I struggled to reach page 90 of pic related and I just don't get it.
The book is boring, not very well written (cheap metaphores, silly dialogue), and the atmosphere feels like a cheap copy of Less than zero, but with iPhones and different drugs. This novel describes the lives of people who are representative of nothing. Rich drunk kids with ridiculous problems who are unable to communicate.
Thoughts on this book? Should I finish it, or would it be better to pick up something else?
thats an attractive photo...
his other stuff is better. I also disliked taipei. try to make it to the end though.
What makes his other stuff better? What would you recommend? Thanks.
For depicting the culture of nihilistic, narcissistic shitheads that it's trying to, it's spot on.
The problem is that this kind of person is so insufferable that nobody wants to read a book about them.
LM: But at least in the case of American Psycho I felt there was something more than just this desire to inflict pain - or that Ellis was being cruel the way you said serious artists need to be willing to be.
DFW: You're just displaying the sort of cynicism that lets readers be manipulated by bad writing. I think it's a kind of black cynicism about today's world that Ellis and certain others depend on for their readership. Look, if the contemporary condition is hopelessly shitty, insipid, materialistic, emotionally retarded, sadomasochistic and stupid, then I (or any writer) can get away with slapping together stories with characters who are stupid, vapid, emotionally retarded, which is easy, because these sorts of characters require no development. With descriptions that are simply lists of brand-name consumer products. Where stupid people say insipid stuff to each other. If what's always distinguished bad writing - flat characters, a narrative world that's cliched and not recognizably human, etc. - is also a description of today's world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything. Look man, we'd probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what's human and magical that still live and glow despite the times' darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this dark world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it. You can defend Psycho as being a sort of performative digest of late-eighties social problems, but it's no more than that.
is your implication that DFW's criticisms could be levelled at Lin also?
Taipei is a novel about characters attempting to find warmth in materialistic, emotionally retarded times. There are passages of the novel which are genuinely warm, sincere, and human, and the job of the reader is to find these in amongst the insipidity.
(Evidences of sequences with warmth:
1. The UFO sequence
2. The joyful filming at the McDonald's
3. The mushroom sequence at the end)
If Lin trains the reader to find warmth in the insipidity of the novel, then he also trains the reader to find it in the insipidity of their own life.
Wait, you actually read it? It's a meme you dip.
This
Is it really depicting it, or is he actually one of them?
I feel like it's the same case with Houellebecq.
The author claims to "harr harr, iz just my protagonist who hates islam and women ;) try again to accuse me ;)", but the constant reoccurence in his stories makes you wonder.
sounds like they use irony to say 'I don't really mean what I say.'
to nakedly say what they meant would risk a blow to the ego.
i wouldn't be surprised if their characters were emotionally vulnerable only in the presence of a pretext.
"i was drunk", "i was high", "i was joking", ad nauseam
pretty much . The biggest problem is the expectations I had going in. "It represents a generation!" and whatnot was plastered everywhere. Except I'm part of his generation and my life nor the lives of anyone else I know are similar. He's just a douchebag who tries really hard to be apathetic.
even if it is depicting a culture of 'shitheads', the role of literature is to create something a reader can empathise with, and to allow the reader to alleviate the loneliness of the human condition
obviously it's up to you whether you want to empathise with 'shitheads', but Lin is allowing you do so, in an extremely new and interesting way (you say it yourself - he's 'spot on')
I don't personally believe that the experience of other beings is less valuable in literature because it is the experience of a 'shithead'
some of the best lit is about shitheads
>the job of the reader is to find the one good sentence every five hundred shitty ones.
>and he has to pay for this privilege.
>wants to be spoonfed emotional satisfaction, constantly
>thinks this is the role of literature
Taipei might be my favorite book.
Go to bed, Tao.
>what's always distinguished bad writing - flat characters, a narrative world that's cliched and not recognizably human, etc.
ironically this is exactly how I would characterize Infinite Jest.
this is the second time in 2 days someone's said that to me. I can't be the only person on this board who takes Lin's work seriously.
I wish you were.
I genuinely thought this book was pure meme and that nobody outside of Veeky Forums owned it. Of course, I was shocked when I say six copies at half price books the other day. Almost bought one even.
I don't understand how DFW is more or less accepted as a literary giant on this board, when his prose is obnoxious as fuck and filled with stupid tics like "and like yet but so," when he can't think outside his little upper class WASPy world but has the audacity to write "Wardine be cry," or when his artistic mission boils down to basically "wahhhhh irony makes me sad but i'll still use it anyway wahhhh," while Lin, who is the most devoted stylist in years and is able to discuss time, identity, digitalization, drug abuse, race, language, and depression in a book a fraction of the length of anything DFW wrote, gets ridiculed and scoffed at.
I read it in two days after it was suggested to me by a qt. Here's my take:
Its a very light read, told straight with minimal meandering, and actually "hits home" to me in various ways (communication built around doing nothing but consuming drugs, refreshing various bookmarked social media sites), and I actually really like when things were "good" between Paul and Erin like when they were shooting videos on their MacBooks.
However, it doesn't seem like Tao is half as clever as he lets on. His "philosophic" meandering sounds like a college freshman, and not the thoughts that someone who has had several books published, been around the world, and had done a bunch of drugs. The main characters are all hypocrites, and not in a human (or realistic) way.
>time, identity, digitalization, drug abuse, race, language, and depression
The only one of these that he actually tackles "well" in Taipei is digitalization and maybe time. The drug abuse is glorified, identity is askew (see above: the characters aren't very human), race/language is hardly even touched upon (which was really unfortunate since I thought the novel would contrast between his experiences in the US in the first half and Taipei in the second half), and depression? Not even close. DFW actually understood and encapsulated depression well, sprinkled throughout IJ, TPK, and Oblivion. Tao Lin's pseudo-depression that's captured is nothing but privilege and angst.
If there's any other book from Tao Lin that captures these better, I'll definitely read it. I didn't dislike Taipei, but it was nothing but missed potential from page 1 on.
Confirmed for knowing nothing about DFW outside of the first tenth of Infinite Jest. Read Brief Interviews with Hideous Men if you want to see his range.
I thought it was OK
>Using WASP as a pejorative
Sorry we built the greatest country on Earth. We won't try as hard next time.
>His "philosophic" meandering sounds like a college freshman
While I sort of agree with this, I think Lin is trying to shed light on Paul's immaturity, and therefor is being ironic.
>The main characters are all hypocrites, and not in a human (or realistic) way.
how are they hypocrites in an inhuman way?
>The drug abuse is glorified
if you think the scene where Paul stumbles through Manhattan and vomits in trash cans because he accidentally did too much heroin is glorifying drug abuse then you seriously missed the point. Lin isn't happy these things happened to him, that's why he's writing the novel.
>race/language is hardly even touched upon
these aren't explicitly discussed, but the displacement Paul feels, the winding, analytical descriptions of minutiae and thoughts are all indications of Lin's Asian-American-ness.
>DFW actually understood and encapsulated depression well, sprinkled throughout IJ, TPK, and Oblivion. Tao Lin's pseudo-depression that's captured is nothing but privilege and angst.
DFW's depression, while very real, no doubt, still smacks of privilege.
and for the record, in spite of our difference in opinion user, I have a lot of respect for you right now.
>we wuz kangs n' shit
Honky pls go
I've read all of IJ, A Supposedly Fun Thing, Consider the Lobster, Girl with the Curious Hair, and a handful of stories from other collections.
but thanks for trying to attack my credibility rather than engage with my argument.
HI Tao
...
Being ironic, in my opinion, isn't a great excuse when it makes you kind of cringe. I kind of recall there being an article where Lin said after he re-read Taipei that he started to hate Paul, but I might be wrong. Paul/Erin's motivation towards each other doesn't make much sense. But I guess "realistically", relationships don't always make sense.
>stumbles through Manhattan and vomits in trash cans
Much worse things could've (and should've) happened to Paul. The only "catharsis" that Paul goes through is thinking he's dead at the end, but then it turns out he's not dead, and he's thankful.
>are all indications of Lin's Asian-American-ness.
Honestly, I feel like that's reaching. He hardly hints toward it contributing anything to his depression and alienation (and subsequent drug use). If that's really the case, he really should have made it a bit more obvious.
>DFW's depression, while very real, no doubt, still smacks of privilege.
But the thing is: its captured well. Meredith Rand in TPK is a perfect example. Needless to say, DFW was much older and experienced of a writer at this point. I think Lin has the potential to be a better writer but judging from Taipei being supposedly semi-autobiographical, I don't think he cares.
& yeah, it's not very often I can actually have a decent discussion on Veeky Forums
you know I never understood why white people deride blacks for historical revisionism when that's pretty much all whites are good for.
just opinions.
After Shoplifting from American Apparel I was pretty sure Tao Lin was autistic, after Taipei I was certain. The difference between Lin and Ellis is Ellis was 19 when he wrote Less than Zero and by the time he was Lin's age he had written American Psycho and was midway through writing Glamorama. If Lin ever grows up and begins using his imagination rather than obsessively transcribing his dull life he may write something worth the paper, until he does, it isn't.
>Being ironic, in my opinion, isn't a great excuse when it makes you kind of cringe
We probably just won't agree on this, but the cringe aspect is again, I felt, part of the point. But I respect that you didn't like it.
>Much worse things could've (and should've) happened to Paul
Probably, but I was just using it to demonstrate that I don't think Lin was glorifying his drug use. He wasn't really condemning it either, just trying to portray it realistically and unsentimentally.
>Honestly, I feel like that's reaching.
Maybe. I grant that I don't know how consciously Lin tried to do that, and I read an interview somewhere that he doesn't generally think of himself as an "Asian-American," but to me it did seem like those two ideas were related. Either way I'll concede and take 'race' off the list of things Taipei discusses well
>but judging from Taipei being supposedly semi-autobiographical, I don't think he cares
what do you mean?
You have GOT to be baiting right now.
>using privilege to describe DFW
Wow, fucking kill yourself. At the very least fuck off back to Tumblr.
>muh right wing edginess
underage detected
Because history is all they have to cling to these days after all their empires have fully descended into mediocrity, and it makes them mad when other people have things.
>writing with your ego
how many platitudes do you espouse in your literature?
> Taipei is a novel about characters attempting to find warmth
> If Lin trains the reader to find warmth in the insipidity of the novel, then he also trains the reader to find it in the insipidity of their own life.
Finding warmth sets you up to act passively, to stumble upon life, and to appreciate good fortune when it comes your way. Life "happens" to characters like this, and the human capacity to make choices and act is heinous downplayed.
But you can also create warmth, which takes work and attention, which involves anxiety, which risks failure, and which risks vulnerability.
>But you can also create warmth, which takes work and attention, which involves anxiety, which risks failure, and which risks vulnerability.
which is what Lin does in writing the passages mentioned by the above user.
They walked down the driveway into the upper-middle-class neighborhood with their inside arms folded up and against each other. Most front yards had one or two fashionably sculpted trees and two or more colorful Boy Scouts–like patches of flowers and plants in independent organization. Paul saw, in a side yard, a pale fence with the colorless, palatially melancholy glow of unicorns and remembered how in Florida, in the second of his family’s three houses of increasing size, both his neighbors had built fences—rows of vertical, triangular-topped slats of wood that had seemed huge, medieval—around their backyards. Paul said he felt like he was in Edward Scissorhands and they sat on a concrete embankment facing the street with their feet on a sidewalk. Paul slightly looked away as he said “there’s so many stars here” without much interest.
Erin pointed and asked if one was moving.
“In place, maybe,” said Paul uncertainly.
“It looks like it’s vibrating,” said Erin.
“It’s, um, what thoughts do you have about UFOs?” said Paul looking away, as if not wanting Erin to hear him clearly. “I’m doing it . . . I’m saying stereotypical things that people say while on mushrooms.”
“That’s okay. UFOs are interesting.”
“I know it’s okay,” said Paul, and asked if Erin had experienced “any UFO things.” Erin said she wore purple and put glitter on her eyes every Friday in fourth grade because she thought, if she did, aliens would notice and take her away.
“That seems really good,” said Paul feeling emotional. “All purple?”
“No. It just had to be one thing that was purple.”
“Where did you think they would take you?”
“I don’t think I thought about that,” said Erin. “Just ‘away.’ Anywhere.”
“What . . . did your classmates, or other people, think?”
“I’ve never told anyone.”
“Really? But . . . it’s been so long.”
“I didn’t have anyone to tell, really.”
“You haven’t told anyone except me?”
“No. Let me think. No, I haven’t.”
Paul had begun to vaguely feel that he already knew of a similar thing—something about purple glitter and fourth grade, maybe from a children’s book—or was he remembering what he just heard? His voice sounded bored, he thought, as he told Erin about when, as a fourth or fifth grader, he really wanted to see a UFO and was on a plane and saw a brown dot and, without any excitement or sensation of discovery, repeatedly thought to himself that he’d seen a UFO. “I think I was aware at first that I was ‘faking’ it,” said Paul uncertainly. “But . . . I think I convinced myself so hard that I made myself forget that part . . . when I was aware, and I think I really believed I saw a UFO.”
“Whoa. Did you tell anyone you saw a UFO?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone. I don’t think I cared if anyone knew. I was just like, ‘I saw a UFO.’ I think I was extremely bored. I was like a bored robot.”
i don't get what your point is by just posting the passage without comment.
also erin and paul are both extremely vulnerable here, and what makes the passage touching and warm and sad is the disconnect between the two despite that vulnerability.
You can say silly things on shrooms that can be dismissed because you are on shrooms. Drugs diminish vulnerability by providing an alibi.
that doesn't change the fact that they are saying these vulnerable things to one another while theyre are on mushrooms, which is itself a highly vulnerable emotional state. i disagree categorically that drugs diminish your vulnerability and think you've probably never been done mushrooms yourself.
it's been months and this book is still sitting on the shelf in a used bookstore in Toronto. even faggots from my city don't want to read it.
I don't see it man. What is at stake for them to lose?
I liked this should I read that?
They're in no way vulnerable here.
GO TO BED TAO
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Sam Pink is basically Tao Lin done right, except I think he was actually first so Tao Lin is Sam Pink done wrong?
That's fucking stupid though since there's a great deal of depth to all major characters in IJ and they all go under significant development. Hal, Don, PGOAT are obvious examples but even the tertiary characters are well fleshed out.
His other stuff isn't better. It's definitely worse. And that says a lot. I didn't hate taipei though
>I kind of recall there being an article where Lin said after he re-read Taipei that he started to hate Paul, but I might be wrong.
aww shit it's real HI TAO
Get a load of this guy