Why is DFW a hack according to a lot of people including certain meme academics? Perhaps he doesn't offer as much as certain people claim/live up to the hype/resonate with some demographics but disregarding that, what is so incredibly offensive about DFW?
>>8155258
>what is so incredibly offensive about DFW?
His insincerity.
>>8155258
He pretended to be the king of sincerity but was actually a lvl. 10 ironic pomo shithead who an heroed. His positivity and sincerity were deeply disingenuous, and he knew it, so his suicide was well advised
>>8155593
He was never about positivity. His books are sad as shit.
Also i think he didn't claim to be the king of sincerity but he recognised insincere ironic writing as cancerous detrimental stuff, but still couldn't avoid it due to longterm exposure to television.
>>8155258
It's mostly because he wrote a giant, quirky, melancholic doorstop with a seldom used gimmick and because the whole bandanna-wearing sincerity guru thing became a meme even before he killed himself.
Most reactions aren't to DFW the man, or even DFW the author via his books,, but to DFW the meme.
>>8155258
He misuses words like 'defenestration' and 'vomitorium'. He also said nothing interesting or clever ever.
>>8155258
>Harold Bloom
>"certain meme academics"
LEAVE
>>8156000
Well put anon
+1
i haven't read him but he seems like a giant yuppie pseudointellectual with zero life experience outside his psuedointellectual yuppie circles
>>8156008
not him, but i've been here for years and frankly, bloom sucks dick
>>8156519
Yeah. Bloom is only fetishized by certain posters here because they think he represents some sort of return to high culture. The fact of the matter is that despite having read pretty much all the classics over his lifetime, he's still an inadequate thinker and a follower.
I've never been too familiar with the DFW memeing, but I just read IJ and I can understand why people would call him a hack. His prose is nice occasionally but for the most part it just felt like he wanted it to be maximalist novel and didn't care about much else. The notes were pointless and only added to that feeling. A few of the characters were interesting, at least, but it seemed like he didn't care much about the characters himself. All he wanted was to be as maximal as possible, or so it seemed to me. I was pretty disappointed, but at least now I understand why his fanbase is what it is.
>>8156779
also he fucked his students
>>8156806
And what's wrong with that? They weren't minors.
>>8156006
dfw said a lot of interesting things, you're being ridiculous
>>8157618
he was a preschool teacher you sick fuck
>>8156800
You're wrong though. He didn't just write it to be maximal. The novel's themes and messages are so obvious I have to doubt you read the book at all.
I dunno if he doesn't care about the characters, but the novel itself certainly doesn't treat them like human beings. I find it disappointing that the novel's most compelling character, the depressive, Kate, has the book's best and most effective scene wherein she describes her depression. And then she's disappointingly pushed out of focus aside from a few glimpses. I imagine following her might have been too personal for DFW, who preferred to write about tennis and crossdressing spies...
>>8157901
There was a reason for the side characters seeming more fleshed out than the "main" ones and it was explained near the end. The book was very deliberately designed to do a specific thing and it failed because DFW couldn't hack it.
>>8157901
The themes were obvious, yes, but they could've been delivered in a much shorter novel, without the notes.
>>8157926
>it failed because DFW couldn't hack it
At least he tried, which is more than most of the geniuses on /lit/ can say.
>>8156060
>>8156501
>I haven't read him
then fuck off
>>8157926
>There was a reason
What was the reason?
>very deliberately designed to do a specific thing
What thing?
>>8155258
He's relevant for a generation or two. I don't see how he's a classic like a lot think though.
>>8156800
I agree with this. A lot of instances in IJ is just rambling. Few passages of genuine insight and cleverness, but the rest feels hollow. And the endnotes, the fucking endnotes. Please someone tell me the reason for including the entire oevure of JOI?!
>>8158017
does JOI mean something beyond Jerk Off Instructions?
>>8158040
James Orin Incandenza. Father of the main character, Hal; and shitty avant garde film director.
>>8158017
>Please someone tell me the reason for including the entire oevure of JOI?!
Because it's hilarious
>>8157989
Read the part where JOI's wraith talks to Gately near the end. When he talks about figurants he's pretty much spelling out why the characters are written the way they are.
As for the goal of it in general, he was trying to write a more coherent book in an approximation of the style of Finnegans Wake (constant references to notes in the back of the book as a form of disruption akin to the wake's disruption of language and sudden movements from one thought to the next) while also giving it a moralist bent, and he just bit off way more than he could chew with all of that.
>>8158114
>Read the part
I don't have the book.
>>8155258
He's reddit: the author
>le quirky endnotes
>>8158114
IJ is nothing like FW
>>8158114
>constant references to notes in the back of the book as a form of disruption akin to the wake's disruption of language and sudden movements from one thought to the next
Everybody keeps saying that but it doesn't work, at all
It only made for a few good comedic moments, the rest should've been in the main text, which is always rambling anyway
>>8155258
>why is DFW a hack according to a lot of people
Because the world will always, always have millions of contrarian retards in it. It's one thing to dislike DFW's work, but saying he's not a talented writer is just stupid.
>>8155258
Honestly he seems like a preppy asshole who smoked way too much weed and had a huge superiority complex.
But I honestly never took the time to explore his work so I can't speak to its literary value.
>>8155258
I feel like he's considered a hack in the same sense that any author who sincerely and publicly seeks to identify the elements of his/her behavior that keep their ego enslaved or inhibited by a system the trajectory of which doesn't seem "Good" is considered a hack (sorry for the awful sentence). These authors acknowledge the parts of themselves that are compulsive and ultimately contribute to some sort of inefficiency within the collective. To a certain type of reader who reads for the sole purpose of validating his deepest hope that he is Special and Clearly Superior and has a purpose that is beyond the comprehension of those who don't respect him (you know the type), the fact that the tendencies identified seem obvious and important verifies the fact that they knew about them all along and just never wrote about them because they were somehow beyond it.
God I am so sleep-deprived I hope this makes any sense at all
>>8160172
What makes sense is how far you have to go in order to defend DFW's most blatant failings as a writer
