It's probably because, contrary to his previous occupation, a hot dog vendor is directly exposed to the elements and the public eye, so there is motherly concern for his safety and shame over him in general. Not to mention the near nonexistent income. Not to mention the possible mental association with that fateful night that got them owing a grand in damages in the first place.

It's fun. He's written great songs, so when there's all this American election bullshit and stuff about Syria, it's a nice break.

A bit triggered but don't really care. What's wrong with Pynchon?

>>4
Too funny for the bores in the academy.

I'm indifferent towards it. Should I really care?

I was disappointed.

ｷﾀ━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━!!

>Written mostly in "old English language"

These people live among us.

>>5
Thank you for your enlightened opinion, Brendan.

>>10
No problem!

>>3
My teacher did the same exact thing about colors in the Odyssey. What people who claim ``genre fiction'' exists don't realise is that if it exists, the Odyssey is included, for just being an adventure story.

bakana-- bakana koto desuyone

Anybody read anything by Tatsuhiko Takimoto? I've read Welcome to the NHK, of course. I loved NHK and would like to see if the rest of his bibliography is worthy as well, but I'm pretty sure NHK is the only thing that has been translated. Are there translations out there that I am unaware of, or will I have to put my terrible moonrune skills to the test?

>>5
you're joking right? I'll post it, anyway
basically, he only ever wrote one other book, and he's never writing again

Afterword
"In the beginning of the twenty-first century, the hikikomori
phenomenon suddenly broke out wildly across Japan.
As a sharp-eyed man, I thought I'd jump on the tide of the times and
earn a ton of money. I'll write a story about hikikomori and become
famous! I'll become a best-selling author with my hikikomori story! I'll
go to Hawaii using the royalties! I'll go to Waikiki!
My dreams stretched out endlessly. However, once I actually started
trying to write the story, I soon regretted it. It was painful.
What happens when a real hikikomori writes a hikikomori story?
Inevitably, you start having to use your own experiences in your
creation. You start having to write about yourself.
Of course, stories are fiction, and no matter how much one of the
characters I used looks like me, he is himself, and I am myself. Even if we
speak the same way and live in the same apartment, we are still
unconnected. We inhabit separate worlds.
Regardless, it was still painful. It was embarrassing. I felt as though I
were taking my own shame and revealing it to the whole world.
In the end, I got caught up in paranoid fantasies.
What if everyone is secretly laughing at me while I write this kind of
story? I really thought this.
In truth, I still can't read this story objectively.
Each time I reread it, I start to have light hallucinations. I break into
a cold sweat.
Each time I approach one of a few specific places in the plot, I start
wanting to throw the computer out the window.
At other particular points, I start wanting to run away from home to
live deep in secrecy in the mountains of India.
That was probably because the themes addressed in this story are
not things of the past for me but currently active problems.
I can't look at it from afar, thinking, "How young I was then."
This is all a real problem.
For the time being, I went ahead and wrote the whole thing. I
decided to write everything I could. And what came out of it was this
story.
Reading back over it, my face turning red. . . well, how is it, really?
Comment too long. View thread to read entire comment.

>>6

According to Wikipedia, he has six works in his bibliography.

Also, I just found a second translated work of his: "ECCO" was published in an English-language Faust anthology. I'm not sure if it's a short story, novella or novel.

Here's Welcome to the NHK for those who haven't read it, by the way. Which reminds me, we should really have a /lit/ sharethread going. I'll probably make one in the next few days.

Here's a theory: Austen writes about relationships, gossip, social status, etc. She's basically a chick lit author. However, she is also head and shoulders above your average contemporary chick lit author, and she is respected as a literary author. Therefore, women can get whatever they get from chick lit by reading Austen, but by admiring her publicly, they don't face the stigma of enjoying trash.

One problem with this theory is that your average contemporary female reader doesn't actually seem to feel any guilt or shame from reading garbage; see the popularity of YA books among women in their twenties and thirties.