/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3373399]

>Asked about novelist David Foster Wallace, who took his own life in 2008, but who has a new book out, “The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel,” put together from manuscript chapters and files found in his computer, Bloom says, “You know, I don’t want to be offensive. But ‘Infinite Jest’ [regarded by many as Wallace’s masterpiece] is just awful. It seems ridiculous to have to say it. He can’t think, he can’t write. There’s no discernible talent.”

>It’s all a clear indication, Bloom notes, of the decline of literary standards. He was upset in 2003 when the National Book Award gave a special award to Stephen King. “But Stephen King is Cervantes compared with David Foster Wallace. We have no standards left. [Wallace] seems to have been a very sincere and troubled person, but that doesn’t mean I have to endure reading him. I even resented the use of the term from Shakespeare, when Hamlet calls the king’s jester Yorick, ‘a fellow of infinite jest.’

[Anonymous No.3373403]

Where have you been? We all know this and have been alluding to it or quoting it directly daily for like, 2 years now.

[Anonymous No.3373407]

>>3373403
Oh my god, it couldn't have been that long

[Anonymous No.3373426]

Bloom has never written anything worth reading. In fact, his Shakespeare 'criticism' is laughable.

[Anonymous No.3373492]

>>3373399
Shut the fuck up Donny

[Anonymous No.3373500]

>>3373426

I wouldn't say never. His stuff in the 70's, before he became such an obnoxious polemicist and when he was still fairly close to folks like Derrida and Miller and the rest of the so-called Yale School, wasn't bad.

[Anonymous No.3373519]

>Stephen King is Cervantes compared with David Foster Wallace

[Anonymous No.3373522]

>>3373500
>Derrida
>not completely shit tier

[Anonymous No.3373528]

>>3373522

Oh grow up. Did you miss the other name? Did you miss the collective noun "Yale School"? Or is Derrida just a term you know that's associated with some nebulous evil?

[Anonymous No.3373534]

>>3373407
yeah, at least

i can accept people leveling severe criticisms at wallace, but i think bloom never actually did his homework in this case. saying king is cervantes compared to wallace is absurd

[Anonymous No.3373538]

>>3373534
Ever heard of something called hyperbole, dude..?

[Anonymous No.3373543]

Truth:
DFW:s writing is essentially a university publication in format but filled teenish angst and awkwardness

That is why most college hipsters recognize themselves when they read it. They can aknowledge the "smartness" of a man writing in academia and the irony that he use the same language to write about their own chilidish fantasies of girls and petty existentialism.

There isn't a grown man, who've faced reality, that feel compelled by DFW.

No wonder he commited suicide.

[Anonymous No.3373545]

>>3373543
Yeah, have you read that exiledonline.com article about him? It's pretty good, in my opinion: http://exiledonline.com/david-foster-wallace-portrait-of-an-infinitely-limited-mind/

[Anonymous No.3373571]

>>3373545

I think that article is a better critique on Vollmann and the other McSweenyites than it is of Wallace.

[Anonymous No.3373578]

>>3373543
Yeah, you sound like a real mature sort.

[Anonymous No.3373587]

>>3373528
No, Derrida is a name I attribute with a talentless sophist and anyone who brings him up, let alone subscribes to his work, is postmodernist idiot.

[Anonymous No.3373608]

>>3373587
The sophists were in fact the greatest of the Greek philosophers, just throwing that out there

[Anonymous No.3373613]

>>3373587

How comforting that level of tribalism must be. I kind of envy you. It's much a much easier way to think.

[Anonymous No.3373634]

>>3373613
Derrida wasn't even a fucking philosopher. Get a grip.

[Anonymous No.3373638]

http://exiledonline.com/david-foster-wallace-portrait-of-an-infinitely-limited-mind/

Come at me DFWfags.

[Anonymous No.3373639]

>>3373634

Why should I care whether he was a "philosopher"?

[Anonymous No.3373644]

>>3373638
I already posted that a little ways up, but I appreciate your enthusiasm nonetheless.

[Anonymous No.3373655]

>>3373638
the fact that you think that article is anything other than nonsense just speaks to the limits of your own mind.

[Anonymous No.3373699]

>>3373545
>First, for all you pedants, these are the drug-chemical-&-medicine-related howlers I could find in Infinite Jest. (I’d like to imagine Wallace writing them out on a blackboard, for all eternity, in the Circle of Footnoters): . . .

This article is gold m9.

[Anonymous No.3373700]

Why does that guy always look like he's about to shit fire?

[Anonymous No.3373706]

>>3373655
You can certainly admit it makes a lot of sense, even if you don't agree with it.

[Anonymous No.3373711]

>>3373399
lel old people

>muh standards
>muh art
>me cultural decline

Ever since the written word was invented people have been whining about how it's going to shit.

[Anonymous No.3373714]

>>3373655
I'm half way through and, at least insofar as it has referred to DFW, it's beencogent and amusing so far. Everything I've read by Wallace has been poor.

[Anonymous No.3373719]

>>3373706
it's superficial as fuck and barely even qualifies as criticism.

[Anonymous No.3373740]

>>3373719

No it isn't. It's detailed and specfic. This is crushing imo:

>Or a withdrawal chapter where a cross-dressing junkie imagines “ants formicating up and down his arms’ skinny length.” Care to guess what “formicating” actually means? Anting. The guy’s being harassed by anting ants – “a gleaming red martial column of those militaristic red Southern-U.S. ants that build hideous tall boiling hills.” Now that’s how you pad a sentence, calling the ants “red” twice, and making it clear the insecting insects aren’t just “militaristic,” but “martial” to boot.

>Still, Wallace had the nerve to complain about “puff words” in a popular YouTube video. Seems he has issues with a few small-timers who write utilise instead of use and prior to instead of before – they’re using “more syllables” and “it’s just puffed-up.” He then tells us that: “given the Latin roots, it should really be ‘posterior to’… so if you’re saying ‘prior to’ and ‘subsequent to,’ you are, in fact, in a very high-level way, messing up grammatically.” This is wrong. (Prior means the same thing in Latin as it does in English.) Course, you can forgive a writer for not knowing a dead language, but you can’t forgive them for bluffing about “Latin roots” and “high-level” grammatical errors. You can tell from the video that Wallace’s real gripe isn’t with “puff words,” or empty syllables, or even grammar mistakes. What he hates are plebeian writing errors – the innocent kind you’d hear from Joe Six-packs who haven’t studied creative writing or gotten properly sterilized by Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style. But he has no problem with “formicating,” or “Kekulean,” or “Hobbesian” (used simply to mean “savage”), or “martial” in the same sentence as “militaristic.” They may be puff words, but at least they’re not lowly, Middle American puff words.

[Anonymous No.3373746]

>>3373740
He used the word formicating because it sounds like fornicating, lol, haha.

[Anonymous No.3373749]

>>3373740
Pay no mind to the idiots who jerk off to the thought of DFW's decomposing body.

Any criticism of him on this site, even if it's valid, is the equivalent of talking shit about Muhammed in a mosque.

[Anonymous No.3373750]

>>3373740
I shuddered to think back on that video of DFW whining about "puffing up" speech. Absolutely NOBODY who writes phrases like "consciously congruent" should say shit about anyone else's contrived "puff".

[Anonymous No.3373760]

>>3373740
presuming stylistic choices are errors. and 'formicating' doesn't just mean 'anting'. the second quoted dfw sentence has excellent momentum, and the novel is primarily told in the 3rd person subjective so you have to consider how the tone and stylistic choices of the narrative voice relate to the subject of the text rather than just assuming the author fucked up his grammar.

[Anonymous No.3373762]

>>3373545

Yep, I made the mistake of reading this article before picking up the book, and now I'm squirming my way through it.

[Anonymous No.3373765]

>>3373740
If you want to read more thorough (though a bit less entertaining) analysis of his style (this time in one of his essays), check out: http://www.languagehat.com/archives/000510.php

[Anonymous No.3373769]

>>3373749

On THIS site? Here on /lit/? Where 95% of the userbase shits on DFW and constantly makes fun of him?

Good call. I can tell you've been here long enough to have things figured out.

[Anonymous No.3373791]

>>3373760

He didn't say Wallace fucked up his grammar, he said he padded out his sentences - clear in that example (irrespective of whether he was justified in doing so on stylistic grounds) and then had the cheek to moan about other people doing the same, and bullshit about latin roots and grammatical errors when he didn't know what he was talking about.

And if Wallace is giving to intellectual disimulation well... I know the word is overused but he really was a pseud. The showy erudition in his work is an end in itself - to create the image of him as incredibly knowledgeable and profound - but if that is what you are aiming to achieve with your learning then it is clear that you're not profound or wise at all.

[Anonymous No.3373800]

>>3373740
>pedantic grammar quibbles
>taking the text at face value
>implying that denotational synonyms necessarily share connotational associations
>outright overlooking the possibility that the prose is written in a stream of consciousness style
>attacking the text via the author
>super lame attempt to drag classism into the argument

you'd think this guy has never read anything written in the 20th century before, the way he clings to outmoded, prescriptivist teleologies of what constitutes 'good' prose or fiction. he's basically making the argument that because he doesn't personally like a particular style of writing, it is objectively bad.

[Anonymous No.3373810]

>>3373791
why do all of your criticisms of the text boil down to your perceptions of the author and his intent?

[Anonymous No.3373817]

>>3373800

Please don't use the quote function like that. It's obnoxious.

[Anonymous No.3373819]

>>3373810

Because art writing is done with intent.

[Anonymous No.3373820]

Anyone who as many hipster fanboys as Wallace does is objectively bad.

[Anonymous No.3373824]

>>3373800
please tell me what 'martial' is supposed to connote that 'militaristic' doesn't

[Anonymous No.3373825]

>>3373820
Oh look, a meta-hipster. Like a normal hipster, but a virgin.

[Anonymous No.3373826]

>>3373800
He wasn't quibbling with the grammar. He was quibbling about Wallace quibbling about other people's grammar.

[Anonymous No.3373828]

>>3373800
What do you mean by "prescriptivist teleologies"?

[Anonymous No.3373833]

>>3373828
That person thinks it is wrong to judge some things to be better than other things.

[Anonymous No.3373842]

The most amusing thing about these threads is that 100 years from now, nobody will have ever even heard of DFW. He probably won't even be a footnote.

[Anonymous No.3373843]

>>3373426

I don't like him for his writing.
I like him for his standards

[Anonymous No.3373850]

>>3373828
that the author of that article seems to believe that a certain style of writing is a better way of advancing towards some undefined universal purpose of prose fiction. ie. the exact thing that authors have been trying to escape since the turn of the 21st century.

[Anonymous No.3373854]

>>3373850
>the 21st century

the 20th century*

[Anonymous No.3373864]

>>3373850
Think you're reading too much into that article, certainly the section quoted in this thread. He was calling Wallace out on being a pseud and hypocrite, with a fair degree of justification afaict. Everyone has values and standards and you apply those when you talk about a piece of work.

[Anonymous No.3373865]

>>3373842
it's obviously hard to predict, but i seriously doubt that. dfw is pretty much the be all of early 21st century occidental fiction.

[Anonymous No.3373874]

>>3373865

Except he wrote in the 20th century, and that statement isn't true at all regardless of that.

I've only heard of DFW being taught once, and it wasn't even any of his literary output, it was that essay about a usage dictionary. No one in academia cares about him, and therefore he will be quickly forgotten by most. I could see him becoming a cult figure, an obscure name a handful of people really like, but he won't be a Figure.

[Anonymous No.3373881]

>>3373864
wallace actually addresses these issues of authenticity and multiplicity of self in his fiction. they are some of his most prominent thematic concerns. see 'good old neon' for instance. dfw examines himself more thoroughly than anyone else possibly could.

[Anonymous No.3373891]

>>3373874
>No one in academia cares about him,

Not even the literati care about him. I work in a bookstore and I have friends who work in libraries, and /lit/ is the only place where I still here DFW mentioned.

Seriously, this is like DFW's last stronghold. Fucking 4chan's lit board. Oh, God. Haha.

[Anonymous No.3373913]

>>3373881

>dfw examines himself more thoroughly than anyone else possibly could.

I'd say he analysed himself continually but far from thoroughly. Morbid self-fascination does not equate to or necessarily produce self-knowledge.

[Anonymous No.3373914]

>>3373891
sounds like you are just out of touch. he's a best seller, lionised by his peers, and universally loved by critics (with one prominent exception - you know who i mean). the pale king's release got more media attention than any remotely 'literary' novel has in years, and that's just in the uk, where i live. contemporary literary fiction is a very niche market so i don't doubt that you infrequently hear the name dfw mentioned in real life, but in my experience the people who are into that sort of thing tend to love him. apart from bloom, i've never encountered a dfw hater except on /lit/.

[Anonymous No.3373918]

>>3373913
you sound like you haven't read much of his work, if any of it. sorry to be dismissive, but that's what it sounds like.

[Anonymous No.3373925]

>>3373918

I've read parts of infinite jest and the early stuff, not the pale king.

>dfw examines himself more thoroughly than anyone else possibly could.

You sound like a star struck fan. Than anyone possibly could..

I mean: Nietzsche, Jung, Rousseau, Montaigne, Augustine...

[Anonymous No.3373934]

>>3373914
They must still think he's chic and cool over there, because everyone is pretty much over him, here.

And what are you talking about that critics adore him? I've never seen a critic praise DFW. In fact, they all seem to admonish him for writing a really lengthy turd of a book: " If Mr. Wallace were less talented, you would be inclined to shoot him -- or possibly yourself -- somewhere right around page 480 of ''Infinite Jest.'' In fact, you might anyway. Alternately tedious and effulgent, ''Infinite Jest'' is set in the near future..."

[Anonymous No.3373954]

>>3373934
Haha, of course you leave out the fact that that was written by a friend of BEE...

[Anonymous No.3373982]

>>3373954
I picked a random review. Give me one that speaks favorably of Infinite Jest.

[Anonymous No.3374017]

I worked at a Borders Books in Chicago in the 90's when IJ came out and EVERYONE that worked there LOLed the whole time over that book.Everyone saw him as Mr. Tryhard, a pathetic dweeb of DNA.

[Anonymous No.3374031]

>>3374017
Yeah, same sort of thing here. A few of my friends took up the book as if it was an honored challenge and would tell everyone updates about which page they were on this week, but nobody else really cared (nor cared to hear about the page number updates). A few years ago, one of those friends told me he never finished it, and I suspect the others didn't either. He said something that made me laugh out loud: "it's not hard to read. It's just that after a while it's hard to take seriously."

[Anonymous No.3374042]

>>3374017
>>3374031
You're not fooling anyone, mate.

[Anonymous No.3374060]

>>3374042
He fooled me.

[Anonymous No.3374062]

>>3374042
I know honesty is rare on the internet, but it does exist. Have a nice day.

[Namefaggotry No.3374307]

>>3373769
I'd say the DFW opinion here is 50/50.

What none of these negative reviews/opinions ever seem to address is how funny IJ is. It may be too tryhard for people but if you like DFW and you find him amusing then reading IJ is totally enjoyable.

And yes, he was a hypocrite about word use, but who cares.

[Anonymous No.3374450]

I don't think you can say that DFW has no talent... some of his descriptions of the addicts in IJ are particularly well written. I don't understand why people think the book is hard to read, it is written in a very direct way.

Anyone who has read other postmodernist fiction should have no trouble keeping up with the multitude of characters. His writing is very entertaining, but not objectively good. It is slightly above average, IMO. With IJ, the point was to show the destructive nature of being Amused to Death, and I think his book is a meta-commentary on that, especially with the filmography.

The talent is not necesarily in the prose, but rather in the concept and the way all the characters tie together (think Ironweed). It is also a very humorous book, and people laud Vonnegut for his weird and hilarious stories. I think that a sort of hipster anti-hate (looking at you Bret Ellis, your styles can be similar at times) has evolved, primarily because of the length of the novel. It's cool to hate on IJ and DFW. The difference between Vonnegut and DFW is where KV was being sincere, people perceive DFW as being pretentious, whereas both novelists write in an understandable, if eclectic fashion.

Now, DFW is not even in the same ballpark as guys like Pynchon and Joyce, but he was one of the best writers of his generation, what with all these Dan Browns and Meyers and EL Jameses becoming famous nowadays. Pynchon and Joyce are MLB, where DFW is Single-A ball, but everyone else is stuck in tee ball, which makes him special. He looks better than he is because his contemporaries are largely terrible (hot girl with fat friends). This doesn't change the fact that he is a solid writer, but I think that the problem people have is that everyone seems to think he is better than what he was trying to be, especially with all his fanboys who have never read Ulysses or GR hoisting him up as the 2nd coming of Christ. The problem isn't the writer, it is the society around him.

[Anonymous No.3374463]

>>3374450
i can't believe i got to the end of this post without vomiting my entire gastrointestinal tract

[Anonymous No.3374468]

>>3373528
>implying the Yale School was worth a shit

[Anonymous No.3374469]

>>3373543
>DFW
>ironic
lel

[DerKönig No.3374472]

>>3373545
Excellent work, saboteur. Now the attention will be focused on that ridiculous article!

[Der König No.3374480]

>>3373711
>makes the modern mistake of confusing youth with relevance

Commercial appeal is what means the most!

[Anonymous No.3374497]

Why are people still going on about IJ? His nonfic was much better.

[Der König No.3374507]

>>3373925
>You sound like a star struck fan

Nail on the head.

[Anonymous No.3374514]

>>3374042
Are you one of those people who thinks nobody heard of Infinite Jest before the an hero?

[Anonymous No.3374520]

If only I had heard This Is Water when I graduated, things would be different.

[Anonymous No.3374532]

>>3374497
Not really, see: http://www.languagehat.com/archives/000510.php

[Anonymous No.3374573]

>>3374532
>>Norm-wise, let's keep in mind that language didn't come into being because our hairy ancestors were sitting around the veldt with nothing better to do. Language was invented to serve certain specific purposes: "That mushroom is poisonous"; "Knock these two rocks together and you can start a fire"; "This shelter is mine!"
>Need I point out that David Foster Wallace has not the faintest idea how language came into being (nor does anybody else)?
get a load of this nerd, stopped reading there
why don't you shovel this juvenile bs back up to where it fell from

[Anonymous No.3374634]

>>3374573
>>3374626
does DFW's corpse's nutsack taste like cookies

[Anonymous No.3374646]

>>3374573
>dear mister i'm too good to call or write my fans.

You're so obsessed. It's kind of frightening.

[Anonymous No.3374659]

>>3374634
>>3374646
who the FUCK??? do you think u are talking to me like that

[Anonymous No.3374707]

>>3373791
>and then
nope. that video of wallace complaining was in his pre-rehab transformation days, before he'd written IJ. Incidentally, the 'new' wallace grew to hate who he was in that video

[Anonymous No.3374716]

Infinite Jest is supposed to be egalitarian, accessible. Therefore the prose and even the literary quality suffers, but not at the expense of what he intends to (and successfully does) portray: a humanist, empathetic view of American culture and personality-or lack thereof- in an insanely technologically advanced setting.

Sure the prose isn't anything noteworthy and DFW shows his autism here and there (or I guess asperger's because Autism actually connotes an IQ deficit rather than what some people assume) but it's humorous, and sad, and a legitimately enjoyable read.

I feel for DFW because having read his essays I know he's an utterly BRILLIANT guy, he just may not be the writer people credit him for being. And because of the critical acclaim he has received, people are often left underwhelmed after reading his books.

If more people approached IJ and his other works as they did any other book, we'd hear far less of this "lol why is DFW so critically acclaimed this book totes suxxxxx"

[Anonymous No.3374723]

>>3374707
That does make a difference, though I wouldn't expect the author of that article to be aware that particular biographical detail

[Anonymous No.3374734]

>But Stephen King is Cervantes compared with David Foster Wallace

[Anonymous No.3374736]

>>3374307
I think 'tryhard' is the kind of ironic tendency towards dissociation that dfw tried to fight with IJ

[Anonymous No.3374743]

>>3374450
I agree with you. I just felt I should post it because of >>3374463

[Anonymous No.3374753]

>>3373543

This. Agreed.

Real men write actual stories, aren't afraid to appear "simple", and aren't afraid to write something worth reading.

Hemingway.

What's Bloom's opinion of this great man?

[Anonymous No.3374769]

>>3374753
>Dr. Seuss was a real man because he wasn't afraid to appear simple, and wasn't afraid to write something worth reading.

Oh god, not another Hemingway cocksucker.

[Anonymous No.3374777]

>>3374753
for the record, DFW hated irony, and hated how people falsely read his works as ironic.

[Anonymous No.3374779]

>>3374753
Weird. I think DFW and Hemmingway are both sub par. Hemmingway is better than DFW though.

[Anonymous No.3374782]

This thread is like one of those youtube arguments about Pewdiepie.

[Anonymous No.3374785]

>>3374573
>"That mushroom is poisonous";

DFW confirmed for knowing shit.

[Anonymous No.3374793]

>>3374716

I know you mean well but....

>Infinite Jest is supposed to be egalitarian, accessible.

Not really, it was supposed to be HARD. It was supposed to difficult, but worth the effort. Wallace wanted to write something that deliberately wasn't as accessible as a dumb TV show or fiction best seller.

>Therefore the prose and even the literary quality suffers, but not at the expense of what he intends to (and successfully does) portray: a humanist, empathetic view of American culture and personality-or lack thereof- in an insanely technologically advanced setting.

Have you READ Infinite Jest? The prose does not suffer and its literary qualities are numerous. And what "insanely technologically advanced setting" are you talking about? The world in IJ where they still use VHS?

>I feel for DFW because having read his essays I know he's an utterly BRILLIANT guy

Except his novels are his best writing. Novels > Non-fiction > Shorts. His non-fiction can be very entertaining but it often becomes about him in an invasive way or its trying too hard to be academic.

[Anonymous No.3374802]

>>3374793
I am the guy who wrote that post.

I know you mean well but, if David Foster Wallace wrote the book to be "HARD... difficult but worth the effort" then he failed.

I am 450 pages in and this book, while intelligent, is hardly the 'alien spaceship' that faggot in the prologue called it.

[Anonymous No.3374819]

>>3374769

Hemingway was deep but with a simple style, so the depths would show; or rather, that you'd have to go for it, personally.

>>3374777

Good to know.

>>3374779

>Hemmingway

If you can't spell his name, you must not be familiar enough with him to even have an opinion about his writing.

I doubt you read Hemingway the way it requires being read.

[Anonymous No.3374825]

>>3374802

I'd agree, though that WAS Wallace's stated intention.

".... in this I wanted to do something that is real experimental and very strange, but also *fun*."

"I think one of the insidious lessons about TV is the meta-lesson that you're dumb. This is all you can do. This is easy, and you're the sort of person who really just wants to sit in a chair and have it easy.... But I think what we need is seriously engaged art that can teach again that we're smart.... Which is tricky, because you want to seduce the reader, but you don't want to pander or manipulate them. I mean, a good book teaches the reader how to read it."

IJ isn't difficult. All it requires is patience.

[Anonymous No.3374831]

>>3374819

>If you can't spell his name, you must not be familiar enough with him to even have an opinion about his writing

What a daft, pompous thing to say!

[Anonymous No.3374840]

>>3374819
>he doesn't spell Hemmingway with two m's!

[Anonymous No.3374863]

>>3374819
I don't think there's any remarkable depth in Hemingway at all. He was an excellent stylist and it is only on that count that his take on human interaction is in any way tolerable. Both him and DFW seemed incapable of getting their idea of what a Writer is get out of the way long enough to make any headway into depth. Thus Hemingway's manicured style, DFW's overblown erudition - this is the desire for art misdirected, fetishised.

[Anonymous No.3374864]

>>3374753

'Real men write actual stories'.

The worst thing is, I can tell you're being sincere . The future of literature doesn't lie in the appropriation of archaic, and illusory, notions of masculinity. Using a vintage razor, foregoing social media and preferring a 'short back and sides' won't revivify the literary enterprise. Foster-Wallace said, in a 'Bookworm' interview on KCRW [2000], that he - and his contemporaries - would love to 'write like Dostoevsky' or Hemingway, or Walter Scott, or Robert Louis Stevenson, etc. but they can't. If you've ever tried to write, you'd know why.

[Anonymous No.3374892]

>>3374863

Have you read In Our Time? You don't seem to have. I don't personally enjoy his later novels or even stories, but In Our Time and The Sun Also Rises are true classics.

[Anonymous No.3374897]

>>3374864
>The future of literature doesn't lie in the appropriation of archaic, and illusory, notions of masculinity.

You've never read Hemingway if you confuse his "macho image" with his writing. Hemingway wrote characters who were more gender-bending than your mom and her cock.

[Anonymous No.3374902]

>>3374863
>DFW's overblown erudition

You know his "overblown erudition" was more about how Wallace perceived the world than any "oh, this will seem so clever and artsy," kind of thinking, right?

[Anonymous No.3374911]

>>3374864

You don't know what a real man is, child. I hope one day you go through some shit and acquire experience, and realise you were all wrong when you were younger.

Happened to me the hard way, then I learned.

These notions of masculinity aren't archaic or illusory: they're only the worst enemy of fags, women, and cowards.

Not even ashamed to be a straight man.

[Anonymous No.3374913]

>>3374892
I've not read either of those. Did men without women, Farewell to arms, for whom the bell tolls and old man and the sea and gave up. Is there anything significantly different about the two you've mentioned compared to those>

[Anonymous No.3374916]

>>3374902

No, Wallace honestly thought he was being a "great writer" by doing that.

[Anonymous No.3374920]

>>3374911
>they're only the worst enemy of fags, women, and cowards.

Take some 12 gauge aspirin and calm down gramps.

[Anonymous No.3374922]

>>3374913

Is there anything significantly different? Let's see... I'm a huge Hemingway fan, and I hated Farewell to Arms for most of it. Bell was OK, and Old Man and Sea was OK, but I'd not recommend them.

In Our Time is my fucking favourite and I think Hemingway's best book, also his first. Sun is his best novel, also his first novel.

Those two have more depths than anything he wrote later on.

I'd also recommend A Moveable Feast, for what it's worth.

And Death in the Afternoon, if you're into bullfighting OR NOT. Hemingway was all about death. Few people seem to realise his writings are way darker than anything Poe wrote.

I really recommend In Our Time, and be aware of the Iceberg Theory when you read. His style goes with the content.

>Soldier's Home

I still read this every now and then. I worship this story.

[Anonymous No.3374926]

>>3374897

I'm not responding to Hemingway, I'm responding to a typical 4chan user who thinks that 'masculinity's' an ideal. It's false. A 'real man' wouldn't need a concept woven together from a few anecdotal strands of biography to idealise.

[Anonymous No.3374930]

>>3374920

Unfortunately for you, you're older than me, and your generation is a failure. You fail to attract women, you fail to defend yourself against other males. You have nothing to say, nothing to teach, no opinions, and you will be no great loss.

[Anonymous No.3374932]

>>3374902
It seemed to be more about letting on how many books he'd read so people would take him seriously. Perhaps I'm being unfair. Still, art imitates life and life simply isn't fair.

[Anonymous No.3374934]

>>3374926

>real man

That used to mean something positive back when we weren't feminised. Now it just means negative things.

A real man was someone who was honest, had courage, and worked hard, also respected women and his mother, and took care of his people.

Now it's just a word used by feminists and homos to shit on men as a whole.

Traitor.

[Anonymous No.3374938]

>>3374932

Wallace was a try-hard.

Why the fucking bandana?

>to try real fucking hard
>look at me, I'm the Axl Rose of literature
>welcome to the jungle...
>kill myself like Cobain because I want to be a legend and not get old

Ridiculous antics.

[Anonymous No.3374941]

>>3374930

Nope, nope, nope and nope, son. Do you have a small chode per chance?

[Anonymous No.3374943]

>>3374941

8 inches.

[Anonymous No.3374946]

>>3374938

He was self conscious about his sweating.

[Anonymous No.3374951]

>>3374932

Hmm, I think that's only Wallace's early stuff, and even then maybe only GWCH (which is probably his worst book because that one IS just "let me show everyone how smart I am.") Even Broom wasn't so bad on that front.

[Anonymous No.3374953]

>>3374946

And?

He was self-conscious about "sweating" but not about looking like a moron?

[Anonymous No.3374955]

>>3374930

How old is you anyway? I'm guessing 24 now innit?

[Anonymous No.3374956]

>>3374953

It was the 90s everyone looked like a moron.

[Anonymous No.3374960]

>>3374953

DFW even went so far as to carry a tennis racquet around with him to add to the I-just-got-off-the-court-so-of-course-I'm-sweaty image he tried to project to cover for his excessive sweating.

So obviously it was a bigger concern that looking douchey.

[Anonymous No.3374962]

>>3374922
OK thanks. I'll keep an eye out for those when book shopping. It has been a good few years since I tried him and he probably does deserve another go.

[Anonymous No.3374971]

>>3374934

I wouldn't reply if I didn't know, absolutely know, that this was - at core - how you actually think. Anyway, like all essentialist beliefs, it's nothing more than a pleasant delusion. If you want to chop down trees, grow a beard, read minimalist literature, scowl at homosexuals, affect a gruff timbre, eat red meat exclusively, make heroes of caricatures, loudly decry declining standards of female propriety, etc. then you can be my guest. However, the suggestion that these personal preferences somehow relate to aesthetic value is plain stupid.

Byron and Baudelaire are feminine as hell, both are vastly superior to Hemingway.

[Anonymous No.3374975]

>>3374943
My apologies. That is a hefty size piece of meat. Do you wear a leather jacket and/or grease back your hair?

[Anonymous No.3374976]

>>3374962

I taught this book in class, trust me, it's deeper than it looks, but you have to look for it. Not a puzzle or anything, though.

"This is a story about the war, but the war's not in it."

This is the sort of stuff you have to expect from Hemingway, but it has its merit.

Big Two-Hearted River is that story. Hemingway never dropped names and such, was against it, so see his style as humility, but for lofty ambitions. And it worked.

[Anonymous No.3374980]

>>3374971
>Byron and Baudelaire are feminine as hell,

Wrong and wrong. Both were men through and through. You can't judge someone by how they looked, for fuck's sake.

Your descriptions are retarded.

>essentialism

Who told you about this? I never mentioned that, you fucking moron. Are you aware Hemingway was probably gay? Are you one of these morons who think homos can't be manly?I pity you. Talk of essentialism, then say this shit? You're pathetic. You'll never be a real man if you continue being a whiny liberal arts student with nothing to offer but summaries of what you're taught at university.

Grow the fuck up.

[Anonymous No.3374982]

>>3374975

Fake leather, yes. Hair isn't greased. Thanks for the kind words.

[Anonymous No.3374984]

>>3374980
are you serious about this real man schtick
masculine and feminine are just two ends of a spectrum, one isn't inherently better than the other

[Anonymous No.3374988]

>>3374980
Byron was an enormous faggot m8. Not a "flowery shirt" faggot either, but one of those "another man's cock in the rectum" faggots.

[Anonymous No.3374997]

>>3374984
>masculine and feminine are just two ends of a spectrum, one isn't inherently better than the other

All my rage.

>>3374988

>implying you can't love the cock AND be manly

[Anonymous No.3374994]

>>3374980
My apologies. I read the rest of your post. So gays are OK as long as they're not faggots?

[Anonymous No.3374999]

Everyone should be manly. Especially the women.

[Anonymous No.3375002]

>>3374994

>gays are OK

This is why I resent the 21st century: everyone suspects everyone else to be a homophobe/racist/sexist. Leave me the fuck alone you witch-hunter. Homos, niggers, and whores aren't as clingy and annoying as straight white men when it comes to any of these issues.

Being a real man doesn't mean being straight, for fuck's sake. Am I discussing with teenage boys?

[Anonymous No.3375005]

>>3374997
okay care to explain to me how masculinity is better then?

[Anonymous No.3375009]

>>3374980

Jesus, university taught me that there's nothing valuable to be derived from literary discussions which centre on the biography of writers. When I say that they're 'feminine', I mean their writing style was typically 'feminine'.

"My brain', as Byron wrote to John Murray, "is feminine".

I can't possibly have a discussion with someone whose citations are limited to Wikipedia, Art of Manliness and, Jesus Christ, 'the school of hard knocks'.

[Anonymous No.3375020]

>>3375005
>okay care to explain to me how masculinity is better then?

Didn't think I could rage more... I was raging because you assumed I assumed "one was better", precisely.

You must be a fucking woman, there's no fucking way...

[Anonymous No.3375026]

>>3375020
I just don't really know what you mean by 'real man,' you keep saying what it isn't and not what it is
obviously I've misread something somewhere

[Anonymous No.3375027]

>>3375009
>university taught me that there's nothing valuable to be derived from literary discussions which centre on the biography of writers

Wonder what shit school you went to.

>2013
>still believe in structuralism

And then you say writing styles can be feminine, yet resent saying men and women are either masculine or feminine.

Just for the lols, write me a "feminine" sentence.

Also, I hope you're aware all ad hominems eventually end up in your ass right after you die. Brace for galagtic sodomy.

[Anonymous No.3375031]

>>3375002
lay off the paranoia you crazy cunt. i'm not witchunting you. I couldn't give a toss whether you're "onside" I was just curious to get a handle on what you think. i'm not a liberal m8, but from the tone of your rhetoric i assumed you were a tiresome snail-conservative type. But if you throw words like "faggot" about as heavily as you do don't throw a strop when people take you for being that. You're not coming across as particularly manly here. More a self-righteous adolescent spoiling for a fight so he can prove himself.

[Anonymous No.3375033]

>>3375026

My point is, precisely, nobody knows anymore because we act like it never existed. A real man is basically what we now call a "great man". You weren't considered a man if you acted like a piece of shit, in the past. Now everyone feels entitled to be considered a man.

[Anonymous No.3375035]

>>3375020

I'm not the poster you're responding to, but your definition of masculinity is ethically laudatory:

"['masculine men were]... honest, had courage, and worked hard, also respected women and his mother, and took care of his people."

And manifestly based upon opposition to a possessed, feminine 'other'.

[Anonymous No.3375048]

>>3375033
see this is a bit of a different argument
for example, my father was masculine as hell but he was a piece of shit
by your definition he wasn't a 'real man' and I'd agree with that
it's just that decrying a loss of masculinity at the expense of femininity implies that there's something inherently wrong with femininity which basically writes off all women as bad people

[Anonymous No.3375052]

>>3375048
I'd be inclined to write off all women as women to be honest.

[Anonymous No.3375064]

Real man's man: when I (a biological male) wear dresses and make up and take drugs and dance effeminately, alone, to contact the spirits am I transgressing against your value standards?

[Anonymous No.3375085]

Oh he's fucked off.

They broke the mould. We shan't be seeing his like again...

[Anonymous No.3375086]

>>3375064
Yes.
The tree still makes a sound.

[Anonymous No.3375102]

>>3375064

No. I'd wonder what the fuck you were doing, though.

[Anonymous No.3375106]

>>3375086
i think your standards are squiffed.

[Anonymous No.3375118]

>>3375086
>>3375102
Which one of you is the Real Man and which the Unreal Man?

[Anonymous No.3375127]

>>3375118

A real man is a man who isn't ashamed of being a man, and isn't ashamed of defending traditionally male values, such as honor, courage, protecting women and children, etc.

[Anonymous No.3375143]

>>3375127

Should women try to be real men?

[Anonymous No.3375151]

>>3375127
I'm not ashamed of any of those, but i don't do them much. I never have call to. And I'm not ashamed about that. Am I an Unreal Man?

[Anonymous No.3375153]

>>3375127
>traditionally

ew past fetishism

[Anonymous No.3375156]

>>3375143

No.

>>3375151

Yes.

>>3375153

Eat shit.

[Anonymous No.3375165]

>>3375156

You don't think women should be honorable, courageous, or protective?

[Anonymous No.3375168]

>>3375156

I like the idea of being an unreal man. I'm kind of girly anway, have a girly part to my mind at least, there's something slippery and sneaky and, ifnot evil, at least amoral about my ideal.

Would probably take you in fight though. I am a scrappy faggot and I bite.

Pls respond.

Kthnxbai.

[Anonymous No.3375185]

>>3375165

Of course I do, but they can't be (judged) on the same parameters that are applied to men; we aren't judged the same way for the same things.

[Anonymous No.3375188]

>>3375168

I'll take you in a fight, no problem.

Then I'll fuck you so hard you'll call me mister.

[Anonymous No.3375192]

>>3375185

>Of course I do

Then how would they not be real men?

[Anonymous No.3375197]

>>3374941

>Claims that our idea of masculinity is archaic and illusory

>Attempts to denigrate someone by saying they have a small penis

[Anonymous No.3375233]

>>3375188

Maybe, maybe not.

I don't know how good at fighting you are, hence my "probably".

You don;t know how good I am, yet you say "no problem."

Hubris and overconfidence are not a sign of fake manliness in my experience.

What do you bench?

Post pics of Ferrari keys plz.

[Anonymous No.3375235]

>>3375233
*are a sign of fake maliness

[Anonymous No.3375239]

>>3375197
>assumes that different posts are by the same anon

[Anonymous No.3375258]

I've never read DFW, because every time I've touched IJ the stale reek of self-regarding pseudyness made me drop it immediately. The book is a brick; the writing affected and tedious.

[Anonymous No.3375285]

Sweet Jesus, /lit/. Why is this the only place in the world still talking about David Foster Wallace?

[Anonymous No.3375295]

>>3375285
Yeah, even Slate stopped.

[craig No.3375378]

>>3373760

This. There were tons of spelling and grammar mistakes meant to reflect on who the "main" character was during that certain section of the book.

[Anonymous No.3375382]

>>3375378
>it's intentionally shitty

I'm really tired of hearing this excuse.

[Anonymous No.3375388]

>>3373399
DFW was a good journalist. His novel sucked.

/thread

[craig No.3375396]

>>3375382

It's not an excuse. When he's on a "Gately" section he purposefully makes spelling and grammatical errors because Gately is a recovering drug addict who dropped out of high school. He uses the word "omnissent" instead of "omnicient". Don't be upset that you read at the level of a 9 year old

[Anonymous No.3375422]

>>3373399
>Harold Bloom

Those who cannot create, criticize.

[Anonymous No.3375434]

Why is Harold Bloom such a curmudgeon?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWi0AMyniYc

>mfw the amount of spaghetti all over this interview

[Anonymous No.3375452]

>>3375434

Oh, I remember listening to this whole thing before Christmas! The interview's over an hour long, but it could easily be reduced to thirty minutes if all of the awkward chatter was cut.

[Anonymous No.3375468]

>>3375434
>>3375452

Oh come on, I think he's charming. And I'm one to deride Bloom more than most.

[Anonymous No.3375478]

>>3375434
The interviewer sounds like a gay Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is absolutely unwatchable.

[Anonymous No.3375502]

>>3375422
I am completely strange to this thread, dont even know who that guy is, but your fucking phrase is so painfully wrong that I had to write back. That phrase is only seen in the mouth of those who can't create and need to be told what to do. The critique is the real creator; explicit proposals and step-by-step programs are for the feeble minded.

[Anonymous No.3375690]

>>3375396

Never read the book, but tell me this: is the narrative in the first person?

[Anonymous No.3375693]

>>3375422

Some of those who cannot create write infinite jests.

[Anonymous No.3375707]

>>3375502

That was the shittiest piece of writing I have ever witnessed. Are you even trying?

>I am completely strange to this thread
>completely strange
>strange

You sure are strange.

> but your fucking phrase is so painfully wrong that I had to write back

Are you kidding, you fucker?

> The critique is the real creator

You're beyond repair.

[craig No.3375715]

>>3375690

No but he changes the way he writes to reflect the way the character thinks

[Anonymous No.3375725]

>>3375715

OK. So the character has dyslexia. Or some other thing.

What I dislike with post-modernism is this idea that doing this sort of stuff is anything fresh, smart, or anything. It's mildly amusing, but beyond that, not much.

[craig No.3375741]

>>3375725

ok? so you don't like it? cool. that doesn't mean that IJ isn't a great novel because you personally don't think that style of writing does anything more than "mildly amuse".

[Anonymous No.3375745]

>>3375725

Why do you feel the need to bag everything into a single box/movement. There are numerous writting techniques and multiple way to use them. Does it so much threaten you that IJ might be an original and creative peice of writting?

[Anonymous No.3375746]

>>3375741

But maybe I'll want some "mildly amuse", bro.

[Anonymous No.3375755]

>>3375745

It doesn't threaten me at all. I've tried Pynchon before. I'm just not impressed by technical prowesses. It's like typing with your dick: it's sort of impressive if you want it to be, but pointless. It's "mildly amuse", though.

>prefer reading Dick over Wallace
>at least there's a story and the author isn't in the way of everything

[Anonymous No.3375771]

>>3375755

But Pynchon is not style over substance. if you constantly read a book focusing only on the technique and the message/ meaning parts of it convey. I never felt that, especialy Pynchon had the intention to "amuse" the reader with his style or format and I deifinitely understood the seriousness of his ideas.

[Anonymous No.3375772]

>>3375745
Woah, woah. People don't actually think any of the techniques used in Infinite Jest are original, do they? Even Robbe-Grillet had footnotes as his bitch long before Captain soft-spoken put his chubby little fingers all over them.

[Anonymous No.3375781]

>>3375502
Literature Studies student detected.

[craig No.3375791]

>>3375746

i didn't use that as a noun. learn to read

[Anonymous No.3375856]

>>3373545
Okay, totally unrelated to the Infinite Jest discussion;

This article reads like a forum post from a parallel universe where people have internet flame wars over whether or not to do drugs. I mean infinite jest is whatever but why does the author act like Wallace's greatest sin is portraying heroin addiction as a bad thing? Why does he care so much about Wallace making errors in describing types of drugs? Why does he spend half the article talking about completely different books that also make the case that heroin is bad? Is there like an internet heroin defense force? Is it like a brand loyalty thing? Does this guy get this mad when watching cop shows and action movies where the bad guys do heroin? How is it possible to feel so strongly about people being ignorant about drugs?

Basically I feel like there's a much more interesting article here that the author or his editor decided at the last minute to hammer into being about David Foster Wallace instead of how rad heroin is and how dumb pretentious authors always fuck it up by acting like heroin is bad

[Anonymous No.3375865]

>>3375856
Because Ramon Glazov is an idiot & the Exiled (as much as I love the non-Glazov parts of it) is a weird entity

[Anonymous No.3375883]

>>3375856
>This article reads like a forum post from a parallel universe where people have internet flame wars over whether or not to do drugs

I'm pretty sure /r9k/ is in our universe.

[Anonymous No.3375939]

>>3375856
> critiquing an article without knowing who the author is
>reading the article as one would read for plot
>not looking further to find a theory behind the critique and deeper insight into the mind

[Anonymous No.3375950]

>>3375939

[Anonymous No.3376134]

>>3374782
Pewdiepie is the voice of his generation. You know this to be true.

I am not shitposting, nor am I being ironic.

[Anonymous No.3376147]

>>3374892
The Sun Also Rises has exactly 666 customer reviews on Amazon...

http://www.amazon.com/The-Also-Rises-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/0743297334/ref=reg_hu-rd_add_1_dp


Coincidence?

[Anonymous No.3376556]

>>3376134
I've never heard of him

[Anonymous No.3376786]

>>3375434
That interviewer is terrible. Harold Bloom does an admirable job of responding intelligently to profoundly unintelligent questions.

[Anonymous No.3376793]

>>3376556
Look at this pleb.

[Anonymous No.3376794]

>>3376786

I don't think an intelligent word has ever left Harold Bloom's mouth

[Anonymous No.3376804]

>>3376794
You're an idiot.

[Anonymous No.3376807]

>>3376804
He's being hyperbolic for effect, obviously.

[Anonymous No.3376914]

>>3375755
>I'm just not impressed by technical prowesses.
It's not technical prowess, it's bad editing. (Some people like that kind of style.)

[Anonymous No.3377124]

>>3374450
I disagree with this. There were just as many shit writers in Joyce and Pynchon's day. People have just forgotten about them. In their day they were lauded far above Joyce & Pynchon put together and multiplied to infinity.

[Anonymous No.3377426]

>>3375771

Makes me want to try Pynchon again; I only read 150 pages of GR when I was half asleep...

[Anonymous No.3377432]

>>3375791

I read, and you wrote "amuse" instead of "amusing".

Learn to write before you ask others to learn to read, dumbass.

[Anonymous No.3377441]

>but who has a new book out, “The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel,” put together from manuscript chapters and files found in his computer,

OH GOD I hope nobody ever does that to me.
I'd hate them for it.

[Anonymous No.3377500]

>>3377124
Shut up, you're just as wrong as that guyu

[Anonymous No.3377504]

>>3377441
All you have to do is not be an idiot and burn/delete that shit before hanging yourself.

And by the way you couldn't hate them for it because you're dead

[Anonymous No.3377552]

Even James Wood, who is as staunch a classicist as Bloom and gave IJ a negative review upon its release, conceded that Wallace was a unique and important talent. Then again James Wood is actually a good critic.

>>3373843
The vacuity of his writings expose that his standards are based on bullshit.

[Anonymous No.3377558]

>>3377552
>James Wood is actually a good critic.

Harold Bloom certainly doiesn't think so!!!

[Anonymous No.3377780]

Question to all: is it necessary to be a good writer to criticise other writers?

[Anonymous No.3377844]

>>3377780
No.

[Anonymous No.3377864]

>>3377780
In fact, a lot of good writers are terrible at criticizing other writers

[Anonymous No.3377923]

>>3374953
>>3374960
wow, just remembered the "sweat guy" in the pale king.
Such intimacy and bond between reader and writer is ridiculously rare in modern novels.

Give the guy a break. Why is it so important to qualiy him as "utter shit if he isn't "brilliant".
Amongst the last 30 years worth of novels, he definitely belongs to the top of the bag. (personal opinion)

[Anonymous No.3377966]

>>3377864

And vice-versa?

[Anonymous No.3377970]

>>3377923

People just get upset that Wallace is all everyone talks about on /lit/. I personally never read anything by him, but consider trying.

[Anonymous No.3378761]

mfw i was the first to post this on /lit/

tfw still gets so many replies