Is there still merit to maximalism as a literary paradigm?

Everything has merit
Except this thread

Idunno, but it's fun.

>>8491412
It probably has the most merit.

File: DFW4.png (114KB, 347x344px) Image search: [Google]

114KB, 347x344px

>>8491412

>fiction
>"merit"

I'm happy that academics can make a living reading and writing about novels all day, but we're not getting paid for this. Let's be real.

>>8491412
>maximalism as a literary paradigm
You can always spot pseuds by their clumsy pleonasms.

>>8491596
>income is a definer of merit

>>8491412
Yes, why not. The state of contemporary American fiction at least is awful. It's all MFA twats churning out vapid bullshit in a cookie cutter wannabe Hemingway or Denis Johnson style that is anything but inimitable.

yes but you won't be relevant until long after your death

>>8491639
Aren't the Pynchon and DFW imitators often just as shitty though?

>>8491412
Maximalism is far from a literary paradigm nowadays. Many critics decry Pynchon, Gaddis, DFW, Gass, DeLillo etc., as being sterile, boring, and overly difficult. It doesn't matter if the critics are idiots, what matters is that these writers are not necessarily in the mainstream of modern literature. There's less experimental and more acclaimed, non-gargantuan modern writers like Updike, Roth, McCarthy, etc. This all has an American bias, I'll admit, but it's just my two cents.

Not only that, but huge books have been pretty common throughout literary history --- Don Quixote, Tom Jones, Clarissa, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy etc. I can't remember everything between, War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Moby-Dick, In Search of Lost Time, etc., etc. Big books can be very successful and interesting if pulled off well and offer many situations for character development and development of plot and themes and general fun stuff that can't be pulled off as well or significantly in shorter works, although shorter works, of course, on the other hand, also can have their own advantages over behemoths in concision and forceful impact.

My personal opinion is that I think maximalist books are pretty cool and I'm drawn to reading them for some reason. I've always found them very rewarding.

>>8491664
Who are the Pynchon/DFW imitators?

Any big names? I guess William T Vollmann who I think sucks, but I can't think of a lot of shitty published authors who are Pynchon imitators. There are tons of published authors who are the person I described.

>>8491664
DFW was a Pynchon imitator. And yes, he was shitty.

>>8491601
But isn't "clumsy pleonasm" a pleonasm?

>>8491783
No, there are unclumsy pleonasms if they are done less clumsily.

better than literary minimalism desu

>>8491804
Wow the tautologies never end!

Pseuds, meet your king!

>>8491815
Are we repeatedly going to keep going on like this endlessly?

>>8491818
;;;;;;;)))))))

I'd say it has "merit" but it's merit doesn't outweigh how fucking annoying it is most of the time.
Except when it comes to Pynchon, I don't even really think of him as a maximalist, maybe because he's fun.

>>8491818
I am completely and totally lost now