180. Tao Lin (Part 1)

Otherppl with Brad Listi

Brad Listi

Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.8 • 554 Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2013

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tao Lin is the guest. His new novel, Taipei, is now available in trade paperback from Vintage Contemporaries. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, says "For all its straightforwardness, Lin’s previous work—with its flat, Internet-inspired prose issued by small presses—has presented a stumbling stone for readers who fall outside his North Brooklyn contingent, for whom he is the standard bearer. This will change with the breakout Taipei, a novel about disaffection that’s oddly affecting. . . . Everything about Taipei appears to run contrary to the standard idea of what constitutes art. And yet, the documentary precision captures the sleepwalking malaise of Lin’s generation so completely, it’s scary. . . . Yet for all its emotional reality, Taipei is a book without an ounce of self-pity, melodrama, or posturing, making the glacial Lin (Richard Yates) the perfect poster child for a generation facing—and failing to face—maturity.” And Bret Easton Ellis says “With Taipei Tao Lin becomes the most interesting prose stylist of his generation.” Monologue topics: Terence McKenna, telepathy, language, evolution, death, getting [your] act together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody, before we get going, I just want to give a quick plug to The Nervous Breakdown,
0:04.8	the Nervous Breakdown.com, an online culture magazine and literary community and blog type
0:10.8	situation that I founded in 2006. Have you heard of it? Have you heard of the Nervous Breakdown? It's a good
0:16.9	place on the internet to read things. And it also has its own independent press called
0:21.9	TNB Books, which publishes in both paperback and e-book formats. It publishes titles like
0:28.4	Subversia by D.R. Haney. My Dead Pets are interesting by Lenore Zion. Paper Doll Orgy by
0:34.8	Ted McCagg, the beautiful anthology edited by Elizabeth Collins and featuring the work
0:39.9	of a variety of writers and B-O-A-R-D, a work of literary collage by Justin Benton and me.
0:50.2	The Nervous Breakdown also has its own official book club for just $9.99 a month.
0:55.0	You can get a brand new title delivered to your door every 30 days.
0:58.7	It's a very good deal.
1:00.2	So, yeah, it's called The Nervous Breakdown.
1:04.0	You can find it at the Nervous Breakdown.com.
1:07.1	Please go check it out and read something.
1:10.6	It's a website for bookish type people you can
1:13.8	experience it on your computer oh my god you are not alone you have found other people
1:26.6	you and i have a friend in common every stupid thing that a writer could do I've done. I think it's really beautiful. Jesus, did it? What, I struggle, you know? It was incredible. It was like your head exploded, seeing what was really there. And now here's your host, Brad Listy. Just one person at just one time.
1:45.6	Okay, everybody, here we go again.
1:47.5	This is it.
1:48.0	This is other people.
1:48.9	This is something you can do while you're alone.
1:51.6	This cannot happen without you.
	...

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