>Asked about novelist David Foster Wallace...Bloom says, “You know, I don’t want to be offensive. But ‘Infinite Jest’ is just awful. It seems ridiculous to have to say it. He can’t think, he can’t write. There’s no discernible talent.”
>It’s all a clear indication, Bloom notes, of the decline of literary standards. He was upset in 2003 when the National Book Award gave a special award to Stephen King. “But Stephen King is Cervantes compared with David Foster Wallace. We have no standards left. [Wallace] seems to have been a very sincere and troubled person, but that doesn’t mean I have to endure reading him. I even resented the use of the term from Shakespeare, when Hamlet calls the king’s jester Yorick, ‘a fellow of infinite jest.’
>“It’s sort of a dark time. Imaginative energy I think is very difficult to summon up when there are so many distractions. There’s a kind of Grisham’s law [in literature]; the bad drives out the good.”
>>7747983
Bloom is a big fan of Gene Wolfe, from what i've heard.
>>7748000
That's not altogether surprising. Being pretty virulently anti-canon, I've never really put much stock in Bloom's opinions anyway (unless, of course, he happens to agree with my opinion, that is). No one has to like anything, but I do object to Bloom's specific remarks - "He can't think, he can't write. There's no discernible talent." What a blowhard.
>>7747983
Wow man this is the first time me and everyone else have read this past... Excerpt
He was right
Increment Pest is pure ideological masturbation. Stop confusing substance for style.
Who cares about that?
If you want to see Davey buried completely, just look at this instead
http://www.cosmoetica.com/B1349-JH1.htm
>>7748005
>blowhard
In what sense and compared to whom?
I wonder if he finished the book.
>>7748029
the book obviously failed him
>>7748029
>The book finished him
>>7747983
Is Bloom actually famous for anything other than shitting on Stephen King and DFW and Harry Potter?
>>7748197
People on /lit/ like being told what to think
Why else would we be on /lit/?
>>7748197
Here, watch someone shit on Bloom
http://www.cosmoetica.com/D1-DES1.htm
>>7748245
Glad, I'm not the only one in this site who reads cosmoetica.
It has gotten me out of the subjectivity myth and made me notice how much a dilettante I am.
>>7748197
His ardent revitalizing of Shakespeare and the western canon.
>>7748385
Dan is spot on a lot of times, but he has some areas where he falters.
His belief that Meter is a fallacy for example. He's correct to say that Meter is less significant in poetry compared to stuff like the movement of images and ideas, but the fact that an iambic pentameter program exists on the net kind of kills the thesis. So take some of those things with a grain of salt.
But I love how much he kills everyone else.
>>7748410
He also considers himself the greatest poet of all time having written 2000 or so genuinely great poems.
>>7748245
>>7748410
Yea I was just gonna say, I'm reading this and while I have a lot of respect for his argument so far, I'm not sure if I agree entirely yet. I have to think over more about what it means. I'm not sure I can get behind someone using their own poetry to support themselves here (and this claim >>7748416 gave me pause with its self-fellating)
.
But in the meantime, I am fucking dying over here from how vicious this guy is. I love it.
>Uh-huh! Take a deep breath, Helen, please, & get off your knees!
goddamn
>>7748416
Until I see the actual whole output I won't challenge that.
And he also has a book that is supposedly longer than In Search of Lost Time and the best novel in the world, but is unpublished.
Seeing the stuff he has out so far, I would say that its possible though.
>>7748422
Stuff he's released so far is here
http://www.cosmoetica.com/Poetrylinks.htm
And he has a poem on America that starts with the founding of the country and ends with an SF alien war
I haven't adequately grappled with his stuff enough but I'll say that at the very least he probably has a thematic range far vaster than anyone else there. He's written poems on everything from movie stars to memories to abstract Stevensian style poems to science poems. He even wrote a double sestina for the twin towers just because he could
>>7748018
I think this is mostly garbage. There are some sound criticisms in here, but it seems as though he hated Wallace before he'd read any of his work, and then read it in foamy-mouthed preparation of writing this essay.
>>7748441
Thanks mate, I'd be lying if I said "SF alien war" didn't strongly catch my interest.
But I'm looking at this site, and while I know that the content is what's important, not the presentation..."Over 528 Million Visitors Since 1/9/01" and the place looks like a GeoCities page constructed with slightly above-average competence. Would it kill this guy to hire a coder?
>>7748431
>man who works solely through an old website on the corner of the internet
>greatest poet ever
I dunno...
>>7748448
That was one of my favourite memes.
>>7748410
Everything he has said about Vollman is pretty accurate so far.
>sciolistic
Ya, ya basically.
>>7748018
>went to Illinois State
>theatre
>complain DFW is "self-consciously artsy"
>>7748431
>And he also has a book that is supposedly longer than In Search of Lost Time and the best novel in the world, but is unpublished.
haha yeah *right*
>>7748447
Did I mention that Cosmoetica actively eggs people on to defend their views by sending the people they criticize their reviews with a challenge to protect themselves?
More fun is to be had seeing Dan tear into those counter attempts (though the DFW one isn't written by Dan)
If you want to take the challenge, have a go my friend.
>>7748464
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgDvnClYmJQ
>>7748462
I know you're really trying to make a point here.
Can't seem to see it working.
>>7748462
You do know that Hawley also pretty much dissed his own upbringing in the review right? Yea obviously he knows that retard
"I don’t mean to suggest that Wallace’s fanbase is just a few classes or essays away from “getting” art, but I bring this up because I can remember the person I was before a blog post by Roger Ebert introduced me to the previously-mentioned Dan Schneider, a passionate and sharp critic who challenged me to be more engaged, to judge art with the same sort of objectivity and rigor that any other human endeavor requires. Before I discovered his site, Cosmoetica, I didn’t really have any sort of critical palette, for all I really saw art as was as a way to make me feel. I was a 20-year-old sophomore planning on adding English as a second major the following year, and being a solitary, lonely person by nature, I was desperate for others’ approval. I can easily imagine a reality where I didn’t meet Dan, where I entered Academia without any sort of inner ethos or critical standards and found DFW’s writing to be “just what I needed”, as they say. For, despite all I’ve written, there are things about Wallace’s writing that I do “like”, which makes sense, given that, as an overeducated, upper middle class, white loner, I’m basically his target reader. I mentioned earlier that his description of loneliness is at least somewhat cogent in terms of my own experience, and I can say the same thing of much of what he writes regarding self-consciousness, the feeling of being disconnected and adrift, etc. In many ways, I think Wallace really is a cult figure, in that his work is designed and marketed to appeal to people feeling lost or alone, and while I don’t see his followers getting together to drink poison-laced Kool-Aid or castrate themselves, I do think that purveying a misguided and simplistic perspective of art and the world is still very corrosive."
>>7748466
I don't think I care enough. It's not like DFW needs anyone to champion him.
>>7748482
>You do know that Hawley also pretty much dissed his own upbringing in the review right?
I hate your template.
>>7748441
>http://www.cosmoetica.com
>pull up taxi driver review
>it's positive
Meh. Discarded.
>>7748393
>revitalizing of Shakespeare
which really just amounted to writing personal memoirs. shakespeare doesn't need anyone to prop him up, his shadow looms large.
>>7748541
Don't worry darling, I have just the right dose for you
http://www.cosmoetica.com/S3-DES3.htm
>>7748545
Nah, I'm not going to read this faggot shitting all over Shakespeare.
>>7748550
Except that he doesn't. He gives Shakespeare that exact due Shakespeare deserves
>>7748197
He's also famous for sucking Corncob "Tortillas" YeCarthy's cock and writing a laughably bad fanfic of some guy's Fantasy book.
>Finnegans Wake
>poeseur crap
Well, you guys almost had me.
Dan, I know you're in this thread. Who else could be shilling this drivel so hard? Look up how to use a stylesheet for the love of god.
>>7748545
That was such shit.
>>7748595
That "fanfic" was actually pretty good. Bloom just keeps him at home, because he's made plenty of enemies, as a critic.
>>7748622
>Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
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>>7748637
If you actually have anything to contribute, do so. If not, just die.
>tfw you will never waste one minute of your life reading shitty meme authors like DFW
Bloom is basically a living Gaston Godin though, I will admit that
>>7748650
>posts on a Bloom-DFW meme thread
>demands 'proper contribution'
>never engages with the ideas beyond one line and expects a proper reply
Oh Internet, you never let me down.
>>7748688
lol not worth the effort
Also
>Bloom-DFW meme thread
>never engages with the ideas
one leads to the other faggot
>>7748701
Right, because I brought up something that could have been grappled with and was neither DFW nor Bloom/Shakespeare fellating (because every Bloom fellating also extends to Shakespeare fellating)
That contributes one idea versus
>If you actually have anything to contribute, do so. If not, just die.
or
>That was such shit.
So the burden to reply with worth falls on you.
But I can see you're quite a ball-less twat.
>>7748637
>Cosmoetica reserves the right to use any email sent as an example of the asininity of most people
lol
>>7748005
virulently?
>>7748018
What a steaming pile of horse shit.
>>7748822
Yeah? It's a perfectly cromulent word.
>>7748728
i barely posted anything, and here you are getting buttmad. your discourse ranks as shit as my troll posts btw
>>7748018
oh my god for that format he should be taken out and shot.
that is a hideous web page holy fuck
>>7748018
This is literally like 100 pages long lol.
That exiledonline article was only 1/4 that length and half of it wasn't even about DFW. 100 pages just seems like a lot of time to spend explaining why you think a writer sucks lol
