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/lit/ - Literature

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8621140 No.8621140 [Reply] [Original]

http://stanford.edu/~sdmiller/octo/files/no_google2/GoodOldNeon.pdf

This is literally me? Even the examples he gives I've experienced, I spent all the time in analysis trying to impress the analyst with my self-awareness, etc.

What do you guys think about this short-story?

>> No.8621156

>>8621140
This and A Condensed History of Post-Industrial Life is almost too real. Three books worth of short stories wasn't enough for David's talent.
I read it a while ago, but doesn't it remind you of Westward the Way of Empire?

>> No.8621225

I don't get how anyone could be dumb enough to have problems like these.

>> No.8621265

>>8621225
I bet that you also think that everyone you meet irl is an asshole or an idiot. Maybe you lack the self-awareness to empathize with these problems? Maybe you're the asshole?

>> No.8621285

I just read it now and it's really good. The ending knocked my socks off.
I'm glad I don't personally have a problem feeling authentic, it sounds like hell.

>> No.8621298

>>8621265
You're talking to yourself dude.. I just said this stuff is dumb, not that it makes you an asshole. I guess my grievance is mainly with DFW. Despite all his big words and textual density--oh yes, the boy knew how to check every box--the ultimate tragedy of his life is that he was just fuckin DUMB on a very deep, elemental level, dumb in the weird paradoxical sense that only an american intellectual can be. Because he was, in his heart, a regular american guy. Unpack all these dense big words, trace the footnotes to their end-points, and you'll see that his motivations and desires are the same as those of many, many mediocre mid-level professional yuppies--there's no magnanimity of spirit in it, the spirito-philosophical content of his works is actually quite limited. And... that wouldn't even be so bad, it would actually be quite sweet if it wasn't BOTH this inherent DUMBNESS and the horrible screen of box-ticking intellectualism which works against it and causes this clashing mess.

Let me give an example. He has a short story somewhere where a girl tells a guy a story about a guy who was gonna rape her. This story goes on for 20 or 30 pages (maybe more). What's all that FOR? What's the big pay-off? Well, it's some corny human spirit thing (she looks into his eyes and her soul repels him and stops him from raping her iirc). And the worst part about that is that, for someone sensitive, for someone who was TRULY deep, for someone who was not, despite all his intelligence, deeply DUMB, this would not be a corny idea, this would not be something that was too cheesy to include in a work of literature. But he has the girl describe it to the guy she's talking to as cheesy--he effectively inserts his own DUMB self-criticism into the work--and saps it of any power it might of had.

You can see it in Good Old Neon, too. "soft aliveness" is a pretty pretty phrase, but it's drowning in a sea of neurotic hypertensive prolixity and uber-pretentiousness which kills it.

Of course his iq was hundreds of points higher than mine, and he knew more about math or whatever than I ever will, and he read much more than I ever will, and he was much, much, much, much, much sharper than you or I or any of us on this board--but he was missing something elemental, or he was too cowardly or too dumb to accept his birthright and to tell it how it fuckin is, and that is why I don't read him anymore and will describe him with such epithets as "dumb" in long posts like these wherever I find him praised

As this is a 99% groundless polemic you can ignore this if you like DFW. Don't get sweaty and write a long post about how wrong I am. Just relax, please.

>> No.8621312

>>8621298
The funny thing is this reads like a dfw character.

>> No.8621326

>>8621312
I think that's the point

>> No.8621375

>>8621326
There's no way that wasn't the point. Master-class post anon.

>>8621140
I think if you're that kind of person, it's definitely going to sound like 'truth' to you. If I had read this maybe ten years ago at 18 I would have thought it was 'so true' and 'so good, he's so right about that'. Now, I just think it's good for what it does but I ultimately disagree with the point.
He just doesn't have a real problem. It's just the character over thinking himself and convincing himself that everything he thinks is wrong and that he should feel bad for having emotions and wanting attention. Like everyone else does.

tl;dr - 1st world problems

>> No.8621381

>>8621298
I think DFW is one of the least pretentious sounding authors. I suspect it's intentional but either way I don't see how you can interpret his work as such.

>> No.8621839

>>8621140
I knew long ago from reading his private correspondences that DFW was a loser, this story doesn't tell me anything I didn't already know about him.

>> No.8621857

He thought too much because he thought that's what you do when you're smart, you think all the time and worry. A dumb way to live. Most of his distress was self-willed. You don't have to be a tortured intellectual artist.

>> No.8621882
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8621882

>>8621140

>This is literally me?

I don't know. Is it?

Questions should always have one of the 'w' words in it. Why is this literally me? Or 'how?' How did he write a story about me?

I'm feeling worried about highschool english... not too long ago I'm reading all these posts about how people are afraid of 'loosing' their jobs, now we're getting question marks on the end of every fucking sentence. The language is degenerating before our very eyes.

>> No.8621949

>I’m putting all this
in such a long, rushing, clumsy way to try to convey the way I remember
it suddenly hit me, looking up at my stepfather’s big kindly face as
he held two of the larger pieces of the Moser bowl and tried to look
angrier than he really felt

>when in fact deep down everybody knows it’s a charade and
they’re just going through the motions.

It's clear from these two clues at least that the character is a narcissist. He can't buy into the notion that other people are not like him. He takes responsibility in order to avoid it. He plainly states the matter in order to obscure his meaning under ever further retreating horizons. He does not contemplate suicide because he is a fraud; he does so because he believes everyone is like him in being a fraud, that authenticity, which he desires, is impossible.

I have mixed feelings about this story. There's talent there for sure, but some of the phrasing is so clumsy and awkward. Also I find the conversational tone of it annoying, but I can see this style of writing has proliferated like crazy. Like, I'm going to write like I speak to seem more authentic because, like, speech is a privileged domain and everything or whatever.

This is the second thing I've read by this fellow and I must say his essay on pornography was much better.

>> No.8623112

>>8621949
I think it's precisely because he captured that rabid self important intellectual that he's famous. It's deep, but you can easily tell that it's just him putting on airs. It's the author crying for attention very long winded and not getting an ounce because he's too busy repeating the same negative thoughts over and over.
It's a great tragedy in my mind.
>>8621882
This is 4chan. If you were looking for bottom barrel secret treasures you're bound to find a few 'special' ones in the lot.

>> No.8623137

>>8621312
This guy's right. The reason people like DFW and hate DFW with equal passion is that he just makes too much sense, he's an example of the self-referential "exitlessness" of contemporary life and thinking that seems so true it's like embedded in the structure of the universe.

Kid can write a sentence though.

>> No.8623151

>>8623137
>he just makes too much sense
DFW was mentally ill and all of his works are creepy when you are aware of the signs of someone with his disease. He was highly intelligent which made him an effective writer but he gives off the impression that he is a psychopath.

>> No.8623156 [DELETED] 

>>8623151
you think psychopath's can't have coherent worldviews?

>> No.8623161

>>8623151
you think psychopaths can't have coherent worldviews?

>> No.8623162

>>8623156
Coherent only to themselves. In the case of Wallace he got meaning in life by trying to convince people he was a cool guy who really "got" the world and wouldn't embrace the truth that he was a manipulative dork with no real love for anything in life.

>> No.8623175

>be on /lit/
>people can't even get over their own ego when talking about another person's vision of reality

>> No.8623222

>>8621140
How does anybody like this POS? That was one of the most deeply disconcerting things I've ever read. Was DFW a human being?

>> No.8623506

>>8621140
yeah I feel the same way
I hope I grow out of this bullshit sometime because it is driving me insane

>> No.8623592

>>8621375
"First world problems" is an incorrect way of thinking. It assumes that the problems of the first world don't effect third world countries and is ultimately too simple. Also, it trivializes the life that Westerners live as if we don't lead real lives because our mortality isn't urgently threatened at every waking moment.

>> No.8623597

>>8623222
It's good if you feel that way. Then it's just like someone reached into your head and recreated it on a page.
>>8623506
I suggest you start trying to define what you mean by authentic and challenging that. If you really were authentic, would you be a total asshole? Or would you just I dunno, write some poetry and jack off to anime girls in your mom's basement.

>> No.8623623

>>8623592
Well, I think you're point stands. What I mean by using that phrase is that the person is not aware that their negative feeling patterns are not logical observations of self worth.
All of DFW's stuff to me reads like he's writing a treatise on his emotional landscape. It's complaining, well written complaining but still complaining in the end. I think thats why it pisses me off, because I once thought similarly and realized that I was just making myself miserable and not actually achieving anything.

Basically, you don't need to win in the modern world, but you need to compete, to feel like you're in the game. Because you have so much information about people who are way, way better than you, on a primal level you feel worth 'less' as a person.
If that makes any sense.

>> No.8623820

>>8623597
I dont know if I would be a total assholes, I would probably engage more in physical violence

>> No.8623839 [DELETED] 

Are there any blogs that are /lit/ approved? Online works that I can read? Even blogs of fellow /lit/ posters. In particular, looking for any interesting Medium.com writers.

>> No.8623962

>>8621140
literally me (except the part where he got to touch a boob)

>> No.8623973

>>8621298
youre trying so hard right now. this sounds like a high schooler that realized its no longer contrarian to like DFW in college as a freshman so wtf he hates dfw now

>> No.8623979

Something about DFW is terrifying and empty to read. There's nothing beautiful or forgiving about any of it. It's easy to see him killing himself.

>> No.8624860

>>8621298
I think you got that story wrong.

>> No.8624866

>>8623979
>terrifying and empty
*sad and banal

>> No.8624876

>>8623222
i like this story because it affords me a really in depth and fascinating look into the head of someone who isn't like me. that's what i like about literature in general, seeing how other people think and empathising with characters who i seemingly have nothing in common with

>> No.8625050

>>8621839
>reading his private correspondences
how?

>> No.8625075

is neon dfw?

also, what does the story suggest happens after death?

>> No.8625077

>>8625075
some cliche timeless totality

>> No.8625087

https://youtu.be/JqN52yKI4pg?t=2110

what does she say she'd cut?

>> No.8625370
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8625370

>>8623979
You have never read the pale king if you hold that view brother.

>> No.8625518

>>8625087
Québécois

>> No.8626515

>>8623979
get used to it, bud

it's a stark vision of the future human thanks to technology

>> No.8627093

>>8626515
why? how does technology do this to us?

not disagreeing with you, just not as able to explain it

>> No.8627099

>>8621298
wtf i hate dfw now

>> No.8627121

>>8625370
Not who you were replying to, but is it worth finishing TPK? I stopped reading it around the chapter where DFW gets a blowjob in a janitor's closet. I liked what I read before then, but found it hard to go back to TPK.

>> No.8627298

>>8623592

first world problems is a real thing, if one of the biggest progressive debates in a country is whether allowing humans with penises who think they are women go to female locker rooms or not.

That is why I think rock music is almost dead. young people have run out of stuff to complain about.

>> No.8627309

>>8621298
This is actually a great post and I love you for this.

>> No.8627338

>>8627298
or maybe the real issues are there but are just being swept under the rug and replaced with meme debates

>> No.8627365

>>8621298
the essay is in brief interview with hideous men, interview #20.

also, I see your point but your own argument is caving in on itself because you are also missing something very elemental.
If you don't like and can't relate to the perspective of a regular american guy who has a staggeringly powerful level of introspection, what else do you want from literature?

Sure, he has some dumb quips and he doesn't always offer solutions, but he phrases the question in a way that makes most readers look inside themselves for their own dumbness and encourages them to find their own solutions.

>> No.8627475

>>8627338
I think that's the truth. But I think it's more because the internet is deeply influencing people now that smartphones are so popular.
It's not a meme debate, its the system trying to keep up with the internet, and failing.

>> No.8627480

>>8627365
the brilliance of the post you quoted is that he acknowledges that
Its not that you're wrong, it's just as a person once you grow past DFW or can't relate to his line of thinking then his entire narrative weight loses value.