Interesting review, thank you, but I don't know. Just from scanning the excerpts, the prose whose style you admire so much seems to me just tiring, puzzling. Worth the work? Maybe. You have developed thoughts on, are preoccupied by, both the internet reading experience, LLMs, and the possibility of literature under these circumstances. So the book is really addressing/engaging your concerns, and I think that explains some of your enthusiasm. I suspect that the novel won't work as well for a reader less preoccupied with these questions. Anyway, good on you, and as you say, Substack, for helping something interesting find an audience. As always, keep up the good work.
How is this different from Honor Levy? It's amusing, but I'm not really sure how it's any different from her. It's like Honor Levy was a man and a few years older. Still scene takedown stuff from scenesters.
I think the book is less uneven than Levy’s. I really liked ‘Love Story’ and ‘Cancel Me’ but the rest of the collection didn’t work for me.
I think the execution, especially in the final sequence, is just super strong. I should’ve focused more on that in my review than just excerpting some funny bits.
"... you and I have no inborn cognitive defenses against adversarial memes bombarding us from the internet."
Turn it off, unplug it, step away!
Sort of joking. But occasionally doing that is good, healthy, worth doing. I should do it more.
The book sounds like a trenchant (that is my literary critic word of the day) satire of a world that is not well known to people born during the Kennedy Administration. Possibly, therefore, despite its many merits, it will be opaque to them/us/me as a result. Diversity of generational experience is real, and accelerating, and it makes us natives of different communities, if not different planets.
Still, I strive from time to time to immerse myself in something more or less contemporary, to get a feel or an impression of things I will not fully grasp. This book is a top contender for one of those plunges -- as yours was.
I read this one today; it was quite short. I appreciated it's attempt at an experimental and transgressive style, but this one didn't work for me primarily because it didn't make me feel or think very much. I recognized various memes across the internet - I agree with you that it doesn't pidgeonhole itself into a standard political framework, which I appreciated - but I wasn't sure what the point was: I noticed how my brain tried to make sense and organize the quite seemingly disorganized text, but it wasn't really able to do so. My eyes glazed over at the walls of text between R_ and Alice, and I found myself skipping over most of those parts...
"you and I have no inborn cognitive defenses against adversarial memes bombarding us from the internet. The end result is that the internet is a massive particle accelerator for mental illness."
The above statement is a good but peculiar mixed metaphor. Of course, everyone has an inborn defense mechanism: unplug the computer and walk away.
Also, there isn't a definitive cause-effect relationship between the internet and the prevalence of mental illness and subsequent mass shootings. Mental illness sufferers have committed violent crimes throughout history. The only significant thing nowadays is the enhanced efficiency of killings, as the modifier "mass" describes. (On a tangential note: even though Hitler had never seen any psychiatrist, many speculate that he had schizoaffective disorder. If that is true, then the difference is between wholesale and retail slaughtering.)
Regardless, I still have faith. From oral history to written stories, from printing to movies/TV to the internet, every revolutionary turn in history generates similar alarmed outcries. But, you know what, the human brain has an amazing ability to adapt.
BTW, I appreciate your excitement in discovering an experimental writer who resonates with you.
I stopped reading at "theorycel", deployed as a verb.
I can't think of any meaning that you would be trying to convey at that point in the sentence with reference to 'celibate', which of course is what the 'cel' component points to.
Failing to come up with anything, I must assume that you are being lazy, and just picking a cliche off the shelf and borrowing from it, hoping but failing to gain credibility due to its popularity ("If it's popular, it must be valid; I can stop thinking now"), which is what all usage of cliches is.
Why would I invest my own time reading the verbiage of a lazy thinker?
I'll take another crack at your review if you can explain what that language token meant and how "celibate" has anything to do with the function of this word in that sentence.
-------------
Could you and your friends, like the hosts of New Write podcast, be a bit more thoughtful before using lazy derivatives of "incel"? There's a big difference between stealing artfully and stealing lazily.
Interesting review, thank you, but I don't know. Just from scanning the excerpts, the prose whose style you admire so much seems to me just tiring, puzzling. Worth the work? Maybe. You have developed thoughts on, are preoccupied by, both the internet reading experience, LLMs, and the possibility of literature under these circumstances. So the book is really addressing/engaging your concerns, and I think that explains some of your enthusiasm. I suspect that the novel won't work as well for a reader less preoccupied with these questions. Anyway, good on you, and as you say, Substack, for helping something interesting find an audience. As always, keep up the good work.
How is this different from Honor Levy? It's amusing, but I'm not really sure how it's any different from her. It's like Honor Levy was a man and a few years older. Still scene takedown stuff from scenesters.
Reasonable points, to which I’d respond:
I think the book is less uneven than Levy’s. I really liked ‘Love Story’ and ‘Cancel Me’ but the rest of the collection didn’t work for me.
I think the execution, especially in the final sequence, is just super strong. I should’ve focused more on that in my review than just excerpting some funny bits.
I am convinced it is on my list. After Incel (which I am currently reading), Glass Century and Major Arcana.
"... you and I have no inborn cognitive defenses against adversarial memes bombarding us from the internet."
Turn it off, unplug it, step away!
Sort of joking. But occasionally doing that is good, healthy, worth doing. I should do it more.
The book sounds like a trenchant (that is my literary critic word of the day) satire of a world that is not well known to people born during the Kennedy Administration. Possibly, therefore, despite its many merits, it will be opaque to them/us/me as a result. Diversity of generational experience is real, and accelerating, and it makes us natives of different communities, if not different planets.
Still, I strive from time to time to immerse myself in something more or less contemporary, to get a feel or an impression of things I will not fully grasp. This book is a top contender for one of those plunges -- as yours was.
I read this one today; it was quite short. I appreciated it's attempt at an experimental and transgressive style, but this one didn't work for me primarily because it didn't make me feel or think very much. I recognized various memes across the internet - I agree with you that it doesn't pidgeonhole itself into a standard political framework, which I appreciated - but I wasn't sure what the point was: I noticed how my brain tried to make sense and organize the quite seemingly disorganized text, but it wasn't really able to do so. My eyes glazed over at the walls of text between R_ and Alice, and I found myself skipping over most of those parts...
Fair critique - I’m working on a review of Gasda’s Sleepers. I think you’ll like that one a lot more, but it’s not out yet.
Sounds like a cool book. Great review.
Thanks! I think you’d like it. I’d be rather curious about your take on this.
I have like an insane list of books to read, but this one is of course on it.
It’s short, which makes it more accessible.
(I have a similar problem, haha)
Ignore the over-40 wastes of skin that comprise the rest of the posts accompanying this article. I enjoyed it and I'll give the book a shot.
"you and I have no inborn cognitive defenses against adversarial memes bombarding us from the internet. The end result is that the internet is a massive particle accelerator for mental illness."
The above statement is a good but peculiar mixed metaphor. Of course, everyone has an inborn defense mechanism: unplug the computer and walk away.
Also, there isn't a definitive cause-effect relationship between the internet and the prevalence of mental illness and subsequent mass shootings. Mental illness sufferers have committed violent crimes throughout history. The only significant thing nowadays is the enhanced efficiency of killings, as the modifier "mass" describes. (On a tangential note: even though Hitler had never seen any psychiatrist, many speculate that he had schizoaffective disorder. If that is true, then the difference is between wholesale and retail slaughtering.)
Regardless, I still have faith. From oral history to written stories, from printing to movies/TV to the internet, every revolutionary turn in history generates similar alarmed outcries. But, you know what, the human brain has an amazing ability to adapt.
BTW, I appreciate your excitement in discovering an experimental writer who resonates with you.
it’s no wonder that the conventional narrative continuity of the literary novel fails to capture the psychic disturbance of the internet,
I GOT SOMETHING IN MIND!!!!
arx han hates me
I stopped reading at "theorycel", deployed as a verb.
I can't think of any meaning that you would be trying to convey at that point in the sentence with reference to 'celibate', which of course is what the 'cel' component points to.
Failing to come up with anything, I must assume that you are being lazy, and just picking a cliche off the shelf and borrowing from it, hoping but failing to gain credibility due to its popularity ("If it's popular, it must be valid; I can stop thinking now"), which is what all usage of cliches is.
Why would I invest my own time reading the verbiage of a lazy thinker?
I'll take another crack at your review if you can explain what that language token meant and how "celibate" has anything to do with the function of this word in that sentence.
-------------
Could you and your friends, like the hosts of New Write podcast, be a bit more thoughtful before using lazy derivatives of "incel"? There's a big difference between stealing artfully and stealing lazily.
🚨ALERT🚨ALERT🚨POINTLESS AND MEAN COMMENT🚨ALERT🚨ALERT🚨COMMENT THAT MAKES NO SENSE🚨ALERT🚨ALERT