/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6331269]

So, it's cool to skip the ebonics chapter, right?

[Anonymous No.6331279]

>>6331269
>"Once I remarked to [Wallace] that I felt the chapter written in Negro dialect was entirely out of place and how when I first read it I was surprised he didn't edit it out -- y'know, since he was a perfectionist and the chapter truly is a failed project -- and he said to me, 'I know, John, it's a test.' I was puzzled, so when I immediately asked to explain what he meant he described how whenever he went to parties and people came up to him to praise the novel, he would quote certain sentences or jokes included in that chapter, and if the person responded with a confused expression he knew they were racists. I was incredulous, and when I asked if this was actually true he laughed and laughed while nodding his head."

- Franzen

[Anonymous No.6331284]

>>6331279
simply epic

[Anonymous No.6331340]

>>6331279
source???

[Anonymous No.6331361]

>>6331279
>this happened

[Anonymous No.6331375]

>>6331279
lol if this is true nice logic dfw "let me write a racist (or at best very uh racially weird) chapter and let's see who the tru racists are if people didn't want to slog through it"

to answer OP-absolutely

[Anonymous No.6331419]

>>6331269
He wrote the whole book to impress some woman when he was in a weird manic state. It's a bad book. So is broom. All his other stuff is fantastic though, minus some stories in girl with curious hair.

[Anonymous No.6331424]

>>6331279
>mfw

>>6331269
Yes, speedread it if it makes you smile but it's shit and completely useless.

[Anonymous No.6331700]

>>6331419
>He wrote the whole book to impress some woman when he was in a weird manic state.
wut

[Anonymous No.6331711]

>>6331279
DAVID FUCKING WALLACE

[Anonymous No.6331745]

>>6331700
Mary Karr.

[Anonymous No.6331794]

That chapter is what made me realise that the book just wasn't for me

[Anonymous No.6331814]

>>6331745
tbf, I too would write some dumb crazy book if I thought it would lead 2 mkarr loving me

[Anonymous No.6331827]

>>6331814
I thought she was Hot From Far Away but after seeing her on panels and being interviewed I don't think I could handle her handing me my asshole on a nightly basis.

[Anonymous No.6331853]

[Anonymous No.6331859]

Wardine say her momma aint treat her right. Reginald he come round to my blacktop at my building where me and Delores Epps jump double dutch and he say, Clenette, Wardine be down at my crib cry say her momma aint treat her right, and I go on with Reginald to his building where he live at, and Wardine be sit deep far back in a closet in Reginald crib, and she be cry. Reginald gone lift Wardine out the closet and me with him crying and I be rub on the wet all over Wardine face and Reginald be so careful when he take off all her shirts she got on, tell Wardine to let me see. Wardine back all beat up and cut up. Big stripes of cut all up and down Wardine back, pink stripes and around the stripes the skin like the skin on folks lips be like. Sick down in my insides to look at it. Wardine be cry. Reginald say Wardine say her momma aint treat her right. Say her momma beat Wardine with a hanger. Say Wardine momma man Roy Tony be want to lie down with Wardine. Be give Wardine candy and 5s. Be stand in her way in Wardine face and he aint let her pass without he all the time touching her. Reginald say Wardine say Roy Tony at night when Wardine momma at work he come in to the mattresses where Wardine and William and Shantell and Roy the baby sleep at, and he stand there in the dark, high, and say quiet things at her, and breathe. Wardine momma say Wardine tempt Roy Tony into Sin. Wardine say she say Wardine try to take away Roy Tony into Evil and Sin with her young tight self. She beat Wardine back with hangers out the closet. My momma say Wardine momma not right in her head. My momma scared of Roy Tony. Wardine be cry. Reginald he down and beg for Wardine tell Reginald momma how Wardine momma treat Wardine. Reginald say he Love his Wardine. Say he Love but aint never before this time could understand why Wardine wont lie down with him like girls do their man. Say Wardine aint never let Reginald take off her shirts until tonight she come to Reginald crib in his building and be cry, she let Reginald take off her shirts to see how Wardine momma beat Wardine because Roy Tony. Reginald Love his Wardine. Wardine be like to die of scared. She say no to Reginald beg. She say, if she go to Reginald momma, then Reginald momma go to Wardine momma, then Wardine momma think Wardine be lie down with Reginald. Wardine say her momma say Wardine let a man lie down before she sixteen and she beat Wardine to death. Reginald say he aint no way going to let that happen to Wardine.

[Anonymous No.6331882]

this is the same motherfucker that made a big point of telling, iirc, a black student of his that she shouldn't use 'slang' in her writing because she needed to use 'proper english' to be taken seriosuly

[Anonymous No.6331902]

>>6331882
good advice i like what this guys about

[Anonymous No.6331919]

>>6331882
Not that she shouldn't use "slang". He told a class they wouldn't be taken seriously in the corporate world if they wrote in fucking ebonics, which is of course completely true. (but doesn't make him any less of an insincere, hypocritical ass overall)

[Anonymous No.6331931]

>>6331882
I don't even like DFW, and I certainly think his essays are a joke, but you're misrepresenting that particular one.

If you re-read it, you'd see that he actually empathizes quite heavily with the black chick and tells her bullshit, the gist of which "it's horribly lopsided and completely unfair to you, but if you want to pass my course you have to write white".

[Anonymous No.6332015]

what's wrong with practical advice?

she could certainly write literature in that style, but yeah, in the business world EVERYONE has to conform to proper, sterile, polite expression in all written communication - it's just part of the gig

[Anonymous No.6332019]

>>6331859

Wait, is this really in the book? What's the context?

[Anonymous No.6332021]

>>6331902

It's not good advice; language is constantly evolving. Why would you want to stifle that?

[Anonymous No.6332028]

>>6332019
there is none. it's just a chapter introducing a minor character who doesn't pop up again until a few hundred pages later, written entirely in that style.

[Anonymous No.6332033]

>>6332021
Ebonics isn't evolution. It's regression caused by introducing a race of unevolved apes into an advanced civilisation. Weber spoke about this clearly in economic terms when he condemned Polish immigration to eastern Europe.

[Anonymous No.6332057]

>>6332033
language is language
remove it from a racial context - like how the various areas of Britain speak English - and it becomes about local influences and traditions of language

however, it holds true everywhere, if you speak a strong dialect or pidgin at home, you still have to be able to communicate through what's considered proper usage at most work places

in literature, however, anything goes

[Anonymous No.6332074]

>>6332021
Nothing wrong with a formal register. Having degrees of formality isn't going to end language change.
>>6332033
Epin, simply epin.

[Anonymous No.6332093]

>>6332033

Don't like ebonics? Blame the 18th and 19th century white slave owners who prohibited their African slaves any education. Generations of illiteracy and forced ignorance fucked up the gene pool, and only through hard work and a hard look at the social ills caused by overbreeding can african americans overcome the total shit hand they were dealt by old timey amerifats.

[Anonymous No.6332104]

>>6331269
>...Wardine be sit deep back in a closet in Reginald crib, and she be cry...

This is completely invented by DFW. Nobody fucking talks like this, black, white, purple, whatever.

[Anonymous No.6332110]

>>6332093
Life in America as a slave, even with education being 'prohibited', was infinitely better than the worthless existence they experienced in Africa. Blacks should thank early modern slave owners for everything they have, and if they refuse to they should be shipped back to the heart of Africa with nothing but a spear and a fucking loincloth.

[Anonymous No.6332114]

>>6332104
>he hasn't seen 'they don't think it be like this, but it do'

[Anonymous No.6332115]

>>6332104
I saw Tom Hanks talk like that in Cloud Atlas.

[Anonymous No.6332120]

>>6331882

Are there legitimately universities in America that accept essays written in Ebonics? serious question

[Anonymous No.6332122]

>>6332120
No.

[Anonymous No.6332123]

>>6332110

Hahaha, obvious bait.

3/10 - Didn't realize it was bait until half way through.

[Anonymous No.6332129]

>>6332104
It's modeled after people he knew in a halfway house. You'd be surprised. I'm from Baltimore and have heard very close

[Anonymous No.6332139]

>>6332122

Its just that in that essay DFW seems to present the issue of ebonics as to some extent disputed, doesn;t he also say that he was critcised by a colleague for telling the girl outright she was wrong to not use standard-English?

[Anonymous No.6332148]

>>6331919
>>6331931
i was being half facetious

[Anonymous No.6332153]

>>6332093
um that's not how genetics work

god sorry I didn't mean to put on the racist bat signal when I called df a motherfucker

[Anonymous No.6332157]

>>6332129
I've been in halfway houses. It's not close.

[Anonymous No.6332159]

>>6332153
lol

it's not you, it's identity politics that's forever fucked up any debate like this
hope academia eventually rejects it like the virus it is

[Anonymous No.6332166]

>>6332157
Were you in Boston or Baltimore?

[Anonymous No.6332173]

>>6332139
As with most DFW essays, he doesn't really understand the subject.

[Anonymous No.6332175]

>>6332166
Yes, both.

[Anonymous No.6332205]

>>6332104
yes they do

where did you think all that lit racism came from :^)

[Anonymous No.6332285]

>>6332175
Pull your life together man

[Anonymous No.6332948]

>>6332153

Not how genetics works? I disagree. Kill off, don't allow the smart amongst the slaves breeding rights, breed for massive subservient work machines for over 200 years. Um, yeah, exactly how genetics works.

Not to mention, genetics isn't the only thing that contributed to it. Deep ignorance as a cultural identity is something many, many black americans deal with to this day.

If you're the same anon in >>6332021 you absolutely have no idea what you're talking about. Calling black americans "unevolved apes"? Disgusting.

[Anonymous No.6332957]

>>6332019
literally none, this just pops up somwhere in the very beginning of the book and is forgotten

[Anonymous No.6332961]

>>6332948
>That is how genetics works, here's my explanation for why niggers are genetically retarded
>Was it you that called them unevolved? Disgusting

How can you be this brainwashed and dumb

[Anonymous No.6332966]

>>6331931
>write white
>proper grammar is "white"

[Anonymous No.6332972]

>>6332166
>>6332175
>>6332285
Kek

[Anonymous No.6332979]

>>6332961

It's pretty easy, just learn stuff and have compassion.

[Anonymous No.6332981]

>>6332104
Wardine is white.

[Anonymous No.6332987]

>>6332966
yes.

[Anonymous No.6332992]

>>6332966
Any grammar that could reasonably be described as being specifically "black" is not "proper grammar"
The shortcut is legitimate and you understood what they meant perfectly well

[Anonymous No.6333001]

>>6332093
>Generations of illiteracy and forced ignorance fucked up the gene pool

Leave this bit out next time, the rest is largely plausible.

[Anonymous No.6333002]

>>6332992
I'm saying proper grammar is the default, it's not discrimination to demand students use it.

[Anonymous No.6333003]

>>6331859
lmfao

[Anonymous No.6333024]

>>6332966

Shouldn't it be 'whitely', anyway? I mean, for a preening, faux-pertussic pedant like DFW[1], at least?

[1] Whose self-professed Sprachgefuhle has always struck me as largely affected where not outright falsified.

[Anonymous No.6333369]

I can understand the psychology of making something a bit more shit than it should have been... It's way of saying, how far can this go?
You know, what are the base elements? I'll bet it was Lynch that pushed DFW to splash around with bad grammar

[Anonymous No.6333543]

>>6332139

Why would there even be a debate? An essay written in African-American Vernacular English would clearly violate several prescriptive rules of English writing. It's like if a math department gave a professor flak because he marked off a student for answering 2 + 2 = 5 (or something similar though at a higher level of mathematics) on a test.

[Anonymous No.6333558]

>>6331279
ha ha where is this from?

[Anonymous No.6333628]

>>6331269
I'd thought he was trying to do how Boston Micks speak, not blacks.

[Anonymous No.6333634]

>>6331279
>implying DFW's more racially sensitive than those "racists" he talks about here, just because he embedded a few highly incongruous chapters focusing on blacks in a book that otherwise isn't really about them

also
>Negro dialect
hey, Franzen: the 1960s called, they want their racial epithets back

[Anonymous No.6333642]

>>6331279

[Anonymous No.6333656]

>>6332120
oberlin probably

[Anonymous No.6333665]

>>6333634
negro is coming back, don't you know

[Anonymous No.6333669]

>>6333634
>>6333634
DFW was a hell of a bad influence on him. Franzen said they were playing tennis one time when David, who was comfortably ahead, served at an old lady who was watching her son play Juniors on the other court. When the it hit the octogenarian, he just turned around and told Franzen to go get the ball.

[Anonymous No.6333691]

>>6333669
I want to believe

[Anonymous No.6333692]

>>6333669
Is there any info on why DFW liked Franzen -- insofar as he would hang out with him, play tennis, etc.? Franzen sounds like a boring person.

[Anonymous No.6333711]

>>6333692
you don't have boring friends?

[Anonymous No.6333735]

>>6333711
i AM the boring friend

[Anonymous No.6333740]

>>6333692
Because Franzen made the effort when David was still the kind of person who sat inside his cabin and watched Jurassic Park twice a day while on a luxury cruise.

The first time they meet was when Franzen saw DFW in a sports store in Peoria. He told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but he didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for writing tips or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
Franzen was taken aback, and all he could say was “Huh?” but David kept cutting him off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of his face. He walked away and continued with his shopping, and Franzen heard DFW chuckle as he walked off. When Franzen came to pay for his stuff up front he saw David trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Tennis balls in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.

When she took one of the balls and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at Franzen. The Narrator didn't even think that’s a word. After she scanned each ball and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.

[Anonymous No.6333760]

>>6333740
nice seamless layering of the pasta

[Muck Bulligan !!ryE2gEjGbpu No.6333775]

>>6331375
>racist (or at best very uh racially weird)
it kills me that you think that "racially weird" is the attenuated form of "racist"
>>6332966
"proper grammar" is white
>>6332110
not a response to the bait, but i had a high school teacher who coached javelin and used the term "spearchucker" with great relish

[Anonymous No.6333795]

>>6333775
>it kills me
OK Holden

[Anonymous No.6333869]

>>6333795

Come on, who doesn't get a bang out of giving voice to old Caulfield now and then? I sure do, if you really want to know.

[Anonymous No.6333895]

>currently reading IJ
>hear about people bemoaning the ebonics chapter
>when I read the wardine bit I thought it was meant to be like white trailer trash for some reason
>dreading this chapter
>find out it's the wardine bit
>it's literally two pages

Why the fuck would you skip it? There were a couple parts of it that made me chuckle, and it's really not all that unreadable. I honestly had more trouble with yrstruly and his merry band of junkies and the 5 page sentences.

[Anonymous No.6333936]

>>6333735

>stopped bringing up my interests in conversation because they've become too esoteric
>ditto, trying to recruit new fans to my interests in books/movies/shows/hobbies/vidya (due to having tried this in the past and finding it a waste of time)
>don't like talking about subjects i'm not knowledgeable about, so i don't join in a lot of the pseudo-intellectual banter among my friends and just sit quietly
>half the time i'm pretty sure they have no clue what they're talking about and are just reiterating something from Cracked, but i find it pointless to engage in counterargument unless i have the evidence handy
>people consider me lifeless and my "friends" don't know me very well

[Anonymous No.6333980]

>>6333936
>just reiterating something from Cracked

It's not that I don't read Cracked. Rather, it's the fact that I do that enables me to detect this in others and it inspires real contempt in me. I'm not even a person who holds people in contempt lightly (usually).

Don't get me wrong, I respect what they're doing with their brand. But a listicle is a listicle and if, like me, you're the kind of person who clicks links and hunts down sources and STILL retains a degree of epistemic humility on the subject, it's impossible to maintain respect for someone who's basically regurgitating Item No. 4 from the latest iteration of John Cheese Tells Teenagers Shit They Already Know or 4 Popular Beliefs (That Science* Says* Aren't True).

*ie, one study
*Caution: study may not actually say this

[Muck Bulligan !!ryE2gEjGbpu No.6334188]

>>6333795
that kills me

[Anonymous No.6334345]

>>6333980

>if, like me, you're the kind of person who clicks links and hunts down sources and STILL retains a degree of epistemic humility on the subject, it's impossible to maintain respect for someone who's basically regurgitating Item No. 4 from the latest iteration of John Cheese Tells Teenagers Shit They Already Know or 4 Popular Beliefs

>tfw most people i know are regurgitators

While we're on this subject, another one I sometimes experience: a person brings up a conversation topic that is something about which I am knowledgeable (or was at some earlier point in my life), and I had always classed that knowledge as "too esoteric to bring up in everyday conversation," had never realized its conversation-starting potential, and as such don't get the credit for bringing it up. It's like selling an old baseball card for pennies and then seeing the guy you sold it to on Pawn Stars getting $1000s in cash for it. /blogpost.

[Anonymous No.6334367]

>>6334345
>While we're on this subject, another one I sometimes experience: a person brings up a conversation topic that is something about which I am knowledgeable (or was at some earlier point in my life), and I had always classed that knowledge as "too esoteric to bring up in everyday conversation,"

I don't know that feel. I actually suspect I may be that guy sorry.

[Anonymous No.6335032]

>>6331859
Do people really have trouble reading this? Maybe I just spend too much time around blacks.

[Anonymous No.6335040]

>>6333711
>having friends
>having A friend

[Anonymous No.6335042]

>>6331859
>and she be cry

[Anonymous No.6335053]

>>6333980
Some anon once mentioned this comparison: some people like learning new things, like others like eating. Here Cracked works like junk food, it has the feeling of a good meal but none of it's nutrition.

[Anonymous No.6335061]

>>6335053
It's is a contraction of it and is.
You meant its, which is possessive.

Pretend you don't suck down greaseball burgers if you like, your writing shows you do.

[Anonymous No.6335271]

>>6335061
>none of it's nutrition
>none of it is nutrition

Not completely sure it works (and not arsed checking) but I think it's an open question. I'm not that guy, obviously.

[Anonymous No.6335272]

>>6335271
No comma after the word meal means it must be its. Not that guy but there is no question about it.

[Anonymous No.6335279]

>>6335272

People elide commas all the time, though.

[Anonymous No.6335307]

>>6331279
What a scumbag

[Anonymous No.6335328]

>>6332019
>What's the context?
lol, context
You really haven't read any of IJ have you?

[Anonymous No.6336741]

The mind frame and forethought portrayed in that chapter seems like the life plan implemented by an increasing amount of pavement apes as time carries on, no? Definitely an area of concern.

Smart guy.

[Anonymous No.6336777]

Couldn't she have been a wigger? Don't remember the book specifying skin color. The chapter just portrayed her as a poorly spoken, dependent idiot. Could be a rose of any color nowadays. Could even be a latina?

[Anonymous No.6336849]

I found that chapter funny as hell.

[The cats No.6336867]

>>6336777
Pretty sure it's clenette and yolanda who kill the canadian and have to be put on full house restriction so they don't get arrested, gately's section overtly refers to them as "the nigger girls"

[Anonymous No.6336886]

Wait, there are people on here that believe there are no racial differences(expect the obvious skin colour and body type)?

[Anonymous No.6336888]

>>6336849
Me too. I laughed really hard at DFW's writing and poor understanding of cultures that aren't white suburbia.

[Anonymous No.6336909]

>>6331859
i enjoyed this

[Anonymous No.6336927]

>>6331279
>he thinks people he did his autistic quoting act at were racist
>really they had just forgotten a shitty chapter in a shitty book

[Anonymous No.6336931]

>>6335328

Obvs not, brah

[Anonymous No.6336949]

>>6335032
i grew up the only white kid in most of my school class, essentially a white-boy slave, but even so i had difficulty reading it.

[Anonymous No.6337383]

>>6331882

redpilled

[Anonymous No.6337405]

>>6333665

Negroes of Color

[Anonymous No.6337567]

>>6336888
>implying suburbia is bad

[Anonymous No.6337580]

>>6332957
>literally none... pops up and is forgotten
confirmed for having not read IJ