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Attention to breath is everything. And most academic writing doesn't breathe. Since it doesn't breathe, it never seems to have any human body behind it .

Also noticed the recent resurgence of christianity, but maybe in a superficial way? When do you think it began... I feel like it was a year or two ago.

Read 400 pages 20-30 times? Who has time for that? Lol. Dont even have time to watch a movie 20-30 times lol

I can’t shake the feeling that DFW was kinda talking about himself (or how he once was at some point) just a bit with that quote 😅

I like your video, but Sean Strickland didn't get an industry push... quite the reverse if anything.

Kindle Graveyard? I like the sound of that!😂

Jesus loves you and wants a relationship with you.he died so that you could go to Heaven.He wants you to live for him and is the way to heaven.Believing in Jesus and what he did is the way to Heaven. If you don't already, you should read the Bible ✝️❤️

That quotation may not have been replete with run-on sentences, but it may as well have been. It achieved the same effect.

Also saying that "Infinite Jest" is the most unfinished book makes it seem ( to me, anyway) that the author didn't finish it. There must be a one word synonym for dnf.

I read one of my poems out loud to a large group yesterday, in front of City Hall in my hometown, at a protest rally. It was my first time reading one of my pieces in public.

A James Baldwin Baldwin quote comes to mind that I first heard from Dan Carlin on Hardcore History “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people.” That quote really distills the message almost perfectly. Also your plugs have gotten so much better Ian I’m never ready for them, haha

When you say that less than 1% of students (and Americans) cannot write I feel like you meant to say the opposite. Did I mishear or misunderstand? Or was it a slip of the tongue in the flow of speech?

Haaaaa best thumbnail ever for this video

You just identified the noise my mind makes when I sit down to my WIP on my typewriter! Lol

People Today are Basically illiterate. They Cannot follow the complex plots of Good Writers. I see this in the comments on Goodreads, Amazon Books, etc... Maybe Publishers are Intentionally requiring Dumbed Downed books because today's readers are Illiterate. It is nearly impossible to join a Book Club discussion and have an Intelligent conversation with people because they don't understand the Book at all. (Most definitely didn't even read the Book. Maybe they skimmed it, or are commenting based off of poorly written Book Reviews they read. Some just watched the Movie version and slept through it...) Today in Book Clubs in online Book discussions people are redefining Books. They Falsely claim a Hero is a Villain and a Villain is a Hero. They also Claim characters are Ambiguous when they are Not. It is popular today to Claim No Character is Good or Evil. That Basic Truth is being thrown out. Today people don't believe in Right and Wrong. So what is Clearly Evil, to them is Not Evil. "There is more than One way to look at this... The actions were Justified because..." The Ignorant things they come up with are Bizarre. They don't want to have an Honest discussion about what was written. Everything is redefined along their own Ideology's. They project their personal BIAS into the Book instead of expressing what was actually written. Women consume the Vast Majority of the Books written. If you look at what is published today you will find 75% maybe more are for Women. RUclips has Numerous Free Audiobooks and the Vast Majority are by Horrible Writers. Amazon has a huge selection of Free Books. The New Free Books are Mostly Not worth reading. Some are given out free so you will buy the Author's other Books.

My book is beginning to sink into its plot in the Amazon graveyard. I am not actually a writer. I am a fool. I’ll still go. Thanks for the name of the place.

Just stumbled upon this. Five minutes in, I immediately subscribed. Need more of this, excited to check out other content on this channel.

Can you do a video on your favourite book from a Female author? Seems you only cover the same few guys, as a teacher I assume you have some experience with a wide range of books, and it's only fair to your female students that you have some good recommendations.

11:55 can someone give me an example of an Spanish symbolist in poetry? I'm interested in Spanish literature (I'm a native Spanish speaker myself) but I never heard of the movement

The reason most people suck at writing now, is because now writing is easy to do. That means there is no natural filter to sift out what is unnecessary. An insecure person who is more worrried about grammar than meaning can live a long and fruitful life sifting tax money while accomplishing nothing themselves.

Hey, now, no need to call me out like this

Great video

Not a fan of Infinite Jest but DFW is a writer of pretty good caliber. Infinite Jest is a flash in the pan as with a lot of postmodern fiction, in my opinion. I think people today are getting tired of slick, self-congratulatory irony in fiction. I don't think it'll hold up over time compared to the amount of killer fiction out there it's competing with. Addiction, postmodern stylizing, experimental form, sex, mental illness...I'll take Burroughs over Wallace any day. Wallace reminded me of the gateway writer who got bros into fiction in my college days. I agree with Bloom. The canon is necessary and works well as a bar for good literature given the historical context. Today we lack context for better or worse, which makes it much easier to criticize and relativize standards. Bloom was being Bloom in comparing Stephen King with Wallace. A nice insult that's lost to us these days.

Heres my personal aproach: start on page 1 all the way till the end.....

Youre awesome man. These videos are really enjoyable. Enjoy the laidback format and really sharp commentary

Kinda misleading title, but I pretty much agree 100% with the content. Also that story about the guy who went full Fake Christian was devastating.

I tried to read Wallace, and I will give him another go, though I don't think writers like him and Pynchon are really my cup of tea though I think Blooms judgement seems harsh, could he really be that bad. Anyway I think in the end if readers get something out of a writer that makes his writing valid, and a positive contribution to the arts and society, and Wallace has a cult following so I think he has connected with people. Not everybody will like him and that's okay.

I started reading this book since your video last week. I’m doing the audiobook as well and while I am loving the shit out of it, the way the footnotes translate into the audiobooks is a little crazy. Like J.O. Incandenza filmography was torture lmaoooo

Aweseome content sir! DFW is such an interesting and influential character keep up the good work!

The way I disagree with almost every ranking lmao moby dick being an A… above Don Quixote and The Illiad… it’s just wrong. Don’t care.

Yes, because there's such a thing as "best novel ever".

How does anyone begin to respond to the literary tirade that you throw down Ian! I am currently larping as a rough carpenter under the direction of a professional engineer and i tell you this is one of the hardest places I've had to exist and I know hard. I've never written a word with any seriousness. Love the channel!

I may have misunderstood Schopenhauer. And this is just a comment on a detail of what you said. But I wouldn't say that you project your will onto the things you desire, like having many subscribers to the channel and so on. On the contrary, it is your will that directs you towards those desires. The will is never really yours or mine. It is a blind impulse that happens by itself. So your desire for the success of the channel is, in fact, a desire to increase your capacity for survival. It is, ultimately, the same desire that any animal would have to increase its capacity for life. This desire just takes the form appropriate to the current cultural environment, but it is no different in essence. It is life desiring itself in a closed circle where there is no transcendent meaning guiding what you do, it is, again, just life desiring itself at the expence of indiduals or individuality. You are just the finite vehicle of this desire. While, as long as there are living things, the will goes on and on in meaningless blind struggle. The only "meaning" for life is life itself.

Suttree is good good book

yikes. keeping ppl around just to write about them is fucked up. its okay to find ppl i tdresting and not really like them, but the way you put it is really cruel and manipulative 👀

Where are the Vollmann vids?! ♡

Ian, your intensity makes it difficult to understand you.

47:25m mark to the 47:38m mark, I had to go back and listen to it again. - - A writer's truth and hilarious. Very funny. Thanks for your videos.

Good stuff, thank you.

This guy didnt reconcile his own existence and made grand assumptions about the nature of art. Being submerssed in shallow artistic expression can only lead to rebellion in another direction eventually. Of course, corporate entities are going to be mercenary when it comes to exploiting demographics. The problem Wallace failed to identify is the academic community and its insistence on seperating these demographics into distinct catagories and forming a caste system in service to these corporate entities in effort to protect their jobs and enrich themselves. His virtue signaling and need to be validated was his contribution to this shallow culture. A true rebel in the post Reagan era would never be accepted from the left, or the right due to them being completely subverted by this bureaucratic power structure. This is the true cause of the degredation of media. However it is expectedly ending.

Veganism It’s not about the best diet for humans. It’s about reducing animal suffering. One can agree or not with the ethics of it. But you need to analize it for what it is.

I've found myself having a hard time reading pure fiction/literature lately. It feels needlessly obfuscated and indirect. Why hide what you want to say behind literary tricks and posturing? The philosohers and poets (maybe a few essayists) have been my thing for the past decade or so and I'm wondering if I will ever get back to enjoying straight up novels or even short stories. I tend to agree with the Bukowski "bim bim bim" school of writing. Anyone else feel that way? Any suggestions for novels that might get me back into the fold?

I could never finish Infinite Jest. Part brilliant, part post -modern trash.

I don't know how old your students are but there's this book: "The Education of Little Tree" which might work perfect for some of your classes. I loved that book. It's a super easy read and good for kids and adults.

I WANNA BE SEDATED. The Ramones.

I look at my life at the 100's of thousands of hours that I've watched TV and movies and I would say that there are only 0.01% out of all those hours of great stand out and memorable moments. What a waste of time.

Congratulations for your life, your story and for share all that with the world. Keep doing this because you are making the people think but above it all, you're making the peoples life better. I'm a student and a reader and between many authors the big web connected me with Cormac and by that i've met your channel. Keep doing it mate, it's a lighthouse and is wonderful. Greetings from Uruguay 👋 🇺🇾

I wonder what DFW would think of Tik Tok lol. A lot of gen z and gen alpha don’t even have the attention span for a movie anymore.

film is low art, it was never good. I don't mean animation, which is actually good.

mans just did an astute ass analysis of tony soprano as an aside..