Tao Lin – Richard Yeats « Naleag Dëco

I am embarrassingly dependent on accolades when it comes to what I read; I'm fairly certain that demand at least five years of after-the-fact constant praise before I read a book.

I don't wish to be this way: it chafes me that I'm a literary conservative. I want to be out finding new things, I want to feel like I have a reason for living now instead of fearfully waiting to be told what to read. unfortunately, sifting through the chaff requires a lot of research and a lot of reading. Much of it remains chaff, and I'm not quick enough to suffer crap writing for the promise of discovering something grand. let other people tell me what to read; I'd gladly follow betters when the fellowship takes a golden path.

Being on this EPUB kick, I'm now subscribed to such recommendatory bastions as the new York Review of Books and (as of this writing) other fine magazines geared towards enlightening the general population. like a gopher, I emerge from my cave in the hope of determining the cultural season. Based on the NYRB, the first book I picked up that's a) less than five years old and b) not by a wikipedia-famous author who is c) still alive was Richard Yeats, authored by Tao Lin.

It reads like Hemingway, plain-spoken, crafted from sparse vocabulary. Unlike Hemingway — arguably — it's populated by assholes. these asshats serve the book well.

My love of sparse writing probably comes from my love of Science Fiction; growing up on Asimov anthologies, I grew up enjoying the art of scientific conjecture plainly expressed. I never registered a sense of aesthetics in prose. If anything, prettiness in science fiction and fantasy tends to fall towards purple patches that indicate superficiality of subject matter.

I also love antagonistic fiction, works by puckish authors, works which attempt to defeat their readers. I spent all of 2010 reading Gravity's Rainbow, a feat which which often had my mind wrestle naked with Pynchon's angelic writing. Frottage of some kind most likely occurred. I don't know when this happened; it probably reflects my idle interests in the philosophy of language and postmodernity, how words are chosen to express a thing, how people respond to expressions, how values of two agents can mingle or clash, how that interaction can be managed by either side (for any end.)

Anyway, here's how the book opens.

"I've only had the opportunity to hold a hamster once," said Dakota Fanning on Gmail chat. "It's paws were so tiny. I think I cried a little."

"I saw a hamster eating its babies," said Haley Joel Osment. "I wanted to give it a high-five. But it didn't know what I high-five is."

"I would eat my babies if I had some. I don't have any babies."

"How old are you?" said Haley Joel Osment.

"16. It's probably good I don't have babies."

"you are not 16. you are like 25."

"No, I am 16," said Dakota Fanning. "I drew a hamster on a pink piece of paper today then I threw it on top of a recycling bin full of paper so when anybody recycles paper the hamster will look at them and be cute for them."

I can't remember an opening which promised more hilarity — perhaps something by Mark Leyner. True to its promise, the rest of the book continues along this form. Haley-Joel Osment is 22 in new York and Dakota Fanning is 16  in new Jersey. Haley-Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning have met over the internet, and will soon begin sleeping together. as expected, this is not something upstanding mature people would do.  Haley-Joel Osment will begin travelling to new Jersey on his meagre writer's earnings and hiding under the blankets to escape the notice of Dakota Fanning's mother. Dakota Fanning's mother is crazy in her own right. Haley-Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning shoplift for necessity and fun. Pronouns are rarely used in this book.

As mentioned, the first think that struck me about the book was how funny it was. the reason for this humour seems subtle. On the bus, I often suffer loud conversations by others that seem outright idiotic. sometimes they read like the above, high-schoolish and possibly vapid. around Octoberfest and St. Patrick's, the conversations wander into idiocy of a more disturbing sort. When reading such asshat dialogue with the understanding that the author is purposefully writing said asshat dialogue, the understanding between reader and writer is that of dark camaderie. I wouldn't enjoy knowing these people, but they are entertaining when observed under the pretense of passionless description.

It was after some pages that I thought about Hemingway. the simple writing, striving towards simple subject-verb-object (an adjective or a qualifier placed here or there, begrudgingly) is a style I have sorely missed. There is no judgement … what I thought was an obviously shared joke is just my interpretation of the characters. This is an accusation I am entirely willing to burden. I cannot read this book to share a supposed superiority I have over a class of others. My purpose towards book is entirely my own. Lin has shown me nothing of his intentions. like Hemingway, he leave his work devoid of meaning or emotion, allowing my personality to sweep over his work like a torrential set of values. I now suspect that Tao Lin wrote this book to mock me through my mockery of these characters. I am now curious about my own ugliness, what accusations I will find leveled and how disgusted I will find myself towards myself. I read on, even more invigorated.

I want to say that throughout the book nothing truly happens to the characters, and in a sense this is entirely true, but with that sense I don't feel entirely satisfied. the characters are no more likeable or mature than they were when you began this book, beyond the fact that reading about someone for 200 pages endears them to you for whatever reasons you have for continuing to read. How the characters conduct their relationship, from the politics of gender to the practicalities of sex, are ones I cannot help but find immensely stupid. Haley-Joel Osment is stupid in so many typically male manners, Dakota Fanning is stupid in so many typically female manners. Haley-Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning are stupid in so many living people manners. as I read a dispassionate retelling these events, I cannot help but feel the act of reading these events is no different from condoning them. I could never align myself with a person who performs these actions, yet I continue to associate with fictional characters which was established to repeatedly perform these stupid actions. I don't feel superior, I feel complicit.

Despite this being a stupid relationship, and in no way a positive relationship, the characters do care for each other in their own profoundly stupid ways. This is not a kindness on the part of the author, but instead provides a ballast that does not allow me to throw the book away as caricature. Dakota Fanning's past is doled out in ways that make you understand the source of her stupidities, and her past and present are all-too real. It's never expressed in detail, it's always touched upon just enough to not be a tease and simultaneously matter of fact. Haley-Joel Osment somehow managers to guide Dakota fanning for the better, but in the least effective way and for possibly self-serving reasons. he constantly considers dumping her, yet does not in a way that suggests more laziness and confusion and an inability to express his happiness than anything else. I am sensitive (though in no way enlightened) towards sexual politics, and I can imagine readings of the characters which completely victimize Haley-Joel Osment as a monster and Dakota as a poor disadvantaged victim. I imagine readings in which Dakota Fanning's past leads to a tragically familiar and frustrating pattern of self-defeat with Haley-Joel Osment's good nature hidden behind his inability to express or even conceive of intentions. he is unable to betray any genuine sense of devotion, but why does he stick around? the only reasons are the ones we as readers place within him. Dakota Fanning is fed all the lines that we despise the male sex for, and though she could do far far better her body-image issues are somehow better for it.

Tao Lin is quartering me with cognitive dissonance: I cannot but admit that the characters are terrible for a variety of reasons, but I cannot completely dismiss what seems to be a glimmer of goodness. I cannot put the book away without judging them expendable, and I cannot continue to read without accepting them for the next hundred-or-so pages. the focus of my disgust is now myself, an ugly truth faces me through these characters, and I can neither abandon them as hopeless nor accept them is hopeful. My inability to reconcile or prioritize shows my own moral ambiguity. others could probably just toss the book aside, but I cannot. a;; this does is trade ambiguity for moral totalitarianism.

People like this exist in real life. If I write them off, what does that say about me? If I condone their actions, what does that say about me? through the art of Hemingway Tao Lin writes truer about my world than all the new non-fiction at Chapter's. They are interpretations and slanted … Lin describes story of regular people, stupid people, stupid people who use Google Chat; no meaning was intended, all truths are to be blamed on the reader.

Even this realization is hollow; there is nothing in Lin's work that explicitly supports this. This own conundrum is my own, and the author is so distant that I have not even the pleasure of his snide laughter towards my predilection, to admit that I've been had, good game, you showed the ugliness that I am.

Like Thomas Pynchon, I have to assume that the resulting pain is the pleasure I was supposed to derive from this work. I have been forced to accept the small essential beauty that exists in the vomit of mundane humanity which has been rubbed into my face.

Tao Lin is an asshole for this, and for this reason I am glad he was my first discovery in this quest for contemporary literature.

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