[HN Gopher] Modern Life Is Rubbish: Tao Lin's Taipei (2013)
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Modern Life Is Rubbish: Tao Lin's Taipei (2013)
Author : occurrence
Score : 88 points
Date : 2023-06-09 23:30 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (themillions.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (themillions.com)
| dmbche wrote:
| Have not read the book, have not read Tao Lin
|
| This review might be better than the book. It's very very good.
|
| Reminds me of watching In the mood for love (Wong Kar Wai) and
| not liking it, but loving the movie after having it broken down
| by a teacher. The breaking down stayed with me more than any
| scene (it's not a dig at the movie or Wong Kar Wai, go watch it
| it's good!)
| elmomle wrote:
| I've seen the movie and enjoyed it but probably some of its
| depth was lost on me. What stays with you from the breakdown
| your teacher gave?
| dmbche wrote:
| Thanks for asking! So the movie itself is framed as the
| reminiscing of the man of this story, we are seeing his
| memories. He uses so much clever cinemtography, like framing
| most shots through windows or bars to give it separation from
| the viewer, making us almost peeping toms into the most
| beautiful(might not be the right word, but you understand)
| part of someone's life. Things like never seeing the partners
| of the main characters, their explanation of where the
| significant other being so vague and thick with subtext ( I
| think I remember that they subtly indicate that their
| partners are also having an affair together, even though it's
| practically impossible.) serving this sense of isolation
| fcrom the rest off he world, kind of like only now is real -
| which fits with reminiscing , to me.
|
| What I remember most is that the female lead had a few
| outfits that had multiple copies of it in different colors
| made, and during scenes they change from one to another
| without attention - just like memories will fudge details but
| keep the larger bits intact.
|
| I had never thought of cinema like that, making choices that
| the audience just feels instead of catch consciously.
|
| I don't remember the movie, but I know that there is a police
| interogation that was filmed 3 times, where once the cop
| doesn't know the truth, one where he does and one where he is
| purposefully neutral, and the scene mixes all three to make
| the spectator feel the same sense of confusion as someone
| does during an interogation.
|
| Edit: or in Dr Strangelove, where the table is green like a
| poker table so the actors feel the absurdity, but you don't
| see it because it's black and white, so it only comes through
| through their acting.
| juliusgeo wrote:
| The scene you're referring to at the end I believe is from
| American Psycho, with Willem Dafoe playing the detective
| doing the interrogation.
| dmbche wrote:
| I think you're right! Thanks for the reference.
| dilap wrote:
| A great novel by one of my favorite authors -- I think the way to
| understand Tao is he is simply trying to be as 100% purely honest
| as possible, to really _grapple_ with what it means to be alive,
| in each and every tedious (or awkward or tender or...) moment.
| But he 's doing that from the perspective of someone who never
| managed to enter into & find satisfaction in all the various
| social structures that most people use to find meaning in their
| lives.
|
| (I think there is increasingly an epidemic of people like this
| this, and you could speculate as to why, e.g. maybe something
| about breakdown of social structures, or maybe something about
| unhealthy environments creating autism/autistic-like traits, or
| maybe dot dot dot -- lots of a possibilities.)
|
| Anyway, no author I have ever read matches the reality I myself
| have personally seen and experienced as closely as Tao Lin. I
| think if you're fortunate enough to not be in that kind of
| reality, Tao's books must seem strange and pointless. But if you
| are in that kind of reality, or have experienced, or a
| neighboring one -- they are magnificent. (Every book is after all
| ultimately a collaboration between the author and the reader...)
| tsunamifury wrote:
| I took it more as the strange pointlessness of the children of
| the global elite.
|
| They have enough to survive, be hip, hang out, but no
| motivation to do anything with it. It's the modern problem of
| the wealthy's progeny -- but unlike the 1800s there is no
| social structure for them to fit into. They want to be "normal"
| but don't need to do the work or be a part of the normal
| working/family world. So they are adrift in places like
| Brooklyn.
| kranke155 wrote:
| Post scarcity problems.
|
| Nothing we do anymore in many western societies has life and
| death stakes.
| slibhb wrote:
| I read Taipei years ago. Similar to the reviewer, I experienced
| an initial revulsion towards the writing. But by the end I quite
| liked it.
|
| Tao Lin is an interesting guy. Among other eccentricies, he
| claims to have cured his autism (which was caused by vaccines).
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| I had a similar reaction to _100 Years of Solitude_ , except
| the opposite. When I tell people, I am surprised to find it is
| an unpopular opinion.
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| First thing I did when I got access to GPT-4 was to get it to
| write in the style of Tao Lin. Early experiments didn't work that
| well but actually this review provided me with the language to
| explain Tao Lin's style... I should paste this entire review into
| GPT-4 32K and see if it works better.
| contingencies wrote:
| _To iterate is human, to recurse divine._ - Peter Deutsch
|
| ... via https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup
| ElfinTrousers wrote:
| No kidding, this review made me very interested in reading the
| novel. I wonder if something about a depiction of anxious,
| uptight, pretentious and rudderless hipsters struck a little
| close to home for the reviewer.
| ahofmann wrote:
| Wow, what a brutal review. I had to read the first paragraph
| several times to let the brutality fully sink in. I was hoping
| that it would get better, that the author would bring some
| positivity to the book, but that hope was in vain.
|
| I have never heard of the book, what is the reason that this
| review is now posted here?
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| This review was one of the most unexpectedly thought-provoking
| pieces I've read in weeks. Ambush-y.
|
| Finding it here on HN is entirely consistent (for me) with one
| of the ways I suspect some people use this site, which is as a
| repository for certain kinds of articles, papers and stories
| they imagine half a dozen people here might also appreciate.
| Sometimes they are right.
|
| I looked up the author of the review and her other published
| work. This led to an issue of Zyzzyva, the San Francisco
| literary magazine, and fiction titled _Biodome_ by Juhea Kim. I
| ordered the issue from eBay.
|
| I'm now going to toast a bagel, then drive to the airport.
| mchaver wrote:
| Do you intend to eat the bagel before or after you return
| from the airport (assuming you go back to your current
| location)?
|
| BTW, do you write somewhere outside of HN? You have an
| interesting style.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| The bagel bit maybe alludes to Tao Lin's style
| sebastos wrote:
| The whole comment, even. Notice the use of a noun with -y
| as an adjective: ambush-y.
| 2143 wrote:
| Why are you going to the airport? Is that relevant?
| adastra22 wrote:
| I think this is the style of writing TFA is complaining
| about.
| saiojd wrote:
| What kind of bagel?
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| One with everything
| dTal wrote:
| What was thought provoking about it?
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| _Thought-assaulting_ , I should have said
| qiasl wrote:
| I have not read the book but it might have something to do with
| Unabomber manifesto.
| dean2432 wrote:
| i am wondering the same thing...
| mrwnmonm wrote:
| My English is not great (not a native speaker)... what is the
| article trying to say?
|
| Does it talk about missuse of the language or lack of skills in
| it?
| msaeki wrote:
| This review is less about language misuse and more talking
| about how the book's particular use of language (among other
| things) reflects a personality and worldview that the reviewer
| really hates
| tsunamifury wrote:
| But is also an honest reflection of that worldview and one
| that maybe the author actually is in denial that he holds.
|
| So he comes full circle to grudgingly appreciating it.
| lowdownfork wrote:
| She's saying it's a bad book, and she did not enjoy reading it.
|
| What it talks about could be considered misuse of language or
| lack of skill.
|
| Most people telling a story will try to make it more
| interesting. They choose words that evoke feeling. They skip
| boring events. They make situations sound dramatic. According
| to the article, this book did the opposite.
|
| The article author suspected that the book did this on purpose,
| to make a point. But then she researched the book author and
| saw him say that he did not.
| strogonoff wrote:
| Tao Lin's work is interesting because it makes the normally
| abstract philosophical questions of authorship in art suddenly a
| bit more tangible. Should we care what creator says about
| creator's own art? People see all sorts of layers of meaning in
| his work, and he personally methodically debunks every such
| finding[0]. One might wonder, are we doing the same to works of
| authors who are no longer alive to correct us? Does it matter
| that we do it? Does author's intent matter, or only our
| interpretation of the work?
|
| My personal view has been gradually trending from "it only
| matters if I like it" to we should (if we are aware of it), we
| probably do, it does (and we shouldn't), and yes, creators and
| their intent matter (although it doesn't mean we can't make our
| own conclusions and have own takeaways). Tao Lin somewhat
| contributed to that.
|
| [0] Some suspect he might be doing it ironically, in what I guess
| would then be an immense art project encompassing his whole life.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| I found this review of Taipei to be similar to Hemmingway's The
| Sun Also Rises. The casual indifference of the characters toward
| eachother while living in a world where they are unchallenged and
| taken care of by inheritance or parents.
|
| It's a unique type of person and scene until you run into it in
| real life. The connecting insight between Hemingway and Taipei to
| me is that this scene has actually be around for 100+ years. Kids
| with trust funds who travel to hip places, drink and do the
| latest drugs, have a thrill, but never invest in themselves,
| eachother, or a future.
|
| They just wander aimlessly, seeking pleasure in a world that
| won't kill them off, but won't help them along the path to
| growing up either. They inhabit a thin envelope of a superficial
| universe that not happens to play well you YouTube.
|
| It's a sort of profound thing... man. Or not.
| ElfinTrousers wrote:
| I'm sure the failson/daughter is a phenomenon with literally
| ancient roots. To paraphrase the Bible, the rich will be with
| you always.
| diamondap wrote:
| I love the succinct summation in the last line of the review: "if
| this is the output we can expect from one of our bright young
| things, we're fucked."
|
| I wonder if the author could boost sales by quoting that on the
| cover of his book.
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