/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5872779]

Do people here sincerely think Tao Lin is a hack?

I think he's experimental, but not without substance, he's referencing elements of life that others don't write about, and rather than most postmodern wankers who endlessly deconstruct everything he merely observes and goes with it. His Twitter antics may seem obnoxious but what he's doing there, in a way, is not thinking, exposing himself. His stuff is intuitive rather than constructed. I'm not saying he's a genius but do you really think the guy has no merit?

>inb4 go to bed Tao
Really interested what you (especially those who read him) think about it

[Anonymous No.5872785]

>>5872779
Just read shit from the archive. There are chumps who agree with you. fuuka.warosu.org/lit/, if you didn't know it already.

[Anonymous No.5872796]

>>5872785
Not him but why is the /lit/ archive called "Fuuka Wosaru"

[Anonymous No.5872797]

>>5872779
I personally think the infamy he has on /lit/ is purely down to envy. He's one of the most talented writers in the past ten years, in my opinion. Taipei was terrible, though. I'm basing this entirely on Richard Yates & Shoplifting.

[Anonymous No.5872801]

17 year olds dude

[Anonymous No.5872820]

Self promotional bump

[Anonymous No.5872824]

>>5872796
How'bout y'open it 'n' find out?

[Anonymous No.5872826]

He's a mediocre writer. Every book until Taipei (excluding one or two stories in Bed) were written so he wouldn't have to get a job. They have no artistic merit and are written to appeal to a fanclub of immature tumblrfags

[Anonymous No.5872840]

>>5872820
That's an accurate definition of Tao Lin's career

[Anonymous No.5872847]

>>5872797
But Shoplifting is appallingly bad.

It's an online article which he expanded for the sake of making it into a novella.

It's retarded and is written by a retard.

"He sat on the sofa. He drank a red drink. He grinned while drinking the red"

Ohmygosh so profound

[Anonymous No.5872860]

I love how all the flak Tao gets is mostly in the same vein as what people used to say about the beatniks, Goethe and Shakespeare

[o !!r3+23beQiOG No.5872862]

>>5872779

he whips up some very powerful, somewhat intimidating prose every know and then; which alone makes him ok in my book. I can give this as an example, I guess:

>Daniel arrived with his friend Fran, 22, whose intriguing gaze, Paul noticed with interest, seemed both disbelieving and transfixed in discernment, as if meticulously studying what she knew she was hallucinating

I can't praise him much for his observational skills, but he's good enough.

[Anonymous No.5872864]

>>5872847
>It's an online article which he expanded for the sake of making it into a novella.
>not seeing the genius in the very act of doing that

[Anonymous No.5872870]

“A deadpan literary trickster.”
—New York Times

“A revolutionary.”
—The Stranger

“Fascinating and articulate in a way that people my age (incl. um, like,
you know, myself) rarely are.”
—Emily Gould

[Anonymous No.5872876]

>>5872864
>Modern art
>Genius

Retard alert! Retard alert!

[Anonymous No.5872879]

“Tao Lin’s sly, forlorn, deadpan humor jumps off the page . . . his prose
retains the energy of an outlaw [ . . . ] will delight fans of everyone from
Mark Twain to Michelle Tea.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“Prodigal, unpredictable . . . impossible to ignore.”
—Paste Magazine

“A master of understatement–or, rather, of statement.”
—Vice Magazine

“Very Funny.”
—USA Today

[Anonymous No.5872883]

>>5872876
Lol dude you sound autistic.

[Anonymous No.5872884]

>>5872864
>genius
>money-making scam

Lrn2differentiate newbie

Tao Lin is a scam artist, just like his fraud of a father

[Anonymous No.5872886]

>>5872883
Ha-ha!

[Anonymous No.5872890]

>>5872886
>>5872884
>being this jelly

[Anonymous No.5872898]

>>5872890
Epic brother

[Anonymous No.5872915]

Taipei was interesting at points and I did enjoy it overall but all its intimate moments seemed pseudo-profound. Which, while maybe the point in the earlier instances of that in the book, still seems the case with the supposed ephiphantic ending Tao slaps onto it.

[o !!r3+23beQiOG No.5872921]

>>5872862

>On the plane, after a cup of black coffee, Paul thought of Taipei as a fifth season, or ‘otherworld,’ outside, or in equal contrast with, his increasingly familiar and self-consciously repetitive life in America, where it seemed like the seasons, connecting in right angles, for some misguided reason, had formed a square, sarcastically framing nothing–or been melded, Paul vaguely imagined, about an hour later, facedown on his arms on his dining tray, into a door-knocker, which a child, after twenty to thirty knocks, no longer expecting an answer, has continued using, in a kind of daze, distracted by the pointlessness of his activity, looking absently elsewhere, unaware when he will abruptly, idly stop.

Do you guys not like this?

[Anonymous No.5873038]

>>5872921
God damn I liked that part

[Anonymous No.5873045]

>>5872921
That is some fucking awful prose

[Anonymous No.5873063]

>>5872921
Should be

"or had been melded"

and

"had continued using"

and

"when he would abruptly"

[Anonymous No.5873065]

>>5873045
Care to elaborate? What would be, in your opinion, good contemporary prose? What do you think is not good about mr lins prose?

[Anonymous No.5873079]

>>5873045
>implying it's not a genius parody of all those tedius moments in realist novels where the author slows down to offer his "profound reflections on life"

bravo Tao, you deserve to go to bed

[Anonymous No.5873087]

>>5873063
The had stuff isn't necessary. Using "would" would destroy the atmosphere the event being something that has already happened, a process set in stone. "Will" makes clear the inevitability of the situation.

Thanks though, really opened my eyes to how Lin haters are just but hurt autismal stick-up-their-ass type grammar nazis

[Anonymous No.5873097]

>>5873087
I'm not a hater you autistic manchild. And each of my suggestions were valid, and your justifications for the way they appear in the book are highschool-tier in their retardednes.

[Anonymous No.5873104]

>>5873097
It's retardedness, not retardednes, retard. None of your suggestions were valid, you, contrary to what people such as you may popularity believe, are the autismal one.

[Anonymous No.5873111]

>>5873104
grammar mistakes > spelling mistakes

>popularity believe

Fanboy plz

[Anonymous No.5873116]

>>5873111
It's my autocorrect fgt

[Anonymous No.5873117]

>>5873111
>>5873104

Stop this, you became barbarians

[Anonymous No.5873119]

I quite liked Taipei, but absolutely hated how self referential it was. Also Paul was kind of a dick so now after reading it (and watching some interviews with Tao Lin which confirmed my suspicions) I kind of hate Tao Lin as a person.

[Anonymous No.5873128]

he is an alright writer but most of what he covers in all of the works i've read have been covered by other writers in much more interesting/productive ways

e.g. dfw covers boredom and its relationship to the person experiencing it in the pale king, while lin just present bored people with not a lot of exploration of that person. they mostly just do things, and while that's i guess valid in a bullshitty writerly way i don't see it requiring any sort of prodigious talent to pull off

[Anonymous No.5873143]

In some ways I do think he has some skill, and his writing is very "of our time" - he captures certain feelings and thoughts that I'm sure members of our generation truly know.

That said, in terms of actual writing ability (and, more so, actual dignity in his works), I'm not so sure he's up there with any kind of great author.

[Anonymous No.5873217]

Get the fuck out of here, Tao Lin.

[Anonymous No.5873230]

check out his website if you haven't read his work, links to his work there http://www.taolin.info

[Anonymous No.5873267]

>>5872879
From excerpts (like this) and descriptions I've seen around here I really have no interest. He might be probing something new by writing transcripts of gmail chats, but I'm not sure that's something worth probing. His writing style (much like his speech) comes off as stuttering, disconnected, and walking a fine line between awkwardness and full-blown autism. This combined with his endless self promotion really put me off of him.

If when I'm an old man scholars are writing papers on Tao Lin, then maybe I'll finally give it a shot, but I suspect he'll be long forgotten by then.

[Anonymous No.5873268]

>>5873119
yeah, it felt like you were reading his blog or twitter account.

[Anonymous No.5873285]

>>5873268
>yeah, it felt like you were reading his blog or twitter account.

And isn't that more in line with the thought process and feeling of the generation we're in? The novel isn't popular to the people of the day, but they'll spend their time reading through blogs and twitter feeds and facebook walls.