3x "early review" re Shoplifting from American Apparel (Melville House, Sept. 2009)
7/15, "Damning" ([grad student], Tumblr)
Relevant links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, "should I remix it" post, Goodreads page, Facebook group, Publisher's page
Tao Lin’s newest work, a novella called Shoplifting from American Apparel, is like a version of Malle’s My Dinner with André written especially for glue-huffers and self-loathing masturbation addicts; in other words, Lin’s book is content with—and perhaps even self-consciously celebrates—its own banality and mediocrity, never aspiring to be anything more.7/17, "Positive" (Michael Schaub, Bookslut)
[Shoplifting from American Apparel is] somehow both the funniest and the saddest book I've read in a long time, it's his best writing yet, and I strongly urge all of you to pick up a copy when it comes out in a few weeks. Tao is too original to compare to anybody, but his writing is more compelling and true than any young writer I've read in ages; his fiction reminds me of Mary Robison's best work. I recommend him highly.7/24, "Diary rendered in third person" (Publishers Weekly)
The Internet has spawned a generation exceedingly more awkward, apathetic and lost than any that has come before—at least, this seems to be the message and intention of Lin’s underwhelming novella (after Eeeee Eee Eeee and Bed). Sam, a young writer with “good rankings on Amazon,” works at an organic vegan restaurant and spends much of his time checking e-mails and instant messaging with his equally detached friends while wandering downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. There is, indeed, the shoplifting of a T-shirt (and, later, earphones), the acts—both of which end in Sam’s arrest—motivated by a need for “variety.” Though Lin strives to paint a portrait of a generation of disaffected youth “caught in the soft blue light of Internet Explorer,” this offers little more than lackadaisical pop culture reportage that reads mostly like a diary rendered in third person.*PROSE STYLE DISCLAIMER* "caught in the soft blue light of Internet Explorer" is a misquote, the word "caught" is not used in that line in the book. *PROSE STYLE DISCLAIMER*
Relevant links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, "should I remix it" post, Goodreads page, Facebook group, Publisher's page
24 Comments:
Weak
you sure know how to out do yourself
"the japanese tao lin"
i leave for school the last wk of august. if i preorder it will it arrive by then, or should i preorder it to be delivered to my college address?
'to be safe' make it be delivered to your college address maybe
thank you for your interest
hi tao
i am awkward/distant in relation to (miscellaneous person/place/thing)
feel like i should read your book
(also i am broke)
send me a free book maybe?
(i understand if you can't)
thanx bro/dude/man
haha - prose style disclaimer
I think PW is typical of the mainstream critique you'll get, though maybe not. Your work doesn't appeal to people over 30 or 35. However, you're a generational artist & the kids (mostly) seem to love your work and won't care about bad reviews in PW, the NY Times, etc. It's good that you're smart enough to post the reviews without trying to answer back. Authors who do that (respond) are assholes. Nearly everyone gets bad reviews. I don't think very many people over a certain age read your book, but why should you care? You're essentially a young adult novelist who writes for people in their 20s, late teens and maybe early 30s. Even a bad review in the NY Times would help because after awhile people remember 'bad' reviews as somehow being 'good'.
rave reviews are on the way from brandon scott gorrell, noah cicero, zachary german, nick antosca, bearfish, the girls in the video & the rest of the friends you email & chat with all day
sweet
hahaha 'caught'. They're trying to sabotage you.
Today i remembered how ace you're poetry book 'Cognitive behavioural therapy' is. I emailed extracts to several people.
Yesterday i remembered how ace EEE EEEE and Bed are. I didn't email anyone. I should have.
Five minutes ago i thought 'The secret to life may lie in the algebra of an as yet undiscovered emoticon'
4 minutes ago i thought 'I am stupid'.
I am going to buy 'shop lifting etc' when it comes out even though i am on minimum wage. The last two days and 'prose style disclaimer' have cinched the 'must have' factor.
you're should be your. Ive just worked a 12 hour shift. Grammar is weak right now.
The 'random ass tumbler bro' is Ronald J. Felten and this is his review in full:
Tao Lin’s newest work, a novella called Shoplifting from American Apparel, is like a version of Malle’s My Dinner with André written especially for glue-huffers and self-loathing masturbation addicts; in other words, Lin’s book is content with—and perhaps even self-consciously celebrates—its own banality and mediocrity, never aspiring to be anything more. Whereas Malle’s film aims to explore the roots of postmodern ennui and the generally overwhelming burdens of the human condition (as well as this condition’s effect on artistic production, explicitly asking how the artist might hope to move a contemporary—i.e., alienated and comatose—audience), this novella simply wallows in its mundanity like the proverbial pig in shit. And it stinks.
I remember once reading a quote from the filmmaker Jim Jarmusch who, paraphrasing Godard, said something to this effect: There are no original ideas and, thus, it’s okay to borrow or steal in the course of creating a work of art because what ultimately matters is not where you found things (i.e., ideas) but where you take them. Tao Lin has jerked off all over the spirit of Jarmusch’s sentiment.
Let’s look at a quick example that will hopefully illustrate how Lin has simply stolen without shame (though I’m willing to bet the irony, despite his novella’s title, was lost on him) and, further, has actively refused to take us or those ideas anywhere new or interesting. The first quote is from Malle’s aforementioned film (the “test” that Wally refers to here is life, generally, or what we might call existential meaning-making) and the second quote is from Lin’s new novella:
“If things get too quiet and I find myself just sitting there, you know, as we were saying before, I mean, whether I’m by myself or I’m with someone else, I just have this feeling of, my God, I’m going to be revealed. In other words, I’m adequate to do any sort of a task but I’m not adequate just to be a human being. I mean, in other words, I’m not—if I’m just trapped there and I’m not allowed to do things but all I can do is just be there, well, I’ll just fail. I mean, in other words, I can pass any other sort of a test and I can even get an A if I put in the required effort, but I just don’t have a clue how to pass this test. I mean, of course, I realize this isn’t a test but, um, I see it as a test. And I feel that I’m going to fail it. It’s very scary. I just feel totally at sea.”
What this excerpt from Malle’s film makes clear is that 1) this is but a fragment of a much larger and ambitious conversation, one that takes place over the course of more than 90 minutes and that 2) Wally is clearly conflicted, torn between his compulsion to be productive—a result of society’s prodding—and the existential anguish that is the necessary result of man’s inherent freedom to simply be. And, at times, this larger conversation—particularly because of the questions that are raised during it—is truly remarkable for its power to destabilize us, to challenge us, to force us to reconsider the foundation upon which our society (along with its arts and ideas) is built. Perhaps that all doesn’t come through in the one bit of dialogue I’ve selected here but you’ll have to take my word for it. On the other hand, here is a passage from Tao Lin’s novella (a tiny piece which, unfortunately, is representative of its larger whole):
“‘Really?’ said Sam. ‘I don’t know. Maybe an asteroid will hit me after my next two books come out. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what to do, like, overall, or something.’”
Who was that guy who played Ernest in those stupid movies from the 80s? Hold on, let me look it up. … Okay, I’m back. Yeah, it was Jim Varney. If Jim Varney were to play Wally in Tao Lin’s adaptation of Malle’s film, which is essentially what Shoplifting from American Apparel is, the title Ernest Goes to Dinner with André would have been entirely appropriate. (Okay, I may have been stretching a little too far there in order to make a joke but, really, this is what reading Tao Lin does to you.)
A reviewer, writing for The Stranger, presumably sober and completely serious, has said that “Tao Lin is a revolutionary.” Perhaps Mr. Lin has some career in radical politics of which I’m completely ignorant, as, surely, this reviewer, in his invocation of the word “revolutionary,” could not have been referring to Lin’s literary style—if, that is, it can be called a style at all; Tao Lin writes in impotent, staccato sentences, like Hemingway after a lobotomy and a sloppy castration.
Lin’s one strength is that his prose is quite readable. His characters are quirky enough (and are quirky just often enough) to keep you hanging on—assuming, of course, that you can continue to stomach Lin’s annoying, too-cute riffs on 20-something/hipster culture (e.g., veganism, retail theft, Gmail Chat conversations, and indie rock) for upwards of 100 pages. And his characters are like mutant middle-schoolers, released into the adult world, who need constant affirmation along with their daily naps and juice-boxes; they’d benefit from some supervision, too. The only reason I don’t hate this novella is because it didn’t waste too much of my time.
but hey, he compared you to Hemingway:
"Tao Lin writes in impotent, staccato sentences, like Hemingway after a lobotomy and a sloppy castration."
great quote
Um this is sort of "busting you out" maybe but I had been thinking that Ronald J Felten was you, Tao Lin?
http://antinomies.tumblr.com/
somebody told me that and i read it and it seemed true enough
I think that Ronald J. Felten the grad student is a cockslap.
i feel 'confident' and 'self-assured' that Ronald J. Felten is not tao lin. seeing as i 'know' RJF 'in real life' but as far as i am concerned 'tao lin' only 'exists' on the computer.
Lin's never 'written' a 'sentence' as stylish and clever as Felten wrote in that 'one' about 'Hemingway'.
but hemingway liked to kill animals for sport
and i agree with tao lin that there is no "good" and "bad" in "art" ("my" quotation marks)
so that puts hemingway in the "artists who liked to kill animals for sport" column and tao lin in the "artists who cares about animals' feelings" column
I still think it is funny if you "damned" yourself like that. If it is not you (tao) you should say that it is (you should ask permission first) but i will stand by the ron=tao hypothesis until it is disproved, i guess.
thank you tom
fuck animals. we're talking about lit.
i'm excited about shoplifting, and have been since, like, last year.
"beautiful."
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