which stock idiom of 20th-c. american fiction do you think your life has recently most resembled

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there can be only one

Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:32 (fourteen years ago)

this is also a fun game to play at parties

Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:33 (fourteen years ago)

petulant manchild finds love, stumbles into adulthood

James Ferraro Boyz (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:37 (fourteen years ago)

idiom?

the pinefox, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:40 (fourteen years ago)

genre i think

all the small zings (history mayne), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:43 (fourteen years ago)

he means

all the small zings (history mayne), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:43 (fourteen years ago)

so to speak

Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:43 (fourteen years ago)

sorta sub genre really

Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:43 (fourteen years ago)

there's, you know, room to interpret

thomp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:53 (fourteen years ago)

some suggestions:

- preface to a volume of the new york edition (the pinefox)
- anticlimactic pomo grail quest novel (j.)
- whimsical thought catalogue piece (idk, max?)
- circa-2001 pitchfork review (REDACTED)

thomp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:54 (fourteen years ago)

f u

max, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:45 (fourteen years ago)

my life is a sex novel

max, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:45 (fourteen years ago)

hemingway at his most bullfighter-y is how im livin

all the small zings (history mayne), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:46 (fourteen years ago)

*reads nicholson baker*
xp

and my soul said you can't go there (schlump), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:47 (fourteen years ago)

anyway i think mine is 'deliberately flat affect'

Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 20:21 (fourteen years ago)

basically the Rabbit novels except the bit where he gets rich

Chapman Pincher Overdrive (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 20:24 (fourteen years ago)

the longeurs and heavy irony of Mann.

Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 20:30 (fourteen years ago)

woman who freaks out inappropriately, deeply, and in public

some lady (La Lechera), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 22:56 (fourteen years ago)

george saunders wage-slave-trapped-in-the-belly-of-horrible-surrealist-consumer-culture short story, except just horrifying instead of horrifying and funny

strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:09 (fourteen years ago)

really thinking about it i am probably a minor character in some horrible park slope young-white-men literary novel

max, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:09 (fourteen years ago)

i didnt have lunch yesterday and for a little while my life was like "hunger"

max, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:10 (fourteen years ago)

when thomp asked me this qn for the first time i was sorta horrified that 'minor character in a paul auster novel' was the first (accurate) thing i thought of

Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:10 (fourteen years ago)

paul austers books are too weird for me to be in them

max, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:11 (fourteen years ago)

you are a man who is mistaken for a message board poster and then assumes the identity of that poster on a lark only to find himself utterly transformed for the worse

strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:12 (fourteen years ago)

would rather be paul auster minor character than like keith gessen minor character

max, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:12 (fourteen years ago)

whimsical thought catalog piece, pshhhh, im still mad at thom

max, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:12 (fourteen years ago)

all keith gessen characters are minor characters iirc

strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:13 (fourteen years ago)

you are a man who is mistaken for a message board poster and then assumes the identity of that poster on a lark only to find himself utterly transformed for the worse

oblique strategies?

Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:13 (fourteen years ago)

btw jess how is George Saunders and where should I start?

Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:13 (fourteen years ago)

first two books amazing, everything else diminishing returns

strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:14 (fourteen years ago)

has anyone read that book 'all the sad young literary men'? i got that it was 'trying to get a rise' with that title but

BIG CULTURAL SIGNIFIER aka the wait wtf is a cultural signifier? (history mayne), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:14 (fourteen years ago)

one of my best schadenfreude-y moments in recent years was seeing the gessen novel in the "everything's a dollar" store surrounded by bodice-rippers and obama-did-9/11 books

strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:15 (fourteen years ago)

i think i have enough distance from the characters in 'all the...' to both recognize the type and to know im not really one of them

i thought it was 'pretty good', accurate at depicting 'something that exists' w/o having much in particular to say about it or much of an idea abt how important that thing is

Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:17 (fourteen years ago)

Sam Lipsyte-style scuffling father. :/

Stevie T, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:22 (fourteen years ago)

at least your life is funny

max, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:24 (fourteen years ago)

melodrama
cautionary story for teens
bret easton ellis but more boring

runaway (Matt P), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:25 (fourteen years ago)

mary higgins clark, but the children i murder are ambitions

runaway (Matt P), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:29 (fourteen years ago)

disjointed, ambitious, unfinished and ultimately disappointed posthumous novel

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:30 (fourteen years ago)

the novel as a collection of seriocomic short stories connected only by the ubiquity of an often feckless, addle-pated, and entirely unreliable narrator during a defined chronological period

remy bean, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:30 (fourteen years ago)

(mine is published on post it notes stuck to butterflies)

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:30 (fourteen years ago)

you are house of blue leaves

remy bean, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:31 (fourteen years ago)

fuck that book and that dude imo

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:32 (fourteen years ago)

dirty realism minus the trailer park setting

excuse me you're a helluva guy (m coleman), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:32 (fourteen years ago)

we are all denis johnston

remy bean, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:33 (fourteen years ago)

dirty realism.

you've got male (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:34 (fourteen years ago)

barfly, dead end job, transitory and meaningless sexual encounters etc.

you've got male (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:34 (fourteen years ago)

I am also a sexy vampire

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:35 (fourteen years ago)

everything I said before + sexy vampire

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:35 (fourteen years ago)

thats a good joke 2 make lol @ sexxy vampire books

Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:35 (fourteen years ago)

haha women

Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:36 (fourteen years ago)

I was gonna do a chick lit joke first but I'm going to make it right now

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:36 (fourteen years ago)

a woman

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:36 (fourteen years ago)

are you trying to balance your love life and a job you dont appear to be v good at and also s.thing abt shoes?

Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:38 (fourteen years ago)

i dont know why im pretending i dont understand the template for chick lit books

Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:38 (fourteen years ago)

i.e. hardcore anal sex and lots of it

Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:39 (fourteen years ago)

kindles have wifi?

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:39 (fourteen years ago)

with a mysterious stranger who punishes first, and loves later and then vanishes without a trace

remy bean, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:40 (fourteen years ago)

nameless narrator in poorly described vaguely european city

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:42 (fourteen years ago)

blurbed by susan sontag

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:42 (fourteen years ago)

just a lonely guy thinking about things

remy bean, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:43 (fourteen years ago)

gay mormon coming out exploitation novel titled "Mommy Dearest"

runaway (Matt P), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:44 (fourteen years ago)

hogg-era delany

strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:44 (fourteen years ago)

'my life is like science fiction!!' - some grandma after using a toaster oven

Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:45 (fourteen years ago)

"This is a witting exemplar of the new fiction" -- Gore Vidal

Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:47 (fourteen years ago)

are you trying to balance your love life and a job you dont appear to be v good at and also s.thing abt shoes?

― Lamp, Tuesday, September 13, 2011 4:38 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

this, for real

runaway (Matt P), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:47 (fourteen years ago)

one of those plays with a single actor that takes place entirely in one room

not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Wednesday, 14 September 2011 00:03 (fourteen years ago)

has anyone read that book 'all the sad young literary men'?

Yeah, it's not that good. Has 3 linked stories, only one of which--young American goes to Palestine--is actually interesting

not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Wednesday, 14 September 2011 00:04 (fourteen years ago)

I have found it almost literally unreadable.

Every time I have gone back to it I have had to stop after a page or so.

the pinefox, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 08:08 (fourteen years ago)

ilxors i would not have expected to have read 'all the sad young literary men' ^^

thomp, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 09:57 (fourteen years ago)

real talk, guys, is it because it was remaindered? because i keep seeing the hardback - it's a rather nice hardback! - in the £2 store, and i think i've definitely picked it up and looked at the back at least once, but i can't really imagine what kind of leap of effort it would take for me to switch from browsing to carrying grip and take it the three or four feet to the checkout, it seems an insurmountable gulf

thomp, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 09:59 (fourteen years ago)

Bartleby the Scrivener lazily transferred to 21st century office building.

Matt DC, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 10:00 (fourteen years ago)

well it sounds like he hasn't to be fair to the lad

im relieved no-one has stood up for it anyway, feel confirmed in my prejudice

xp

watching my swag like a hawk (history mayne), Wednesday, 14 September 2011 10:01 (fourteen years ago)

Shit, wrong century.

Matt DC, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 10:02 (fourteen years ago)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41YGS8PSWEL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

should have chosen not to look inside imo

mr peabody (moonship journey to baja), Wednesday, 14 September 2011 16:57 (fourteen years ago)

http://www.fromthevaultradio.org/home/wp-content/images/FTV005_GinsbergHowl/howl.gif

my nose is thinner and my eyes are deeper set but the haircut is sort of on-point

mr peabody (moonship journey to baja), Wednesday, 14 September 2011 16:59 (fourteen years ago)

ilxors i would not have expected to have read 'all the sad young literary men' ^^

Haha. Actually, i'd never heard of Gessen, and was drawn to it by the cover, which was rather nice. But yeah, contents didn't grab me.

Reading David Lodge's 'Small World', and it's weird, because I'm actually enjoying it a lot, even though I haven't yet laughed once in 200 pages at this "comic" novel. Maybe because a lot of the comedy seems to stem from the idea that anything other than the straightest of vanilla sex is inherently funny

not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Wednesday, 14 September 2011 23:47 (fourteen years ago)

Sorry, wrong thread for that last bit

not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Wednesday, 14 September 2011 23:48 (fourteen years ago)

Lodge's novels are a lark -- I read a bunch in the mid ninties, the first one of which was Small World. No need to reread them though.

Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 14 September 2011 23:48 (fourteen years ago)

Backwoods pulp pro with family issues under the eves (Southern Gothic)

dow, Monday, 19 September 2011 01:30 (fourteen years ago)


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