the most promising young american author is TAO LIN

Tao Lin is really good at writing about people who want to connect with others but can't, or otherwise flee from opportunities to do so either through drugs, the internet, or antisocial behavior. I don't think the protagonist in Taipei thinks he'll find "depth and meaning" by retreating into himself (as he did in hs) or escaping himself (through drugs). He's just looking for some sense of emotional security and the banality of this desire, which for him is all-consuming, is what makes the book so bleak. I disagree with the idea that his characters are tragically hip or are experiencing a form of anomie that is specific to urbanites or the privileged.

5 Dreams/Nightmares I Had In 2013
by Tao Lin

http://thoughtcatalog.com/tao-lin/2014/07/5-dreamsnightmares-i-had-in-2013/

https://nplusonemag.com/issue-20/reviews/nobodys-protest-novel/

Good article I think but long and behind a paywall. I have a copy of the issue but haven't finished it yet.

lol someone sent me that and their login and i just, i still haven't even opened a tab

It's not as if there aren't grounds on which to criticize Lin's work, but before I leave this place, it really must be said that to recycle, when reviewing the first great male Aisan author of American descent, relentlessly and without even the slightest consideration, the same slurs typically aimed at Asian males by white Americans to deface and devalue them socially -- this comes off as a desperate and disorganized, even downright illiterate attempt to erase not just his greatness as an artist, but all the struggle to be human he's invested in his art -- invested there and only there, because there was nowhere in this culture he could take it but the art of words, faceless as he is. Abstractions though you are, you still hold all the power, and so I'm asking anyway: Tell me, if you know, you white American reviewers, section leaders, incurious overseers -- how the fuck can you do so much to create a monster, then try to take away all he has left -- his status as unique?

^ taken from the n+1 article

i figured out why I don't like Lin so much: he shows us the ugliness of modern living, that we all know is there, and just leaves it at that. it's like if someone walked into a room, farted in your face, and then peaced out. there's nothing interesting about that unless you're a masochist or something. now i understand why i want to punch this guy in the back of the head.

i thought this article was interesting because tao lin has made a point, it seems, of not addressing his asian identity in his books, or interrogating how that might have related to the alienation and hostility he describes feeling from his peers growing up in suburban florida. also, in his first novel, having characters murder jhumpa lahiri seemed like a symbolic attack on the idea that rediscovering one's ethnic roots was a necessary path for self-discovery for second generation immigrants in america. and yet, i do think race plays a role in his books up to and including taipei, partly by its conspicuous absence, as if bringing it into the picture would fatally weigh down his already overloaded analyses of social interactions, and also in these other ways that frank guan describes. i know i am sort of alone on these boards in thinking tao lin a major author, but if you are interested in him at all i don't think this article should be missed.

yeah, i'm being unfair to him again. i don't know what gets me about this guy! maybe he reminds me of someone i used to know.

i figured out why I don't like Lin so much: he shows us the ugliness of modern living, that we all know is there, and just leaves it at that. it's like if someone walked into a room, farted in your face, and then peaced out. there's nothing interesting about that unless you're a masochist or something. now i understand why i want to punch this guy in the back of the head.

― Spectrum, Wednesday, August 13, 2014 7:31 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't know, i think just showing it makes me feel better, less alone

i don't know, i guess i can relate to what he writes, and it makes me angry for some reason. i rag on him for x, y, or z, but i've lived a pretty similar x, y, and z at different points in my life. maybe he just touches a nerve with me with that.

he is unrelenting, it's true. this article discusses the ways in which tao lin is a "monster" in terms of the smug, passive aggressive way he interacts with critics and fans, but also describes how these things, ultimately, and intentionally or not, are in the service of an asethetic end that feels urgent.

n.b. i've only interacted with tao lin once but he seemed like a lovely guy to me

that was just on twitter though

i know i am sort of alone on these boards in thinking tao lin a major author

nah me too but i don't like to admit it so much

As he spoke I noticed, what had often struck me before in his conversations with my grandmother's sisters, that whenever he spoke of serious matters, whenever he used an expression which seemed to imply a definite opinion upon some important subject, he would take care to isolate, to sterilise it by using a special intonation, mechanical and ironic, as though he had put the phrase or word between inverted commas, and was anxious to disclaim any personal responsibility for it; as who should say "the 'hierarchy,' don't you know, as silly people call it." But then, if it was so absurd, why did he say the 'hierarchy'? A moment later he went on: "Her acting will give you as noble an inspiration as any masterpiece of art in the world, as—oh, I don't know—" and he began to laugh, "shall we say the Queens of Chartres?" Until then I had supposed that his horror of having to give a serious opinion was something Parisian and refined, in contrast to the provincial dogmatism of my grandmother's sisters; and I had imagined also that it was characteristic of the mental attitude towards life of the circle in which Swann moved, where, by a natural reaction from the 'lyrical' enthusiasms of earlier generations, an excessive importance was given to small and precise facts, formerly regarded as vulgar, and anything in the nature of 'phrase-making' was banned. But now I found myself slightly shocked by this attitude which Swann invariably adopted when face to face with generalities. He appeared unwilling to risk even having an opinion, and to be at his ease only when he could furnish, with meticulous accuracy, some precise but unimportant detail. But in so doing he did not take into account that even here he was giving an opinion, holding a brief (as they say) for something, that the accuracy of his details had an importance of its own. I thought again of the dinner that night, when I had been so unhappy because Mamma would not be coming up to my room, and when he had dismissed the balls given by the Princesse de Léon as being of no importance. And yet it was to just that sort of amusement that he was devoting his life. For what other kind of existence did he reserve the duties of saying in all seriousness what he thought about things, of formulating judgments which he would not put between inverted commas; and when would he cease to give himself up to occupations of which at the same time he made out that they were absurd?

No shit wow

It's a bit like DFW, but wrung of all wit and playfulness.

YOU'RE like DFW wrung of all wit and playfulness

The most promising elderly American writer is... Aimless?

haha er are people reacting to my quote because my quote is not tao lin

Misunderstandings can arise when you fail to attribute quotes.

i think the balls given by the princesse de léon should've tipped you off.

balls tripped by TAO of LIN

Swann Lin

if only proust could have lived long enough to learn about wit and playfulness from dfw

my claim is that t.l. is sort of like swann in love if it were written by swann, i guess, and also that that's a strength

oh god this clown

think we can all agree it's fortunate dfw was not around to turn proust on to nested footnotes

^somewhere on the internet there is prob that fanfic though right if not i might write it

A Supposedly Delicious Madeleine I'll Never Eat Again

can't lie, I chuckled

...At the same time the last volumes of 'A la Recherche du Temps Perdu' were coming out and anyone who pretended to care about good writing and who knew French knew his Proust. Though I am not a Jew a don compared me to Swann. This gave me great pleasure but the character who never failed to be mentioned not less than once each evening was Charlus...

-- Henry Green, Pack my Bag

yikes

Specifically

http://jezebel.com/alt-lit-icon-tao-lin-accused-of-horrific-rape-and-abuse-1641641060

And dare I say a key thing from the summary:

He responded with an essay-length defense of their sexual relationship that didn't refute any of her claims of abuse, which he posted to Facebook, edited several times, and eventually deleted.

Well, mow I'm extra glad I gave up on Taipei about twelve pages in.

huh didn't know ellen was trans now

I feel sick about this and won't defend him. E.R.'s account pretty much squares with what happens in Richard Yates... guess I just didn't want to think about the relationship between how fucked up the book was and reality, which is a moral failing on my part. Still think Taipei is a classic but I can't see myself enjoying his work in the future, or at least not championing it.

Bought Taipei. Read a few pages. Stopped reading. Long time ago.

Not saying some convicted criminal can't produce quality work, though.

phew for a second there I thought you were saying that

even reading the descriptions of this guy's books makes me angry

phew for a second there I thought you were saying that

― please delete outrageous tanuki crappyposter (wins), Thursday, October 2, 2014 7:36 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

suck it young person

― adam, Tuesday, July 2, 2013 3:01 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in retrospect a poor choice of words

i guess i should read richard yates now

why on earth would you just now want to read that book

seems more interesting now and might keep my attention past page 30

it's pretty disgusting that when you google the words richard yates the first result you get is this fuckin' guy's book and not, yknow, the actual talented author richard yates

Tao Lin's is 4 down for me.

yeah i googled tao lin earlier so it's possible google just adjusted the results for me. oh well.

think we all know who the real enemy here is, google