TBH DFW OR

when he transcended humanity and became a meme

tomorrow

Whether or not a writer is 'hip' is a preoccupation of posers who delight in taking pictures of the unread books on their shelves.

>caring what people deem 'hip'

>>8103179
It never was. /lit/ joked about liking him, new people came took it seriously (firstgen DFWfags), they spread DFW gospel, nextgen DFWfags developed, firstgen realized joke, started shitting on him, nextgen DFW realized its a joke, started shitting on him.

Some still hold on out of nostalgia for a more innocent time. Like people do for fantasy novels, Stephen King, Charlie Brown, etc

>>8103199
this sounds like thirdgen DFW realizing it's not a joke after thinking it was.

>>8103183
I agree. When and why did he obtain memehood, though? By my calculations, it happened circa 2011, but I have no clue why.

>>8103209
>2011
that leaves about 3 years for people to martyrize him and think he's better than he was.

The best and most important writer of the best and most important book of his generation. Not a meme, not a joke, nothing but fact. Name me one better, you dickless tryhards.

>>8103179
Shit, I lost my 12-step pasta.

He's my favorite author, but I make fun of him like crazy here. I think a lot of people here genuinely like him, but the jokes are too good to resist. It's cyclical, though, these memes, and but so it goes round and round, boundlessly, like a funny wheel whose movement you can't stop. Eternal horseplay. Houyhnhnms. Can't take the heat? You sweating? Have a bottle of water. Don't worry, it'll be brief. Hang tight.

>>8103235
Depends on how you define "generation" I guess but I'd put White Noise way above Infinite Jest.

>>8103235
So, I actually am a fan of DFW. I don't think he's transcendent, but I think he does a good job of mapping out the depression that afflicts many upper-middle class white 20-somethings and providing a way to combat it.

It's just that I can't read him anymore without wanting to cut open my head, take an ice scream scoop, and fling my brains at all those insufferable bloggers who spawned the most backwards and pernicious subculture of our generation. Like, they do know DFW was trying to fight against the solipsistic, self-important bullshit he often wrote about, right? -- that idolizing his bloated vocabulary and apparent troubled genius is exactly the opposite of what he would have wanted?

>>8103268
White Noise is damning, IJ is hopeful. Matter of taste.

>>8103274
Infinite Jest is like movie Frank. a.) It's unfortunately hipster-ish, b.) it gives bad people good ideas.

Delillo is the previous generation. As is Pynchon.

Incredibly simple what happened: he was cool, but then he suicided, the story blew up, he got too popular, and now he's not cool to like.

It's partly the fault of some really stupid women who complained about his male fandom and wrote articles a few years ago, going after 'DFW Bros' or something, and the brainless women who add to their blacklist whatever penised authors they're told by blogs to hate now have DFW on their 'detestable male author' list.

>>8103290
>b.) it gives bad people good ideas.
elaborate

>>8103274

When I re-read anything by Wallace, what people say about him in online forums could not be further from my mind.

I feel sorry for people who choose books based on how eager they are to tell people on /lit/ what they're reading or what they've read.

>>8103290
>>8103305
I too would like you to
>elaborate

>>8103305
Both works are didactic; they are trying to teach you something. But we don't live in the age of didactic works, so youngins understand the descriptions, but don't get the lesson.

IJ/Frank teach you how to be depressed and they teach it very well. They elaborate on consequences, but this is treated like a map and not a warning. To modern audience, the thought of something being un-romantic is romantic in itself, and they use both as a manual.

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>>8103179

Without /lit/ I doubt that I ever would have heard of IJ. Started reading it about a week ago, and I'm enjoying it so far. Still, it seems a little cartoony in places, and the author seems to have an unhealthy fixation on Dude Weed LMAO.

>>8103335
To explain the whole romantic=un-romantic thing: the best example would be NEETs.

>>8103335
Yes, I agree with this 100%. Was what I was trying to say with >>8103274

>>8103179
oh fug lmao xD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VdAc71SRBk

Somebody post the video of the guy shouting "David Foster Wallace" at people out of a car window. I have to see that right now, please hurry.

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>>8103179
>When did it stop being hip to like David Foster Wallace?

Pic related.

>>8103440
idontwanttoliveonthisplanetanymore.gif

>>8103440
God I wish they'd force me to drink their piss.

>>8103440
why is this picture so prominently the living proof that ugly girls have the ugliest personalities :(

>>8103440
>oh, the places you'll go

>>8103483
>recognizing it by the tiny sliver of the back cover

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>>8103440
>polaroids of close-ups of typewriters on the wall

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>>8103179
>When did it stop being hip to like David Foster Wallace?

Pic related.

I'm reading at the moment and fucking hell, I mean it's great in places but I heard him say in an int "there's nothing in there by accident" if that's true then a hell of a lot is going over my head and I'm re-reading shit like "play in the work of DFW" and reading the structuralist and post structuralist ideas of play. I think it could have been WAY shorter, only a third in though so...

>>8103191
Its poseurs you ape

>>8103528
i'm pretty sure it was way before that article was posted like 2 months ago.

>>8103524
>not listening to cassettes of elizabethan descriptions of a polaroid portraying a tipewriter in which a iambic pentameter, traditional rhyming scheme describes the feeling of shaving with a straight razor in your quaint Maine Cabin to fully portrain your love for the days of yore

>>8103199
>implying the book wasn't the real joke.

You thought he was serious?

>>8103335
>being unromantic is romantic in itself
i think they choose a bad field to spread their not romantic visions.

>>8103573
that doesn't clash with what he was saying

When IJ is good, it's really good (looking at Eschaton, Madame Psychosis, Don Gately's story, Pemulis Backstory, JOI movie synopsis footnote, a few other incidents) unfortunately he wasn't able to keep it up the whole way through and really fell behind in over-explicit political ramblings or YA (Steeply chapters and most Hal chapters/young adulty ETA or the self-help parts). It stopped being cool because every recent IJ fan loves the latter parts and hates or glosses over the former, people who recognize the power of the former don't feel like it's worth arguing against people like >>8103440 so it's just easier not to like.

>>8103528
I guess she didn't understand the book

>>8103596
>Madame Psychosis
oy vey

>>8103596
There's stretches of the book which I think are genuinely good involving probably a dozen different interconnected stories in them that keep up for over 200 pages, which I consider a feat. There's lulls, but I agree, when it's good it's great.

>>8103335
any tips on getting out of the depression? I'm rereading infinite jest right now...

I'm plagued with anxiety and guilt and it's probably from family issues. I was on percocet and morphine and oxymorphone for a year for back pain, but i've been off it for 6 months. Now, when I'm high (mostly edibles) I feel like Erdedy...

Long story short, should I see a therapist?

>>8103587
yes, because they choose that field in purpose, knowing the implications and ambiguity between the comercialization of "art" and the art itself. they choose to enter in the "market" and stain her visions and warnings with the potential romantization what that particular market use to convey. in some way it´s not entirely their fault but not at all of their consumers. maybe… in dfw in particular, you are slightly romantizicing him (i dont know if exist that word) like some kind of misunderstood martyr.

>>8103633
Stop embracing the disease, find some other topic you can talk about with friends(preferably not drugs).
See a therapist, also.

>>8103335
>didactic
i think this is why i don't like infinite jest/dfw. my opinion on the novel has ranged from overzealous support to outright contempt, and i think i'm realizing that i do enjoy many aspects of dfw's work, and can respect his methods/style, but a) i don't like/no longer like his aesthetic choices and b) he is didactic, and i don't like didacticism.

>>8103609
New Sincerity tbqhfam

>>8103807
>I am living under the regime of a spiteful sphincter.

I'm >>8103596 no one really hates on The Pale King as they shouldn't, it genuinely would've been a masterpiece if continued for the 2k+ pages it was supposed to say, it was all of the great moments of IJ consistently, it was really his chance at making something groundbreaking. (An entertaining book about tedium as opposed to a tedious book about entertainment).

>>8103554

ESPECIALLY people who use the French spelling.

>>8103788
i respect and understand what you said but… it´s not everything didactic in a way or another?.

>>8103903
every work of art offers "lessons" i suppose but i mean didactic in the sense that IJ gives a "moral" lesson, or more specifically a "how to live" lesson.

>>8103448
kek'd

>>8103633
Heavy exercise, therapy, seek out new experiences.

Don't get high all the time.

Do something difficult on purpose, like boxing or bjj or learning some new skill. It makes regular things a little easier when you choose difficult things for entertainment.

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>>8103448

>>8103633
https://youtu.be/lk0osDo7BDE?t=351

>>8103199
Not one mention of his books in this whole shitty post.

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>>8103342
>unhealthy fixation on Dude Weed LMAO.

No, everything in the book becomes incredibly sad by the end and you'll see that his main thesis is that drugs totally ruin the potential of great people.

The tennis prodigy hal is numbed and dumbed into mediocrity by his cannabis use, and then finished off by a fictional psychedelic (chapter 1).

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>>8103828
> (An entertaining book about tedium as opposed to a tedious book about entertainment).

Damn. I wonder if DFW himself ever thought about it that way.

Maybe he woon've ung 'imself.

>ywn read a DFW essay on the iPhone