What is post-irony?
Explain me it to me
The dichotomy between irony and sincerity has been weakened to the point that it doesn't exist.
Irony was all the rage in the 60s 70s and 80s with pynchon et al (barth, etc.) until david foster wallace called it out for being cold and alienating ad hollow and led the charge to put humanity and warmth back in literature. He wrote a short story that destroyed barth and then he wrote infinite jest and destroyed pynchon by showing he coukd write a gravitys rainbow type novel but have it be actually emotionally engaging not just silly and smart. Since then, writers have eschewed irony and gone more for sincerity, and thats where we're at right now. Any writer trying to do pomo irony and tricks in a post-dfw/irony world looks very belated and old fashioned in the current literocultural climate.
A return to sincerity with knowledge of irony. That's about it. It's just a collapse of the two
>>7864895
I loved Infinite Jest but you're delusional, le new sincerity man
>>7864895
Pynchon is the most sincere and authentic author around. And wasn't DFW's first book called Pynchonesque and he had to defend himself?
>>7864925
Yeah broom is pynchonesque but it was written while he was in college and was still in thrall to irony. He didnt develop his critiques of irony until later when he went through AA and got clean from drugs and alcohol.
Explain to an absolute pleb: what is meant by irony and sincerity in the greater context of literature? I know the literal meanings of course but I get the feeling that you guys are talking about something else.
>>7864911
isn't that New Sincerity though?
>>7865247
Read a page of gravitys rainbow and then read a page of infinite jest, and compare. The former is a soulless demonstration of scientific intellect and the latter is about what it is to think and feel as a conscious human being, today.
>>7865247
dfw was still stuck in dualistic 20th century mentality and was unable to comprehend incoming hyper-irony singularity. Let the memes flow through you and you will become Enligthened
>>7864835
SINCERITY
A young man thinks retards are sad and gross
IRONY
The young boy gets older and starts pretending he's retarded
POST IRONY
The young boy becomes a young man and, in an attempt to not be a child, stops pretending he's retarded.
POST-POST IRONY
The young man becomes a man and acts retarded because it's fun and funny, but doesn't do it all the time, because he's regularly trying to get laid.
SINCERITY
The man is depressed and in attempt to better himself, stops pretending he's retarded altogether, but still makes jokes.
TO INFINITY AND BEYOND
The man makes jokes sometimes and becomes a well adjusted individual.
>>7865263
Is that what you would call an infinite jest?
>>7864835
Post-irony is bronies, emo revivalist music, the mindnumbing appeal of made in chelsea, the watered down 'introspective' douchebag playing lame covers of pop songs on an acoustic guitar and dank memes
>>7865281
Yeah, but I'd just call it by its synonym. Life.
>>7865289
Ah..
>>7865196
you betcha
>>7865247
Irony is basically all tone, that can manifest in different ways.
>White Noise- limp, dry, banal
>Pynchon- druggy, intentionally-confusing, intentionally misleading
>Nabokov- romantic and suave tone that covers up the immensely fucked up undertones
Basically, irony is a detachment, whether it's detaching the reader from the story, the themes, or emotions of the book.
>>7864835
I've always interpreted it as being into something ironically for a while and ending up actually liking it.
