomenological and not systemic enough.

But this stuff on sincerity is good. It's what I've been thinking of with regards to 4chan lately too: like the ultimate irony of posting Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest here is that nobody here is earnest all the time. Trolls abound.

>> No.2887977

>>2887955
That seems a little ironic.

>> No.2887981

>>2887970
Weird. I wouldn't say his essay on television was very phenomenological. What other TV essays would you recommend, though?

>> No.2887982

>>2887954
BUT HE USED CAPS TOO

>> No.2888012

post-irony is a stupid thing invented by people who don't understand irony

>> No.2888016

Can someone please explain what post-irony entails?

>> No.2888020

>>2888016
refusing to make fun of things

>> No.2888033

It's devastating that nowadays critics have to stick shiny names to everything that exist in recent literature.
Too soon.

Don't you notice that those "periods" are getting shorter?

What the hell "post-irony"?!
New sincerity? Nope that's just an author with a strong voice and an unusual self awareness.

If we want to name everything:

Take a high school tier poem.

Bad grammar? Oh no, ironic statement that Denotes the cultural differences of our era.

Purple prose? Nah, in fact the bland writing immerses the reader into a convoluted childish freudian view of a mentally unstable regressed anally-fixed teenager; shit's complicated.

Cliche? Peuh, don't you get the meta self-unawareness? yet i feel so close?

Of course it's not important at all that I accidentally misread a WW2 analysis as love
poem, have you never heard of the death of the author?


I'm certainly sure that this verbose attirage is actually useful for some scholars but god stop spitting them ad infinitum, it makes me nauseam.

Sincerely,

A normal reader.

>> No.2888038

I'm kind of tired of people saying DFW was "sincere." I don't think he was any more sincere than any other writer, up to and including Gore Vidal or Norman Mailer.

I think "earnest" is a more apt word for what DFW was. He was pretty damn earnest (embarrassingly so).

>> No.2888041

>>2888038
i'll never stop saying that he was a charlatan, and that he knew it, and that's why he killed himself.

>> No.2888047

>>2887880
It's an idea Wallace talked about in one of his essays in the mid-90's it's supposed to be a reaction against the rampant irony pervading (and possibly harming) contemporary society. Check it out:

http://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf

>> No.2888048
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2888048

>>2888038
>>2888041

>that denial

>> No.2888051

>>2888033
>Purple prose? Nah, in fact the bland writing immerses the reader into a convoluted childish freudian view of a mentally unstable regressed anally-fixed teenager; shit's complicated.

bland [bland] Show IPA
5.
lacking in special interest, liveliness, individuality, etc.; insipid; dull: a bland young man; a bland situation comedy.

purple prose =/= bland. In fact, they could be seen as opposites. Get your shit straight

>> No.2888055

>>2887981

Yes it was, he was relating the experience of watching tv with the voyeurism of the writer's art, and demonstrating how it's a false analogy because those on tv know they're being watched + market research blah blah blah.

The key word is experience, and philosophically speaking, that's phenomenology and/or lebensphilosphie

>> No.2888060

>>2887981

Adorno's or Bourdieu's.

>> No.2888068

>>2888020
So instead of an author pointing out the stupidity of society's actions (self-destructive cultures, catch-22s, double standards, etc, etc), they tell stories involving characters overcoming these trials and improving themselves and the people around them?

I think this is what DFW is trying to say. That these incongruities in modern human behavior have been pointed out thoroughly by writers and other points of view, beyond exposing them, should be explored (such as how to redeem and solve them, why they are perpetuated, or perhaps how to perpetuate them). He thinks the best approach to this would be with sincerity and compassion rather than derision and patronization.

Is this the gist of "new sincerity"?

>> No.2888069

>>2888047
the idea that irony has or even could reach harmful levels in society is fucking absurd

>> No.2888075

>>2888069
You've obviously never been to Williamsburg

>> No.2888080

>>2888068
maybe. but one can make fun of stupid people while still being sympathetic and compassionate, and this may be the mark of a great artist

>> No.2888084

>>2888051
Arf, those sentences are void of sense, I just picked random words to show that random bullshit can be justified one way or the other. Bland sounded good. You're right doesn't mean anything.

Also, my dubs shows an inner dualistic opposition between the 'me' confused and the post-me apologetic and...
Get it? Dualistic dualism duodenum conundrum rhum. le tout, en dilletante.

>> No.2888087

>>2888069

I disagree strongly.

>> No.2888089

moral of the thread: don't worry about it. it doesn't really matter.

>> No.2888093

>>2888080
What you're talking about is basically how DFW sums up this stuff in a couple of different articles. To point out not just folly, but also a sense of "Can you blame them?" and along with it a possible idea of where the way to change it might be or lead.

>> No.2888095

>>2888080
There is also alot of potential for a misanthropic approach to it as well. Should redemption even be attempted? Is it even possible? Do humans simply perpetuate this no matter what? Of course, this will be dismissed as an inhumane and insane approach to it.

>> No.2888101

>>2888033
Yeah, this is kind of argument is the road to fallacy. Don't straw man literary criticism or specific schools of thought because you can't comprehend them or don't accept them.

>> No.2888106

>>2888093
>"Can you blame them?"

but this is precisely the problem. yes, you can blame them. they are still humans, however, and we should love and try to understand them

>along with it a possible idea of where the way to change it might be or lead.

unless you have some kind of precognitive abilities, anything you say would just be wishful thinking

>> No.2888112

>>2888095
misanthropy has its place in art, but it rarely becomes great art

>> No.2888114

I think new sincerity has potential. Especially if it lures people away from irony and self-deprecating detachment from everything.

Because at this point it seems like we're all just pointing out secrets that we all already knew. "society isn't perfect", "the government is corrupt, etc."

New sincerity is the more mature, knowing older brother of that type of thing. "Yes, society isn't perfect, but I don't feel the need to always point it out."

>> No.2888119

B-but, in essence, post-irony or new sincerity are just " Let's say that post modernism never happened because there was nothing to trigger it. " New sincerity is just a " Hey, that Stendhal guy, he was quite right you know ". " Ho, I know a chum named Faulkner, I think he gets it. " " Wow, did you read Proust, that was just like, spot on you know."

>> No.2888122

>>2888106
>unless you have some kind of precognitive abilities, anything you say would just be wishful thinking
Or, you know, the expression of an opinion which convinces others to see it in the same light... you know, that thing that happens when people read and it offers them a different perspective.
That does happen to you when you read, right? You know what I'm talking about?

>> No.2888123

>>2888114
but if we ever stop pointing it out, then we will forget what was wrong in the first place. only regressive idiots would want this

>> No.2888125

>>2888119
>nothing to trigger it.

No, I think there is plenty of material about what triggered what's come to be known as postmodernism. It's being discarded because it's useless. It's better as a descriptor than as a thing to strive for in art.

>> No.2888130

>>2888123
I think you're truly underestimating the abilities of human intuition. I can't think of an era that went by without social criticism of some sort. We don't really need a movement full of people specifically doing that.

>> No.2888131

>>2888125

Yeah, I was being confusing. I mean postmodernism was used to defuse something, but now there isn't this something (see the DFW quote) and now we can go back to what literature was before, it's stupid to call it new sincerity, writers before were already like that.

>> No.2888133

>>2888123
that's why we can always refer back to the numerous novels and stories already written that point it out. Or novels can be written that point it out with the irony of postmodernism but also show a compassionate tone towards these problems.

>> No.2888135

>>2888131

I mean this something is known now... I guess I have to sleep.

>> No.2888139

>>2888131
I think there is plenty of hypocrisy in this society that justifies a good bit of irony. It's just we all know about it.

>> No.2888152

Every movement is an over correction to the last movement. People always way overdo them.

On the bright side, the tedium of "diversity studies" may be out, but in will something else obnoxious and exaggerated.

Everyone should just embrace meditation for their lives.

>> No.2888154

>>2888152

overgeneralization is general. Does meditation do that to your thinking? If so, I'm not interested.

>> No.2888155

>>2888139

Yes but what is being said here is that post modernism just point and laugh. Ok, we know, let's destroy it by showing that first, we are not soulless cynics, two, that we are soulless cynics but that's fine, three, that people who are not soulless cynics are fine too, but it could be nice if they became soulless cynics like us.

We need novel on why post-modernism blows, not post-modernism novels.

>> No.2888156

>>2888152
>but in will something else obnoxious and exaggerated.

Probably. I can't wait to see what other nonsensical bullshit we'll conjure up for a movement.

>Everyone should just embrace meditation for their lives.

Oh no! It's here already!

>> No.2888164

>>2888155
this is my point as well, there just seems to be a communication breakdown. It's not that what sparked postmodernism is gone, it's just we don't need postmodernism to point it out anymore. We should explore other approaches to it, such as compassion and humanity (the opposite of cynicism). So we agree I think

>> No.2888165

DFW and Tao Lin are the same thing.