LEAVE SOCIETY - TAO LIN

The Tao Lin literary project is becoming increasingly clear. I heard about him in perhaps the most appropriate way possible given his lit-hipster reputation. When I was 19 and starting college I attended my first “college party” for English majors (I was not an English major, but I heard they had good parties) and an older, good-looking English major told me she was into Tao Lin and that I should read him. Well, far be it for me to ignore the advice of the beautiful, so I copped Eeeee Eee Eeee and a book of his poems. I dug them, even back then his ultra-deadpan style and internet-influences were compelling and easy to read. I’ve kept up with his output since then. I’ve somewhat accidentally read all of his novels and his book about psychedelics. Partly, this is because his books read super fast (I read this one in 2 days) and his interests and mine overlap. At this point it’s clear to me that he’s doing a Karl Ove Knausgård (who I’ve never read, I only know him by reputation) thing, but in real time. All of his novels feature pseudonyms and some fictional elements but are quite obviously memoirs. In this book he goes as far as to tell us what conversations were recorded and transcribed and it features scenes where Tao’s parents ask him about what parts of their conversations will be in the upcoming book. Additionally, Tao has always been good about recreating the technological infrastructure of modern life by copy/pasting emails and gchats and other ways we communicate outside of speech. In fact, he mentions several times in the book that he prefers to communicate by email, especially with his parents. Part of what’s interesting about this book is the relationship between Tao and his parents due to a language barrier. Tao grew up with them in the US but they’ve returned to Taiwan and mostly speak Chinese to one another. So the parents’ English isn’t great and Tao’s Mandarin is likewise less than fluent so they communicate largely in a patois and through email. Tao has always been a slow and bizarre speaker, both in the public appearances I’ve seen as well as through his doppelgangers in his novels, so this stylistic flourish fits his reality. He often comes off as someone who’s spaced out off drugs, which makes sense since he takes acid and ingests weed constantly. Irregardless, this book basically chronicles Tao’s attempts to leave society, by which he means undertaking all of these alt-health practices. He becomes obsessed with toxins in both the environment and food, he becomes suspicious of Western medicine, he begins to get into alternative theories in everything from diet to human history to the big bang. He bounces back between NYC and his parent’s house in Taiwan, where he tries to get them to adopt his new lifestyle. Eventually, he divorces the wife we met in TAIPEI and marries a new woman and moves to Hawaii. He has a surprising number of physical ailments, from shitty teeth to a weak back, at the beginning that cures through “natural” or non-Western practices. He does his best to connect with a deeper truth w/r/t existence. This is an interesting pivot given how his previous novels chronicle his success in the publishing world and his nihilistic drug use and sex-pestery; apparently he did enough acid to make himself realize there’s more to life than being a rich, druggy NYC literature guy and does seem to pursue it honestly. There’s an interesting class element here that I didn’t quite pick up on in his previous books. While I agree with Tao, largely, that society is mostly capitalistic bullshit and lies, his choice to “leave” society instead of trying to change the conditions of society strike me as a rich-kid cop-out. Tao’s dad invented Lasik and went to prison for white-collar crime (weird similarity between him and Jia Tolentino, another POC internet writer who’s parents have a less-than-savory past). Tao asks them for money in the book and it’s clear that they all live quite comfortably and well, which explains Tao’s disconnect from the actual world and his retreat from any qualitative change. For example, he’ll talk at length about MKULTRA and the CIA’s involvement with LSD, but when his dad talks about how much he loves the KMT Tao doesn’t mention (or doesn’t know) that the CIA funded them and directed their murderous, oppressive acts in Taiwan. This is because Tao’s solution to society’s ills is the most neoliberal one possible; to change your spending habits (i.e. buying different roots, veggies and health-cures) and to disengage as much as possible. There’s no political understanding or focus on something larger than himself. It’s why, at the end, he can justify moving to Hawaii to open an Airbnb. When he makes that choice he thinks about the toxins he’s exposed to in major cities but doesn’t consider displacement and gentrification and colonialism and how his choice would enforce these systems. Only the first world wealthy can leave society, it seems. Which is not to say I didn’t like the book, it’s very interesting to read these novels, spaced every few years, basically giving us a uniquely written update on a strange man and his bizarre life. I just think he hasn’t left society to the degree he thinks he has. 1983 societies