TAO LIN | BLOG

6/14/07

tao lin promotional post (part fifteen)

review of granta's best of young american novelists (part two) by tao lin

new poem by tao lin

26 Comments:

lin tao said...: i will make some observations about your review of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists 2.

the first paragraph explains that the book has work by what Granta thinks are the 21 best writers are today who were born or grew up in America and are under 35.

you say these writers have ‘defeated’ thousands of other writers. you compare this to movies like Braveheart & 300 and speculate about what Jonathan Safran Foer thinks in his bathroom.

you say ‘anyone not on the list can kill them self’ [sic] or try to be the best at something else.

in the second paragraph you try to figure out how something like this book can happen and create fictional scenes about Granta editors saying things like ‘Granta is a piece of shit. And old. It is an old piece of shit. Does anyone even read Granta?’ and explain that the book is an attempt to do something sensational that will sell copies.

you speculate on how they came up with the title as an attempt to get the most readers.

your third paragraph continues with this speculation with more fictional dialogue from Granta editors about how they created the cover and debated more about the title and how the cover looks and how after meeting with investors and supporters they had many meetings about the title so that it wouldn’t offend people.

you say that now any of the writers on the list who as four-years-old [sic] said, “I want to be the best writer ever,” have actually achieved their [sic] goal.

your fourth paragraph says a lot of things like that probably happened and you ask who should be blamed for all this, for doing something that will increase pain and suffering in the world by promoting the meaningless concept of 'best.'

you then admit to feeling like an ass, that you don’t know how to ‘review’ a book unless you are recommending it to someone.

you say didn’t really enjoy the stories in Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists 2.

(‘enjoy’ is an abstract term that you leave undefined, although you say you don’t ‘enjoy’ 95% of the writing you read or 95% of the people you meet).

you make the statement, ‘Not everyone will like everything else that exists in the universe’ and discuss liking or not liking putting salt on watermelon.

you speculate that the writers featured in the anthology will help corporations get more money and say something more about creating more pain and suffering in the world.

(‘like,’ ‘pain,’ ‘suffering’ are all undefined abstract terms.)

your final paragraphs says you will just make some observations like that many of the writers included were not born in America or do not write about things that take place in America.

you say you could type a lot more observations if you thought harder but you feel really bad when you think about these things.

your review was over 1,100 words.

you mentioned 4 of the 21 writers in the anthology but only in what speculating about what they thought about themselves or what might offend them.

you did not say what any of their stories were about, did not mention any individual stories, their styles, their themes, the characters or settings or anything about them.

you did not say any stories were any better than any others.

those are my observations about your review.

i could type more observations but i can’t think of any more.

please correct my mistakes.

thank you.; 5:49 PM
lin tao said...: i feel productive now.; 5:57 PM
lin tao said...: here is my picture. i am a professor.; 6:21 PM
Literary Monthly said...: I too made a list of best short stories (3 or 4 only). Would appreciate it muchly if you would look and agree or disagree. - Mikael Covey; 6:52 PM
Tao Lin said...: mikael covey,

can you give a link? you have like 8 blogs

lin tao,

yes, those are all correct observations i think; 7:56 PM
Literary Monthly said...: Sorry, I thought it would go straight to main page, which is Literary Monthly. - Mikael Covey; 9:03 PM
David said...: That's the first poem in your book of same name.; 10:27 PM
Tao Lin said...: in the book it's a table of contents not a poem; 1:37 AM
Tao Lin said...: just copy and paste your list here, my comments section has a large readership; 1:39 AM
Pirooz M. Kalayeh said...: Funny. I read the TOC as a poem when I first got the book. Cool, that you got it up. It's a good poem.; 2:46 AM
Literary Monthly said...: Easier - the link to my short stories' list is the last word in my interview of Jeremy Shipp in 3:AM. - Mike Covey; 9:25 AM
Billy said...: literary monthly,

you wrote:

"The writer puts on the mantle and cloak and assumes the role of the High Priest speaking to the tribe."

What the fuck?; 10:43 AM
David said...: I know
I was just kidding. I remember somebody saying something about how it looked like a poem then when they got past it they realized it was the table of contents and you said you were going to make it a poem.
It's a poem. Now.

Does that mean that because the book was published prior to June 10, 2007 it's not a poem in the book, but only in publication/print/internet after that date?; 11:14 AM
Noah Cicero said...: literary monthly writes, "Writing has this one function - to make the world a better place. Our purpose in life - is to make this planet a decent place for all the little children of the world. If we don't do that - with our lives, with our writing - we fail."

I don't think writing can make or has ever made the world a better place and ever will.

At most writing can do is like make whoever bought the book not feel so alone and maybe provide some tools to analyze oneself.

Guns make the world what it is, not novels.; 11:17 AM
chapman said...: i posted on literary monthly. it was fun to post there

thank you Mikael Covey; 11:47 AM
ryan said...: you can whack the shit out of someone's head using the spine of a novel. paper or hardback. In the wrong hands, writing can lead to mild concussions.; 1:42 PM
Literary Monthly said...: Chapman, I appreciate your time and trouble. But you miss the point. Sasha Cohen is a great skater. You say - no, only in your opinion. Mother Theresa was a great person. Again - no, only in your opinion. Simon Bolivar was a great man; Haig& Haig is great Scotch... Yours is a reduction ad absurdum argument in which words have no meaning outside the individual.

Noah Cicero, according to Northrup Frye, we are our myths - Homer, the Bible, etc. We are what we read, as a society. What we know of morality comes from literature. Yeats helped invent Ireland. Hurst created a war. The intent of my book is to stop the war, all war.

If not the writer...who do you think is in a proper position to influence public opinion? The Imam’s? They’re only teaching what’s been written. The Pope? - same thing. The US of idiocy often refers to its constitution as the source of all its laws and ideas - a written document.

According to Sartre, every writer is re-writing the Bible (or twiddling his thumbs) displaying his beliefs - for universal application. To write or live without a purpose, seems like a waste of mortality. And know - all people want to be led, thus religion, government, Oprah.
- Mike Covey; 2:49 PM
chapman said...: if there is objective greatness, rather than opinions that are more or less widely-shared, then what do we do about each others existence when we disagree about one of the examples?

christopher hitchens writes essays quite often that argue that mother theresa was a horrible, dreadful person. he is intelligent, cultured, extremely well-read, and "has a right to his opinion."

but the next step is to "disprove" this opinion.

what if he clings to his opinion? (he does)

the next step is to disprove that he has "a right to his opinion."

that is being done right now by various authors, who write articles about christopher hitchens' alleged alcoholism and immorality as a "reason" for his holding incorrect opinions about objectively great mother theresa.

the next step would be to kill christopher hitchens.

in the meantime, if we almost all agree that in our personal judgement mother theresa is a good or great person, isn't that enough?

and doesn't that imply that we should be trying to act a little bit like mother theresa?

would mother theresa use character assassination to disprove somebody's opinion about anything?

this is what "objective greatness" leads to. greatness simply isn't factual. it is an experience.

for me it's a holy and tremendous experience. but i believe it's personal. as is "holy."

and you disagree with me.

we are doomed.; 3:38 PM
ryan said...: that is a nice argument, i think. propagation of memes; 3:39 PM
ryan said...: in regards to Literary Monthly

haven't read the next comment; 3:41 PM
Noah Cicero said...: Chapman

all this person needs to prove their point is the sentence, "They're right."

If that is all the evidence he or she needs, that all the evidence you need.

"They're wrong."

That's all you need too.

"They're right."

Literary Monthly

And concerning Sartre:

I don't agree totally with committed writing.

Committed writing led to really nothing.

All I ask for is that the writing is not reactionary.

To your points:

The myths are written down after they have been made up.

And myths arise from economic circumstances, from scarcity.

There is no morality, there is cultural relavitivism. Humans have and will never create a universal morality. The only way that could be possible is if everyone on earth lived the exact same lives, doing the exact same things, with no one above anyone and no one below anyone, everyone living in the same house, with the same athletic abilities, with the same attractiveness level, we would have to clone everyone to be the same person for such a thing to be possible, and even have the same jobs.

Ireland was invented like 1500 years ago by Romans with swords and spears. What are you talking about?

Hurst created a war: the war was carried out by GUNS. Stowe didn't win the Civil War, Guns did.

You can't stop war. War is part of our lives. Our most powerful instinct is the Will To Power. The grass and the trees and the ocean all have the same instinct, to overcome their surroundings.

I agree with Levy The End of History is endless war. The Last Man has no myths, no notions to ride on, no facets for creativity, The Last Man will resort to guns and murder to fill power like they have in Third World Countries.

Trying to stop all war is stupid, and a waste of time. We shouldn't be thinking how to end all war, but who to point the war at.

The constitution is MONEY.

MONEY!

BIG MONEY WITH BIG GUNS AND BIG PRISONS WITH BIG GUARDS!

GROW UP!

FACE REALITY!; 4:38 PM
chapman said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4:57 PM
chapman said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5:16 PM
chapman said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5:18 PM
astronomicblue said...: tao,
not that it is my place to say.. nor do i figure you'd care. but i think your intent (that is the rhetoric of not having rhetoric) would be stronger in your granta piece here if you didn't explain what you were doing at the end... in the paragraph starting, "many might be thinking..."
not only that, but it's also a problematic paragraph because you insist that "it doesn't tell you what is good or what is bad," but your tone in the rest of the piece is laden with irony. Foer can look in the mirror and think 'i'm the best.' 'Luminaries' such as Packer and Krauss. It's important to be honest about the implications of tone/language. We all know you don't believe in belief, in abstractions, in rhetoric... that writing means anything at all. that you mean anything at all. that you even exist. that i even exist. or rather *shrug* you don't know. or no one knows. so what's the point? if it doesn't reduce pain and suffering, it's abstract and meaningless.
it sounds to me, almost, as if you wish the world would revert back to an egoless lot of animals. with no inventions, no fictive stories of self and humanity. just animals living life without presuppositions. living life as is. beings just being. (humorously enough) just centering in the Tao (te Ching version that is).. it sounds wonderful but to be honest... i don't think the convertly biting/destructive, sanctimonious tone of your work really successfully does that.
i think your mission is strong. i think your work is pretty strong, but in someways underdeveloped. again, not that my opinion means anything. i just believe in what you're doing to the extent that it is not aimlessly destructive to the 'evil forces' of novelists like zz packer and daniel alarcon... or literary institutions like Granta. those things aren't the problem really; so you might be unnecessarily expending energy on them.; 11:19 AM
Tao Lin said...: hi astronic blue,

thank you for your thoughts.

i added that last paragraph after i wrote everything else. there was another paragraph there but it got deleted. the real reason i wrote the review was that i had said i would do it, and then later on i had problems doing it. i didn't know what to say, and didn't know what the point of reviewing it would be. but granta had sent two copies to me from europe and if i didn't review it they would get angry at 3 a.m. and think they were just trying to get free copies or something. the previous last paragraph talked about that in detail.

i agree with a lot of what you typed. but i am confused also, so can't really defend my actions with consistency. no one can defend their actions if you argue against them from an existential or nearly existential point of view, a point of view in which little information is blocked out. it just depends how much information i am willing to block out. for example sometimes i wish the world would revert back to egoless animals, sometimes i feel confused and don't know anything, sometimes i want to kill myself, etc.; 6:44 PM