David Foster Wallace

>>9702412
*responds by quoting Wittgenstein*

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why do you think someone like Bloom, who can't say enough about Pynchon and DeLillo, shits on this guy, who, to the average reader, bears a lot of passing resemblance to both (almost like a best of both worlds thing)?

why do you think someone who has read as much as Bloom, someone with as refined tastes and standard for judgement, would completely dismiss this guy?

why don't you?

Why do you think people post pictures of anime girls on lit?
Why

>>9702426
Probably because taste is a thing, and it's far more idiotic to think every novel he praises is Objectively good, or that anything he dislikes is Objectively bad. I love Bloom, but there are other critics that are, in my opinion, just as spot on about shit who seem to have loved it. I actually completely disagree that he's anything like Pynchon, besides that they're both writing long, dense novels. He has a bit of Delillo in him, but in my opinion it's mostly Gaddis and a little Barth, if anything. Are you sure you've read IJ?

*responds by quoting Henry Miller*

>>9702426
Probably because Wallace comes off as a nerd who learned all of the superficial rules of postmodern writing without the insight or literary talent and Bloom saw right through it.

>>9702426
you obviously arent very smart as its very clear that Bloom was mostly just upset with Wallace's comments near the end of IJ (he called his writing turgid, but at the same time it was kind of a back-handed compliment but unfortunately bloom will probably never take the time to actually read the book and find out.)
Bloom probably would have liked him seeing as how he liked Pynchon.

>>9702479
I don't know. That just seems petty for someone like Bloom, especially after Wallace's suicide (he doubled down on his position, after Wallace's death keep in mind)

To my mind there must be more to it than that. I think Bloom read IJ and found something about the themes majorly distasteful. Bloom does have a pretty hedonistic, indigent view of reading, so maybe something about DFW's puritan strain set him off, or maybe he misinterpreted the political theme of the novel and thought Wallace was advocating what people like Schmitt and Marathe say, rather than posing it as a challenge worth considering. My money is on the latter, just because I did the same when I read it, and Bloom does have a history of letting politics inform his reading regardless of whether he claims to be a total aesthete or not, and as a Jew he probably would get a bit edgy around perceived fascist themes in a contemporary writer.

I am honestly surprised DFW doesn't get pulled more often by modern academic types for being quote problematic I mean if you misread IJ you can really make him out to be a real scapegoat. I just hope he never becomes an alt-right meme.

>>9702585
amen.