the most promising young american author is TAO LIN

darragh you are a delight and i hope you are thriving, on ilx and off.

(also to prove to anonymous men that i am cool? the fact that i used to feel it necessary to do this does not reflect partic well on me, i think, and has little to do with the anonymous men themselves.)

Phew *exhales*

many xxxps but lol wins. horseshoe i enjoy your posts. convo itt has been good. my crankiness was not directed at anyone in particular, apologies everyone. i wasn't yet woke enough

seems to me whether or not tao lin was good was a central part of the question here & the rhetorical trap treesh falls into is not acknowledging (until a recent post) that looking at TL's writing through different lenses can completely shift how people interpret him

a lot of the language used to describe him from proponents has been some borderline voice-of-a-generation objective long view 'he is important' stuff that does not jibe i think w/ good crit in 2017 (nb I am guilty of doing this stuff to, 'i learned it from watching you' etc) but I think its important for people in this moment not to cut off all "bad culture" (i'm not sure a single person in this thread was even advocating for this, contra mordy) but to reassess *how they discuss their attraction to / repulsion to cultural objects* rhetorically, to make their arguments through a lens of personal, subjective experience *through* their intuited objective readings of what the piece of art does or doesnt do.

im not saying this was something people didnt know already or werent already doing, but a lot of the 'conflict' in these conversations seems to come down not to two groups standing on one side of 'condemn bad artists' or 'sepearate art from artist' but to *slippage* in the rhetoric about the art where they lean objective/universal when they are describing a personal & subjective attraction/repulsion to the art

i mean 'good crit' not in the professional sense, more in the critical thinking/useful contribution sense

and of course they can describe *their own sense* of art's importance, but its important to foreground that it is their own experience

there is something objective/universal in claiming "the most promising young american author is TAO LIN"
is he really the only candidate?

One of my first impressions of the guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjcOK2T0lPo

yeah that was one of the first things i saw, i think about this youtube comment often:

Clearly there is no substance to the prose (unless if you wanna get into absurdity and existentialism) but it's most likely that what tao lin (troll lin) is trying to achieve here is reveal the way people force meaning out of nothing (especially in the field of high art). watch the audience go from amused to contemplative to uncomfortable to annoyed then finally relieved and in a state of understanding- as if there was something to be understood. they weren't watching art- they were the art. 

youtube commenter ridiculously otm? it's a strange land

I mean didn’t Beckett do all that too

yea but he didnt have a video camera

there is something objective/universal in claiming "the most promising young american author is TAO LIN"
is he really the only candidate?

― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, November 29, 2017 5:12 PM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i made this thread over 4 years ago, i stand by the title, many threads on ilx are hyperbolic declarative statements like that

yeah we can't be taking a microscope to thread titles around here

I HATE GARRISON KEILLOR

i think the times have changed where the thread title seems absurd in retrospect even if you think he's still doing something interesting

"ilx always embraces hyperbole" is not an endorsement of the sentiment

i get it, when you love something an artist is doing the extent to which he's marginalized or isn't feels to some extent like a referendum on yourself ! its important to be honest w yourself about *why* you like it, this is where your argument for his importance has meaning

^super otm, excellent points.

i get it, when you love something an artist is doing the extent to which he's marginalized or isn't feels to some extent like a referendum on yourself ! its important to be honest w yourself about *why* you like it, this is where your argument for his importance has meaning

you're absolutely right. thread title has aged out, just personally i don't believe it's even close to being true anymore, he hasn't published a novel since Taipei and he hasn't even published anything since Selected Tweets with Mira Gonzalez two and a half years ago. i wouldn't argue for his cultural importance anymore- i think he hit a vein with Taipei, and the book endures for me because it captures 21st century alienation and isolation in a very specific way, it felt very topical, and it has probably a dozen paragraphs and sentences i still think about (mostly the "sarcastically framing nothing"). im all for mods changing it to whatever... "TAO LIN: author?"

if it sounds like im giving the pro- side too much credit in trying to sound 'reasonable,' i hope its clear i sympathize more w/ horseshoe's position than mordy's here. in my opinion he was never that interesting although his craft was v well honed by tapai, i just didnt enjoy reading it; to be totally transparent about what i think, i'd have to think more deeply than i want to about tao lin, but in an attention economy, i have no reason to do so. if his proponents want to give him all this cultural capital that he seemed to once have, to give his work the *urgency* of this thread title, they'll have to do it without ignoring a culture shaped around books ignored or denied an existence for their rhetoric to be effective

im sort of being glib so im sorry if its unclear what im saying here. i think the main thrust of the 'identity politics' convo w/r/t how we view art is basically that we're not really taking into account the conditions necessary for how art is made, measured, valued, and havent been for years, and once you've opened up that realization-- that our canons et al were built on the flimsy ground of a agreed-upon principles of dead white men in positions of power-- its hard to make arguments about what matters without seeing it in the shape of this reality. what is left to you as the subject is an ability to convey your subjective experience, your perception of what matters, in a world where this is a true observation about what we give attention to

i get a surface level irritation sometimes when i see stuff that makes this point the text of their art, because it feels kind of direct & i prefer to think of it as subtext, as an often unspoken structure that you're aware of and that anchors your pov in what matters. but sometimes it needs to be said, particularly if you suspect (as is often the case) it's *not* actually the unspoken shared assumption but is largely not a shared truth, is 'up for debate'

idk if im making sense any more but ive been turning these ideas over for awhile & this is the first time ive tried to articulate them, v v first draft stuff

Speaking for the defense, the only thing I like about Tao Lin are his books, which I think are well-written, provocative and closely observed.

I'm not interested in his Internet presence or his place in the zeitgeist.

The thread title is no longer accurate, but how could it be? The phrase "most promising young American author" has a short shelf life regardless of who it's pinned on.

that realization-- that our canons et al were built on the flimsy ground of a agreed-upon principles of dead white men in positions of power-- its hard to make arguments about what matters without seeing it in the shape of this reality.

"this reality"? hmmm. your position certainly may be argued for and evidence adduced in its favor, but the reality I see is that almost none of the literature that is consumed in our society is controlled by or even influenced by canons put together by dead white men, or by their agreed-upon principles. all those people buying john grisham novels, anne rice novels, or j.k. rowling novels do so based solely on the pleasure they find in them as seen through their personal standards.

the only place where the canon you speak of can be imposed upon readers to any degree whatever is in academia and it is my observation that the majority of students upon whom this imposition has been foisted find the canon to be boring or irrelevant, and the instant they escape from academia they proceed to ignore it with an assiduity which may be termed awe inspiring if it were applied to something anyone cared about.

if "the canon" retains any influence at all under those lees-than-ideal circumstances, it isn't because it was force fed to younglings who have abandoned it like a burning building, but because the books themselves have some discernible value to the few people who appreciate them for what they are, not for what someone else told them they ought to appreciate.

all those people buying john grisham novels, anne rice novels, or j.k. rowling novels do so based solely on the pleasure they find in them as seen through their personal standards.

these are 'canons'? this is who tao lin's competition was? ok if you say so

im just using the literary canon as one example bc we're talking about tao lin but this stretches to literally every avenue of american life, which is built on a pervasive, underlying power structure

if you're talking about airplane reading sure its canon is shaped in slightly different ways but thats not really what 'taipei' is

its OK to still like tao lin

what people struggle with are the hyperbolic statements, the lazy assumptions abt how hes the voice of a generation, the general stuff that builds on the cliches of power & marketing

bc him being a shithead influences ppl's interpretations of his art which that kind of "interpretation" mainly ignores

well, who is the most promising now? (or even, who was it then?)

I think aspiring writers would still say there are historical forces shaping who’s considered worthy in terms of craft, especially if they aspire toward writing “literary” fiction. I’ve been thinking recently about that Claire Vaye Watkins article in Tin House. Also canons still very much in operation in American high school English classes

this is who tao lin's competition was?

in the eyes of society, yes, that's exactly who his competition was.

the number of readers who care about 'what is art vs. what is craft' or the aesthetics of literature, or who will be taught in college curricula fifty years from now, makes up a vanishingly small number compared to people who simply want to read a 'good' book - by which they simply mean a book they enjoy.

I read a lot in what you would no doubt classify as "the canon", including lots of books written more than three centuries ago, but I class myself right along with those grisham readers, in that all I am seeking is enjoyment, in the form of a continued interest from start to finish.

Also if there are a ton of bad literary men getting away with bad behavior it necessarily has a chilling effect on women’s writing, just to pick one historical force.

well, who is the most promising now? (or even, who was it then?)

― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, November 29, 2017 7:38 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i am being audited or something?

More historical forces playing out:

Wow, editors rejected @leonardchang's novel because his Korean-American characters "didn't act Asian enough" https://t.co/6PyPiKR3AK pic.twitter.com/RJBRUhIymK

— brandon sheffield (@necrosofty) November 7, 2017

Aforementioned Claire Vaye Watkins piece: http://tinhouse.com/on-pandering/

Nb I thought this was righteous when I first read it, but I gather it garnered some controversy. It’s worth saying that by virtue of being a white woman with a certain pedigree, Watkins is placed differently vis a vis the literary world than a Southern black woman would be, for example. I still think the thing she is describing here is real and worth reckoning with.

editors reject books for lots of stupid reasons. that editor's reasoning was especially stupid and racist. someday we will have only smart, compassionate, talented editors. we will all be much happier then.

If the argument is that tao lin is sucking up the oxygen that could have been spared for more worthy writers, then comparing him against them would make it pretty clear if that was the case, no? but if the other candidate for most promising young american author is just john grisham, then...

I'm super into this fwiw (although it certainly made a lot of people mad, it looks like):

Dear agents, please stop sending inquiries to Tyrant. We no longer consider agented writers. Writers w/agents: feel free to send, just know you have to drop your agent if we want to sign you. Thanks,
Tyrant staff

— New York Tyrant/Tyrant Books (@tyrantbooks) November 22, 2017

Why are you into that? (Genuine question?)

in the eyes of society, yes, that's exactly who his competition was.

the number of readers who care about 'what is art vs. what is craft' or the aesthetics of literature, or who will be taught in college curricula fifty years from now, makes up a vanishingly small number compared to people who simply want to read a 'good' book - by which they simply mean a book they enjoy.

I read a lot in what you would no doubt classify as "the canon", including lots of books written more than three centuries ago, but I class myself right along with those grisham readers, in that all I am seeking is enjoyment, in the form of a continued interest from start to finish.

― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, November 29, 2017 6:41 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is not why tao lin became well known! he wasn't selling beach reading dude, this is a total misrepresentation of the power structures that built him

I actually think this is a cool idea to potentially get more unheard voices published that wouldn't otherwise be published but the guy that runs NY Tyrant is a huge cokehead and I can't trust anyone on cocaine

tao lin got famous by sticker bombing NYC and annoying the shit out of Gawker writers. the first time i heard of him was when i passed by one of his books in a suburban barnes & noble in early 2007

My understanding is that part of the reason Tyrant made this move is the owner resents the fallout of his harassment of a female writer. She was represented by an agent who renegotiated her contract. It seems like a p transparent way for an unprincipled publisher to exploit inexperienced writers?

are you talking about Darcie? yeah i saw some of that scanning twitter looking for that tweet, i need to read more about it, i think they both tend to be full of shit (tho i enjoyed her book) so it's hard to tell what's what

Yes, I am talking about her.

I just saw the reaction to it right now, wasn't aware of all the dross and context associated with it when i saw it last week

My understanding is that a writer unrepresented by an agent is in grave danger of being cheated by a publisher, unless she understands the details of the law and contracts exceptionally well.

also sorry not sorry 2 b a sap; just taught Baldwin’s “notes of a native son” to my seniors and in the course of discussion I told them he had written, “I want to be an honest man and a good writer.” seems obliquely relevant.

also choked me up a little. ambushed by unexpected emotion.

one insane thing about the marvel ed in chief being exposed as having written under the penname 'akira yoshida' was when the execs said they liked him bc they were blown away having found a japanese writer who knew how to write for 'western audience'