I just started reading this, why is every character's dialogue so fucking stilted?
Nobody in this book talks like a human being, and they all talk the same way. Even the narration is stilted.
>>7808762
Every writer has strengths and weaknesses. DeLillo's terrible at naturalistic or noticeably varied dialogue.
>>7808766
It's fucking awful though, why do people like this?
>>7808779
I can't speak for everyone, but I found the idea of it highly amusing. The dialogue was a flaw, but I didn't care enough to be bothered by it.
If this kind of stuff really irks you, DeLillo's not for you.
>>7808762
Life in a late capitalist consumer society is stilted. You didn't notice? Heh. Sorry but if this kind of talk is above you then you should leave DeLillo to the professionals
>>7808779
DeLillo is a real shit-tier author, and his acclaim tells you a lot about the vapid wasteland that American culture has been sliding into for the past twenty-thirty years. People laud him as an authentic voice of that vapidity, as if simply depicting a hyper-caricature of something stupid and banal makes that depiction inherently worthwhile: see also BEE, DFW and authors like Tao Lin, who forsake human reality for the sake of portraying people as bumbling automatons who exist as little more than meat puppets to be mocked on-stage. Everything is lost to the 'satire'.
To take DeLillo, for example: in White Noise he spends a lot of time talking about and depicting a society in which people worship consumer products, in which the supermarket is explicitly compared to the church in function. There is, of course, a real element of worship to modern commodity fetishism - but to compare the supermarket to a church is an absurd exaggeration. No one likes the supermarket. No one feels the kind of existential comfort DeLillo writes about while standing in the frozen produce section. He's so set on making fun of the zeitgeist that he misses the grain of truth that would make his parody of that zeitgeist amusing.
>>7808779
Your a true plebian anon. True Blue anon.
>>7808792
>my writing is bad because society is bad
>>7808808
>Your a
>plebian
>>7808808
>you're
>plebeian
>>7808805
>I need writing to be a baby blanket for the human condition
>I need writing to be realistic and honest because abstract absurdities intimidate my baby brain
>I insult DFW in passing but am clearly just reciting his television and irony essay
Awful post, and it's made even worse by the fact that I can tell you put a lot of effort into it
>>7808805
Look! A pontificating douche!
>>7808865
Actually, I never even really implied any of those things. Good satire and absurdity is my favourite kind of writing. That's why the praise of such ham-handed nonsense as the scene in White Noise where the protagonist's daughter mutters the name of a car in her sleep is so annoying. What is the point that scene makes that isn't simple common knowledge? Capitalism is alienating and breeds obsession with meaningless things. That is true. It's also not really a very interesting point to make over and over and over for hundreds of pages. At least, though, DFW and BEE have novel ways of expressing their only point - the stuff in IJ about the entertainment and American Psycho's depiction of yuppie culture, those work to some extent (I enjoyed Infinite Jest even despite its flaws). DeLillo doesn't even grace the reader with an idea - he just spews out "alienated" characters to disguise his own utter lack of talent as either a writer of prose or of concepts.
>>7808924
DFW believed Gass and DeLillo had some of the best prose out there in contemporary American fiction.
It's the editor's fault.
>>7808936
out of manure comes a flower.
>>7808805
>No one likes the supermarket. No one feels the kind of existential comfort DeLillo writes about while standing in the frozen produce section
But I love walking around Walmart aimlessly. It's nice.
>>7808924
youre literally just paraphrasing that reader manifesto article. i bet you haven't even read it hahah. well me neither, but i give it a 2 stars out of 3 stars, because a million critics cant be wrong! hooo!
>>7808936
I don't know about Gass, but I see DFW as a talented writer who was born into a culture too sterile to help him figure out what to do except reflect the stupid meaninglessness of that culture by writing things that were stupid and meaningless. Infinite Jest is readable - not amazing, but entertaining - in spite of Wallace's influences, not because of them. He might have chosen the most tired and obvious theme in modern American literature to write about, or more accurately had it chosen for him, but at the very least he didn't grace us with anything as bad as DeLillo's apparently satirical "Hitler Studies".
>>7808949
I like walking around my local park, but I wouldn't call myself a worshipper of anything in that park.
>>7808952
So because there is an article out there that says something similar to me I'm parroting it? Matter of fact I disagree with Meyers on some of the authors he covers. He's spot-on about DeLillo though.
>>7808958
He's just saying you're unoriginal.
>>7808965
I'm not trying to be original. I'm just giving my opinion on hackfraudery in American literature.
>>7808969
He didn't say you were trying to be original.
>>7808865
>abstract absurdities
What the fuck are you even going on about dude? Your golden calf DFW even said that the problem with modern "satire" is that it fails to build anything desirable in its place. Postmodern critique is unenjoyable, self-edifying, and self-congratulating despite having done nothing but taken easy potshots. Of course DFW's alternative was New Sincerity but in his fiction he was using postmodern technique and irony to critique postmodernism.
>>7808969
Which books/authors do you like? New poster so not challenging you
>>7808987
So, there's one definition, one set of standards for everything?
>>7808988
Joyce Carol Oates
Margaret Atwood
L Ron Hubbard
>>7809000
Obvious choices.
>>7809003
You're the manure, I'm a flower. So, thank you.
>>7809000
Editors ruined everything.
It's meta commentary on commercials.
I'm surprised you didn't get that.
>>7809003
Wallace's prose is mediocre. I wouldn't say he had no (discernible) talent, but he was steered the wrong way by the authors he liked. His influences poisoned him. The best parts of IJ are when he's not doing DeLillo's "look at how vapid people are haha" schtick - his writing about the interactions of the Incandenza family, where he actually tries to depict human interaction. He drops the self-important irony of his inspirations in some of those sections and it's tantalising.
>>7809028
I agree that every author should write the same way.
>>7808995
When making valid critique you are either:
a) Attempting to change the ideals of the critique's target to better conform with another -- which means you
b) Attempting to make the critique's target better represent a certain set of ideals the target is already representing.
By target, I mean whatever is being critiqued: a novel, society, an author, etc.
Postmodern critique performs critique upon its targets with neither goal in mind. It uses empty ridicule to criticize the work despite not coming from any firm ideological grounds.
Let's say I'm making fun of slam poetry. You ask me "Okay, how can slam poetry be made better?" You would be making valid critique if you said "Its discussed themes are okay but it should incorporate steady meter and rhythm."
You would be making a postmodern (and by extension useless) critique if you said "I don't know and don't really care."
DeLillo's ridicule of American consumerism are empty in the sense that he's only interested in deconstructing the edifice of consumerism without having any alternative vision to construct.
>>7809046
*I would be making valid critique if I said
**ridicule of American consumerism is
Sorry bout that.
>>7809061
You should edit yourself more.
It's supposed to be funny. Op. Hth.
>>7808805
>No one likes the supermarket. No one feels the kind of existential comfort DeLillo writes about while standing in the frozen produce section.
I thought this was true once. Then I accidentally made a friend whose only real hobby is shopping. We literally have long conversations while walking through grocery stores and Walmart.
I find it incredibly depressing but my only real hobby is reading so I have no fucking clue what to do in lieu of shopping while spending time with my friend.
Seriously though, if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.
>>7809210
Have you thought about taking up alcoholism as a hobby? You probably won't quit anything you're doing now but supermarkets are more fun when you're stumbling through them shitfaced.
>>7808924
>absurdity
Do you even know what this word means? If there's one thing White Noise does well, it's cultivating a sense of absurdity.
It pretty much spells out what it's getting at with its entire schtick too. All the overstimulation we're subjected to by hyperconsumerism is a sort of pseudo-mystical experience that distracts us from death (until we're confronted by the idea or possibility of our mortality, even in the vaguest way).
The book exaggerates this for comedic effect, but the idea is that it's a shallow, death-distracting force that can be mistaken for a life-affirmingly profound one (people who use shopping as a form of "therapy", set high materialistic goals for themselves as a motivation to be successful at whatever they do, measure their fulfillment and quality of life by how much shit they own, etc.)
>>7808805
>DeLillo is trying to capture "what it feels like" to shop at the supermarket
that is quite a pleb interpretation. DeLillo isn't saying you have a religious experience whenever you go shopping. he's talking about how shopping and other hyperreal constructs have replaced spirituality altogether.
supermarkets are designed to comfort you though, in a way that is easy to miss. the first thing you see are the green vegetables, bright fruits, etc., and then you pass by the bread, winding your way in to the processed stuff in boxes and unnatural packaging, by which point you have been lulled and aren't thinking much about what it is you're looking at. it's cushioned in a pocket of "real" foods, so as not to be questioned itself.
>>7809403
Exactly. It spells it out so bluntly and with so little skill that it manages to strangle whatever 'comedic effect' there might have been in the crib.
>>7809413
There is a world of difference between the comforting aesthetics of a supermarket and the religious rapture DeLillo writes about. Again, his exaggeration is not artful or interesting - it's just blowing up an existing thing tenfold. Done without comedic ability this is not the subtle incision of satire. It's blunt trauma to the head, message fiction for people who like to feel enlightened.
it's called pomo for a reason ya fuckin nimrod
>>7808805
>BEE, DFW and authors like Tao Lin, who forsake human reality for the sake of portraying people as bumbling automatons who exist as little more than meat puppets to be mocked on-stage.
You have no idea what you're talking about. BEE and Tao Lin's whole thing is that they portray an affectless, stoned reality that very specific subgroups of the population experience in a bland and banal way. I don't think it's good either, but the people they depict are out there and aren't all that different from how their books portray them.
DFW wasn't even pretending to be a satirist. He desperately wanted to write something meaningful, human, and life-affirming, but couldn't escape from his obsessive need to please people with entertainment due to being reared by TV. He wanted to be Dostoevsky, but ended up being some bizarre crying clown version of Kafka instead.
Look at Infinite Jest. He wanted to write a sad, meaningful story about addiction and entertainment, but the most memorable parts are mostly wacky comedic bits. It failed on the level he was trying to write it on.
He's a tragic figure in that everything he hated about his work and the culture that produced it/him was the only thing that made it so popular in the first place, and he could never abandon that affirmation long enough to do what he actually wanted to.
>>7808805
he's shit, but better than pynchon.
>>7809508
I do think I overgeneralized there, you're right. DFW was trying to achieve something more with his writing - but as well as TV I'd say the influence of hacks like DeLillo is part of what caused him to fail. I was speaking too harshly in including him with Tao Lin and BEE.
>>7809480
hyperreality is a big fucking place, kid. the fact that you still seem to misunderstand it even when it is "blown up tenfold" is on you, not DeLillo.
have you read Simulacra and Simulation? if so, you should re-read it. considering this text alongside White Noise will increase your understanding of both of them.
>>7809537
What exactly do I fail to understand? Can you dumb it down for me, sensei?
>>7809543
Your reaction to the book proves its point. You feel so strongly enough about the world as it's been presented to you by various hyperreal consumerist apparati, that this book's blatant artificiality is something you object to with a nearly religious fervor.
You crave experiences that make you feel more "real" or "alive" than your actual reality and life do, and lash out against anything that runs counter to that craving.
>>7809537
>hyperreality is a big fucking place, kid.
The dialogue isn't intended to be naturalistic or varied you clown. If it's that fucking offensive to you try something else.
>>7811034
cosmopolis is my favourite book :3
>>7811034
>it's supposed to be bad, you're just not smart enough to get it
>>7809574
Oh sheet
Definitely their best so far. Settle as a whole was better than caracal in my opinion.
>>7811198
>if something doesn't pander directly to me, it's bad
I guess Shakespeare was pretty bad too, since most of his characters spoke in verse instead of natural dialogue.
Dismissed.
>>7808805
Indeed, quality post. DeLillo is just awful. He wrote a mediocre essay stating the obvious in form of a shitty novel.
>>7811368
No, he never felt unnatural even if they are clearly artificial.
Shakespeare also isn't shit.
>>7811368
Except the dialogue isn't well written.
Case in fucking point:
‘It’s not the station wagons I wanted to see. What are the people like? Do the women wear plaid skirts, cable-knit sweaters? Are the men in hacking jackets? What’s a hacking jacket?’
‘They’ve grown comfortable with their money,’ I said. ‘They genuinely believe they’re entitled to it. This conviction gives them a kind of rude health. They glow a little.’
‘I have trouble imagining death at that income level,’ she said.
‘Maybe there is no death as we know it. Just documents changing hands.’
>>7811375
You remind me of the painful experience which was reading White Noise.
Probably the worst novel I read last year.
>>7808762
It's supposed to be
>>7809413
>DeLillo isn't saying you have a religious experience whenever you go shopping. he's talking about how shopping and other hyperreal constructs have replaced spirituality altogether
Baudrillard? My nigga
>>7811375
>I have trouble imagining death at that income level
This is hilarious though. It reads like some business exchange
This thread is just making me want to read this book.
>>7811413
this tbqh I think you guys are just not getting it
>>7811418
I get everything you are saying he is telling, but I found the message itself basic and shallow and wrapped in a really shitty novel. Maybe a good essay, but as a novel it's unbearably shitty writing and character wise.
>>7811413
I just started the book two days ago, oddly. I'm halfway through and actually loving it.
This dialogue is not actually that forced, imo. It's kind of an accurate, if condensed version of how a lot of people I know talk (take the best lines and ideas that we come up with and throw out all the crap), often insufferable, over-intellectualized, etc. It's fun to do but it also makes us hate ourselves.
I loved the scene where Murray and Jack are co-lecturing, I really got shivers, especially when reflecting on the barn scene at the beginning of the book. It's a great parody of how intellectuals tend to converse, talking with relation to the other person, but really just talking past them and pushing their own agenda, and deriving a sense of self-importance from association with other "profound" ideas.
>>7811426
>it's unbearably shitty writing and character wise.
Why do you say this? The writing seems quite good to me, it sets out to create an effect and does so masterfully. The characters tend to be a bit flat, but especially in the case of Jack, that's what he's supposed to be, he's an author insert, for the author and audience to identify with and project onto, as Jack progresses his character, Delillo progresses his central idea.
>>7811466
>Why do you say this? The writing seems quite good to me, it sets out to create an effect and does so masterfully.
Masterfully? No, there's other examples that deal with similar themes and effects, but are readable. Going through these sentences I wanted to shoot myself, they were painful.
>The characters tend to be a bit flat, but especially in the case of Jack, that's what he's supposed to be, he's an author insert, for the author and audience to identify with and project onto, as Jack progresses his character, Delillo progresses his central idea.
Good authors do this, but without having flat characters at all. Heck Dostoevsky has an agenda as the final means and his characters are complex as fuck.
>>7811483
>Going through these sentences I wanted to shoot myself, they were painful.
I think this says more about you as a reader than expresses any weakness of Delillo's. I happen to enjoy his sentences.
I think they communicate the message he has on multiple levels, both through the form of what's being said and its content, which is why I consider it a strength.
>Dostoevsky has an agenda as the final means and his characters are complex as fuck.
Some of them, not all. But TBK is a very long book, White Noise is only ~230 pages long, in OP's addition, and medium size print. I wouldn't say Delillo is as good as Dostoevsky, but I think calling him a total hack is a pretty big dis-service.
I might also say Delillo's characters are more meant to represent archetypes than actual people, but I'm not sure how attatched I am to this line of argument. I'm only halfway through the book anyway.
>>7811548
>I think this says more about you as a reader than expresses any weakness of Delillo's. I happen to enjoy his sentences.
I indeed believe that sentences of people shouldn't sound artificial and vapid, even if intentional.
>I think they communicate the message he has on multiple levels, both through the form of what's being said and its content, which is why I consider it a strength.
The message itself is what I consider to be extremely banal and can be expressed in 20 pages instead of 200 as he didn't have the characters necessary to make it a good novel in itself.
>Some of them, not all. But TBK is a very long book, White Noise is only ~230 pages long, in OP's addition, and medium size print. I wouldn't say Delillo is as good as Dostoevsky, but I think calling him a total hack is a pretty big dis-service.
You can take any number of smaller novels with a message from Russian realism really or 1st part of 2666 which is quite similar in themes.
>I might also say Delillo's characters are more meant to represent archetypes than actual people, but I'm not sure how attatched I am to this line of argument. I'm only halfway through the book anyway.
I just found them to be irredeemably artificial, bland and shallow. And not intentionally shallow in a way Bolano did it.
>>7811629
Your criticisms are well taken. I've only just started with Delillo and for now am enjoying him.
I haven't read 2666 but I've read almost everything Dostoevsky wrote. What from Russian Realism would you recommend?
>>7811644
Well Tolstoy is an obvious one. Anna Karenina and The Resurrection are my favorites. Gogol has a stunning hand at writing short stories, an array of emotions he covers is really wide, from sweet Ukrainian legends to heavy and sad critique of Russian society. Chekhov is also an amazing writer of novellas and short stories. Turgenev is interesting, but underwhelming compared to other in his category. Lermontov isn't exactly realism, but is also very well written. Hero of Our Time is an impressive subversion of your byronic hero.
>>7808762
>voices are tin-eared, indistinguishable
>novel is called "White Noise"
Dam son you may be on to something here.
>>7811644
Bolaño is amazing, btw. He's one of my favorite authors.
Also I loved White Noise.
