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I liked Taipei as well but I tend to think Tao Lin suffers from the same problems that conceptual writing does. What he’s trying to do is often more interesting than the end product. I’ve always been more interested in his aesthetic of mindfulness or action without thought than the terse product. I think Taipei is the only book that actually bored me into a meditative state and so I guess it's the only successful book he's written. Though, that's probably just a pretentious defence so I don't have to admit I'm a sucker for cult-of-personality writers.
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Jul 15, 2015 03:29
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Tao Lin stays up really late and it's bad for his health.
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Jul 15, 2015 04:10
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Chille Tid posted:I liked Taipei as well but I tend to think Tao Lin suffers from the same problems that conceptual writing does. What he’s trying to do is often more interesting than the end product. I’ve always been more interested in his aesthetic of mindfulness or action without thought than the terse product. I think Taipei is the only book that actually bored me into a meditative state and so I guess it's the only successful book he's written. And preferably also your take on what relevance it has for somebody who doesn't think "being high as poo poo, on twitter" is a hitherto unknown vantage for human emotional experience
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Jul 15, 2015 04:51
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Grimson posted:What is your take on "what he's trying to do"? I think Tao tackles boredom through the tradition of minimalism. I acknowledge that this isn’t original and that his attempts to attach himself to writers like Ann Beattie or Joy Williams was more for marketing credibility than any spiritual succession. Still, what I find interesting is when he tries to erase all introspection. Like his characters are purely reactive and think and act externally, verbally. They don’t feel, they announce what they are feeling. I link this with mindfulness. Completely in the moment. The result for me as a reader is that I’m lulled into a meditative experience through the boredom of his style. It’s a process, at first I wanted to punch Tao Lin in the face. Then I questioned my life choices and thought about whether I should finish such a meaningless book. Lastly I began to accept that I’ve come too far and just sort of read in a detached state until it was done. I think that’s the point. Tao Lin wants to detach his readers. I think the aim is to produce the same reactive mindfulness that his characters experience. I think his style is in service of this aim. I’m not sure what you mean by relevant. Relevant to what? You? I don’t think I can answer that. If you think what I’ve written is a pile-of-poo poo then there is your answer. If this kind of reading seems interesting then it could be relevant to you, I guess.
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Jul 15, 2015 07:10
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The one time I met Lin at a party he was hitting on underage girls all night and kept asking if I had xanax several times.
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Jul 15, 2015 07:22
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why does everyone have a tao lin story
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Jul 15, 2015 08:04
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Invisible Cities owns
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Jul 15, 2015 08:12
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Stravinsky posted:The one time I met Lin at a party he was hitting on underage girls all night and kept asking if I had xanax several times. Story checks out.
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Jul 15, 2015 08:23
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please talk about helen oyeyemi or tea obreht or eleanor catton or valeria luiselli if you want to talk about young authors. they also look better. thanks.
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Jul 15, 2015 08:32
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Smoking Crow posted:That's actually what it is how do you make a russian "uncynical" is that even, like, biologically possible
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Jul 15, 2015 13:31
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V. Illych L. posted:how do you make a russian "uncynical" Crime and Punishment was pretty uncynical
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Jul 15, 2015 13:32
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There's no such thing as an uncynical post-Soviet.
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Jul 15, 2015 13:32
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V. Illych L. posted:how do you make a russian "uncynical" I think that's the point. I've read a bit of VOddenikov and it didn't seem anything special but then again I read a translation because Russian is hard
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Jul 15, 2015 13:38
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Crime and Punishment was pretty uncynical was it, though i mean, i guess it depends on your perspectives on cynicism, but the only "uncynical" part of Crime and Punishment, to me, is the role of religion as a redeeming force. everything secular in that book which is not directly Christly is cynical af - in a sense, the book's big Thing is shooting down what amounts to a doctrine of individual human agency
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Jul 15, 2015 13:56
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Just finished The Crying of Lot 49. I came for the conspiracy plot; I stayed for the writing. Some (many) real gems in there.
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Jul 16, 2015 07:53
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Smoking Crow you should probably put "read Invisible Cities" in the OP.
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Jul 16, 2015 08:13
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thehomemaster posted:Just finished The Crying of Lot 49. Now that you've finished that you can read one of Pynchon's good books.
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Jul 16, 2015 08:14
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ghosts by john banville
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Jul 16, 2015 08:52
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Nanomashoes posted:Now that you've finished that you can read one of Pynchon's good books. I think 49 is his best book and then V and then Gravity's Rainbow. Vineland is probably his worst?
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Jul 16, 2015 11:45
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Besson posted:Vineland is probably his worst? The only people I can understand saying this are the OG Pynchon fans who had to wait 15 years after Gravity's Rainbow for Vineland. I could understand them being a little peeved. Everyone else, what's your beef with Vineland?
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Jul 16, 2015 18:28
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Besson posted:I think 49 is his best book and then V and then Gravity's Rainbow. Sorry, but you even disagree with Pynchon himself, who described TCoL49 as a potboiler.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:59
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Beyond sane knolls posted:The only people I can understand saying this are the OG Pynchon fans who had to wait 15 years after Gravity's Rainbow for Vineland. I could understand them being a little peeved. Everyone else, what's your beef with Vineland? I love Vineland. It's definitely clumsy in a lot of ways, and some of those clumsy aspects just grow even more cringey with time (for instance, I'm sure the ninja poo poo makes me wince more now than it would've when the book came out), but it's at least structurally sound - even the clumsy stuff has a point to it. As opposed to Inherent Vice, which I think says everything it has to say by the halfway point and then just kind of splutters on pointlessly for a couple hundred more pages. Clumsiness aside I could see people just being turned off by the direct & didactic contemporary political focus. Not that Pynchon's ever indirect about his sympathies, but Vineland's kinda insistent on that being the main level of analysis when you read it. So if somebody's like "this book sucks I don't want to read a teary boo-hoo about the trajectory of the American Left," well, fair enough. Personally though I do like to read teary boo-hoos about the trajectory of the American Left and I think Vineland is a really affecting one. Chille Tid posted:I’m not sure what you mean by relevant. Relevant to what? You? I don’t think I can answer that. If you think what I’ve written is a pile-of-poo poo then there is your answer. If this kind of reading seems interesting then it could be relevant to you, I guess.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:10
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Nanomashoes posted:Sorry, but you even disagree with Pynchon himself, who described TCoL49 as a potboiler. Death of the Author bitch *grabs dick*
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Jul 16, 2015 19:29
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Nanomashoes posted:Sorry, but you even disagree with Pynchon himself, who described TCoL49 as a potboiler. Everyone needs to stop taking that quote straight the bank. 49 is one of his best, whether or not it embarrasses him now.
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Jul 16, 2015 21:41
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Who gives a gently caress what an author thinks is their best work or not?
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Jul 16, 2015 21:58
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I believe an author's opinion is a very valuable insight into that author's work, but it doesn't end all debates.
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Jul 16, 2015 22:05
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blue squares posted:I believe an author's opinion is a very valuable insight into that author's work, but it doesn't end all debates. Authorial intent criticism seems to turn fiction into an easter egg hunt and its tedious
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Jul 16, 2015 22:11
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Kafka hated all his books and wanted them burned, authors don't know poo poo about how good their writing is
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Jul 16, 2015 22:17
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Grimson posted:yeah I was just being a jerk with that remark but I was genuinely curious about what you thought was worthwhile in his writing, so, thanks That's cool. Whenever I express any favour for Tao Lin I get a glimpse at the business of literature. While I think his project is different there are similarities to Knausgaard or Stein and yet they don't face the same kind of scrutiny. Anyway, anyone who likes mundane/everyday aesthetics will enjoy Taipei. I guarantee it.
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Jul 16, 2015 22:35
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Vineland sounds great. What order should I read them in?
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Jul 17, 2015 00:25
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thehomemaster posted:Vineland sounds great. order of publication is pretty good IMO
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Jul 17, 2015 00:29
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Stravinsky posted:The one time I met Lin at a party he was hitting on underage girls all night and kept asking if I had xanax several times. Isn't that literally just the plot of Taipei? I tried to read it last year and I got about a third of the way through and realized that even though the writing was technically really good, I found everything else to be boring and insufferable. The story about him raping that girl came out like immediately after that, so I never bothered picking it back up. I want to give a shoutout to whoever it was in this thread or another ~real literature~ thread that recommended Maria McCann's As Meat Loves Salt. I finished it last month and I've not been able to stop thinking about it since then. I've already forced my mom to read it, sent my aunt a copy for her birthday, and picked up a used copy at Goodwill to give to my boyfriend. Is it a weird book to share with your mom, aunt, and boyfriend? Yeah, probably, but it's captivating enough that I knew all three of them would enjoy it immensely.
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Jul 17, 2015 04:32
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corn in the bible posted:Kafka hated all his books and wanted them burned, authors don't know poo poo about how good their writing is He's just posthumously fishing for compliments.
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Jul 17, 2015 09:25
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Jeep posted:Everyone needs to stop taking that quote straight the bank. 49 is one of his best, whether or not it embarrasses him now. It's mid-tier at best and it's insane that people rate it above Against the Day, GR, Mason & Dixon, and V.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:59
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The first few pages of Swamplandia! contain some of the most beautiful imagery I've ever read. "Nights in the swamp were dark star-lepered...and although your naked eye could easily find the ball of Venus and the sapphire hairs of the Pleiades, our mother's body was just lines, a smudge against the palm trees." "dozens of alligators pushed through their icicle overbites and the awesome diamonds of their heads..." "like black silk, the water bunched and wrinkled."
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Jul 18, 2015 03:00
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I've been alternating between Vargas Llosa and Murakami. The War at the End of the World got too intense, so I had to cleanse with Kafka on the Shore. I never expected Johnny Walker to leave me with a queasy stomach. I wish I could read both of them in the original Spanish and Japanese, respectively. If you've never read Murakami, DO NOT START WITH 1Q84. I'd recommend Hard-boiled Wonderland at the Edge of the World or Wind up Bird Chronicle. I'd highly recommend Murakami if you like beautiful imagery blue squares.
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Jul 18, 2015 06:13
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I've got a soft spot for Murakami but yeah 1Q84 was such an obviously rushed translation job and the worst part is that the 3rd volume had a completely different translator and it was super obvious. I actually would recommend one of his shorter books like Sputnik Sweetheart or his short story collections if you want to get a taste of his style (or a bunch of his short stories are online in various places, including more recent stuff that hasn't been all translated or collected in English). Actually his latest novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is a pretty good distillation of his style and themes.
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Jul 18, 2015 06:29
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Nanomashoes posted:It's mid-tier at best and it's insane that people rate it above Against the Day, GR, Mason & Dixon, and V. who gives a poo poo though. discussing why you like a book or not can be interesting. ranking any author's (or any artist's) works, or really ranking artistic works at all, is a pointless waste of time that exists primarily for nerdy pissing contests. my favorite Pynchon is Against the Day, I thought Crying of Lot 49 was a fun read but not my favorite, but I can't really see the point of giving a poo poo if someone else happens to like it better Earwicker fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Jul 19, 2015 |
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Jul 19, 2015 00:10
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V. is still the best one I think. It has better characters than Gravity's Rainbow. It also has that horrible plastic surgery scene. The parts on Malta drone on a bit, but I read them While On Malta so I didn't mind at the time. Pynchon is like the anti-Mishima where everybody is afraid of the sea and big open spaces and wants to get away from them.
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Jul 19, 2015 00:17
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Judges is a very strange book
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Jul 19, 2015 22:57
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