ITT: biggest pseuds in literary or philosophical history

franzen, dfw

Deleuze was a blatant quack imo

I'd suck off Ezra Pound he is the greatest writer ever

what? deleuze read literally everything. just check out his writings on nietzsche, bergson, and spinoza, or difference and repetition.

Derrida was a straightforward charlatan. He just repeated relatively simple philosophical concepts that already existed with obscurantism, obscurantism and more obscurantism

Your mum

Kerouac has his moments

>Manana...a lovely word and one that probably means heaven.

Ezra is a fucking genius
gramsci wasn't a pseud, in fact that isn't even him, thats an actor dressed as him in an obscure film
most of the beat generations were gigapseuds completely unfamiliar with the canon and just banking on anecdotes and quips about their persons (somewhat akin to modern celebrity culture) the only good things it ever spawned were Thomas Pynchon and Ken Kesey
Franzen is actually the least pseud I've ever encountered. You can tell he started out as a writer with this sprawling idea of changing society and with sardonic vision to effect tremendous social change, but he blinked (as Gaddis did before him). Over the year's he's become more and more humble, and despite his disdain for more experimental works he's still a wildly intelligent writer not trying to surpass his own limits.
Deleuze wasn't a quack
he openly admitted to doing drugs nonstop while brainstorming with Guattari for Capitalism & Schizophrenia
He tried to expose Lacan's psychoanalytic cult and got ousted from most of the french circles for it
read his work on Nietzsche its actually fantastic
Derrida approached his work with nowhere near as much seriousness as his critics do (he openly admits this in interviews)
many of his arguments revolve around the fact that rhetoric is subtly intertwined too closely with literary modes and "playful" elements of language, so he doesn't performatively contradict himself by only writing stern straightforward arguments

Unironically DFW. As a teen I loved the guy, but now that I'm older and much better read I can see that Wallace's MO was to learn just enough of any subject to look smart to someone who knows nothing about it. His interpretation of Wittgenstein is a mess, his philosophies on grammar are arcane and arbitrary, and I've seen enough experts point out his mistakes in chemistry, math, et al to become suspicious of him whenever he brings up a fact that is supposed to seem erudite. He talked big about "overcoming postmodernism" but the project was clearly a failure: he knew as well as anyone that his entire appeal came from the postmodern gimmicks in his books, and that adding a thin veneer of sentimentality over his persona did nothing other than add yet another voice disparate voice to the ironic pastiche that was his writing.

The most dangerous thing about him is that he's a pseud who knows he's a pseud and spends the entirety of his artistic energy in trying to distract you from the fact that at bottom he has an anemic, lifeless view of the world.

Daily reminder that we have to either ban usury or implement Social Credit Theory if we want the restitution of genuine art. Nothing personal merchants.

is it bad that i see myself in this description of dfw

no
thats part of DFW's whole shtick
he knew he was a lying sack of shit and he'd admit it whenever he could
read Good Old Neon

Yes that's pretty much my take on him. I would also observe that DFW had a relentlessly confessional mode of writing and speaking, as if constantly confessing somehow nullified transgressions.

absolutely, but the good news is that this attitude is often a necessary step in discovering the actual value of learning for itself. i'd venture to say almost any well-read person has acted like this at some point in their life, but eventually you'll get more interested in the reading than impressing other people. appearing intelligent is a fulfilling benefit of reading, but i hope you'll come to regard it as a nice side effect compared to the gem of being able to learn how to think differently

Yes. The object of the game is honest self-appraisal of knowledge. You cannot be a good scholar/teacher/writer if you don't have an extremely realistic sense of where your knowledge begins and ends.

Since these areas (academia, writing) are so intensely competitive, we are all prone to getting insecure and over-reaching. You cannot be an honest thinker without honestly appraising your knowledge.

>Derrida approached his work with nowhere near as much seriousness as his critics do (he openly admits this in interviews)
Guys relax he was just pretending to be retarded

>Derrida anticipated your shitpost and btfo you before he died

>Ezra is a fucking genius

Explain. All I see him doing is pretending to translate Chinese and Anglo Saxon.

>he never read The Pound Era

>He tried to expose Lacan's psychoanalytic cult and got ousted from most of the french circles for it
can I get a link for this?

very sound, positive advice, anons. it's affirming to see something so genuinely upbuilding on here.

whoah inception xD

I don't question his importance, for example, in helping TS Eliot and James Joyce get published/reviewed.

But he feigned an enormous command of knowledge he didn't have. That's very annoying to me. He was extremely knowledgeable but positioned himself beyond his abilities.

>can I get a link for this
Anti-Oedipus is literally an attack on Psychoanalysis
read Intersecting Lives by Francois Dosse

"When Lacan discovered how aggressive the book was with respect to his ideas, all the bridges were definitively burned. Not only would the two never see each other gain, but Lacan and his friends also started circulating a series of rumors about Guattari’s practice to discredit him in the psychoanalytic circles."

DFW comes off like a character in a koan: One day, the richest man in the village announced that he had buried a gold piece in his field and whichever peasant dug it up was welcome to keep it. The next morning, every able-bodied worker gathered in the field and dug until the holes sunk well above their heads. But the rich merchant was a cruel man: just as the sun was setting, he danced around the holes flashing his gold piece: "Did you simpletons really believe I would bury such wealth for a lowly peasant to find! You must all be stupider than I thought!"

Nonetheless, the next day a large number of men returned to the field to begin new holes. The master, visiting the village for a stop on his journey, was amazed by this behavior. He approached the field as clods of dirt flew from the ground pocked with holes.

"My son," the master asked the first digger he encounter, "why is it that you are still searching when the merchant has announced that there is no coin here?"

"Master," the digger replied, "I know many might call me foolish in this pursuit, but my family has gone hungry for days at a time. The field I used to plow have gone barren and no matter how I tend it, it produces nothing but dust. My many attempts to gain employment in the village have failed. No matter my effort, the money will not come, and if it has been decided that my strength is no longer sufficient to keep me on this earth, then I might as well be digging here than doing anything else. The world is as inscrutable as the merchant, and just as cruel. A lie can become a truth at any moment."

As the digger finished speaking, there arose a snickering from the next hole over. The master knelt at it and peered down its walls. "And why are you laughing?" he asked into the darkness.

From below, a voice answered: "How ridiculous that he has to tell himself all that just to keep going! At least I know I'm doing it for no reason!"