• KobaCumTribute [she/her]
        ·
        4 months ago

        Like 90% of what gets called literature and art is exactly that: a disjointed pile of references that are intentionally inscrutable to anyone not familiar with whatever niche thing the author was. Those references being to terminally online cultural signifiers and memes instead of to the cultural and historical curriculum that an educated person is expected to have studied in school doesn't change that.

        If this were just a shitpost mocking that sort of overly referential prose it would be fantastic, but reading a bit more about it it sounds like it was part of an earnest attempt at creating high art, that it's trying to be like that insufferable prose, not mock it. It also sounds like the rest of it is run through with reactionary undercurrents, so in that light the references to terminally online right wing nonsense come across as less a scathing mockery of them and more just as lighthearted irony.

        • PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          4 months ago

          Like 90% of what gets called literature and art is exactly that: a disjointed pile of references that are intentionally inscrutable to anyone not familiar with whatever niche thing the author was.

          What the hell kind of literature have you been reading

          • KobaCumTribute [she/her]
            ·
            4 months ago

            Every time something like this filters out of the weird high art literature scene it's something like this, and most of what I remember from English in high school and college was the same. Anything that's "prestigious" literature seems to be insufferable dreck built from allegory and references that make modestly educated journalists feel like smart little lads when they get the reference. I hate it so much and I'm saying this as exactly the sort of educated-person-who-reads-too-much it's supposed to appeal to.

            Like I genuinely prefer absolute garbage to anything the New York Times would praise.

            • Red_sun_in_the_sky [any]
              ·
              4 months ago

              Sure nyt garbage is trash but that won't this trash in the post is good though. This is like one page. If this is way its gonna convey whatever for a book length, then good luck reading that. I can't.

              Like this is literally on those wattpad incest script level writing. Not to mention the whole creepy infantlizing.

              I don't care for prestigious books or whatever. Not every book is doing references every sentence.

              • KobaCumTribute [she/her]
                ·
                4 months ago

                Sure nyt garbage is trash but that won't this trash in the post is good though.

                Someone else linked a NYT article that while stopping short of being a glowing review of the book in question did praise the worst things about it.