August 1, 2008
Dot-point review.
This book uses the following techniques:
- Non-committal celerity: ‘The bear would be watching TV. Thinking about the Pulitzer Prize.’
- Dangling banalities: ‘As a person, he is lonelier than Sara. She is shorter.’
- Oppressive noun matrices: ‘Martial arts, deer, death. Singapore, octopus, death.’
- Repetition of self-referential catchphrases: ‘Killing rampage.’
- Short sentences: see above
to exemplify the state where ‘the things you do have nothing to do with survival and you spend forty million dollars to make Steve Zissou and the Atomic Submarine or whatever it’s called.’
Comments (5)
ryan manning | 3rd Aug 08 | 7:01 am |
the asian kevin costner
Tao Lin | 5th Aug 08 | 8:36 pm |
your blog is pretty
estelle | 6th Aug 08 | 12:54 pm |
thanks tao. i am not sure about the arial
your book is good
Kelsey | 12th Aug 08 | 5:12 pm |
#1 – the comments at this particular post amuse me.
#2 – hmm.. I saw this book in Powells awhile ago. I picked it up, looked through it, and put it back down again. I like edgy stuff, but in my mind, there’s edgy then there’s trying to hard. From what I saw (and from what I glean from your post?), this seems like it teeters over that edge..
estelle | 14th Aug 08 | 4:39 pm |
kelsey:
1. i am also amused, mostly.
2. i would recommend this book. i can understand why you might think it is over the top. some parts are horrible to read. but it is pretty much the best literary representation of how i generally think. if verisimilitude to the interior life of someone you’ve never met isn’t a clincher for you(and why should it be), the book also made me think a lot about language in people’s mouths in 2008, and what it is a conduit for.