/lit/ - Literature

Do you guys take notes, or write in other ways about the books you read? Have you found this helpful in remembering/processing/relating thinkers and ideas to other thinkers and ideas?
Is there a way to do this without blowing way more time on the book than it would take to just read it, but is still substantive and useful?

What’s the deal with Quebec in this book? I don’t get the Québécois. What’s the significance?

OK so I get how the story circles back to the first chapter and am not lost per se, and I guess I like "get" the quasi-ending, but I have no idea what caused Hal's illness. Looking online, some folks have suggested that Hal's mold eating had gastrointestinally synthesized some latent DMZ, (there was a paragraph where pemulis I think mentioned that DMZ grew on "funguses that grew on other funguses" which makes this theory super convincing imo, but others have suggested the JOI wraith drugged Hal's toothbrush with pemulis' missing stash of DMZ or pemulis himself had drugged Hal out of spite (Pemulis did argue strongly to Hal that he should do DMZ to figure stuff out, and I don't think it's far-fetched to say that pemulis would spike Hal against his will to try to do him good). And then the DMZ made him crazy or whatever, obviously.

What do you guys think?

Did you read infinite jest on an e-reader? How was it? When it comes to footnotes, did it make the experience better or worse to read the digital version?

>taking notes
>writing in margins
Is /lit/ full of females these days? Fuck off with that woman shit, I bet you cucklords also decorate your books with colorful stickers and write a fucking essay to express your feelings

I've never read Infinite Jest and I don't plan on doing it, but there's one thing I've always wondered: Why do people put so many color codings and notes in it? I've never done that with a work of fiction. What's the point?

>>15559617
Apologize

Terry Davis is pretty much Infinite Jest personified

What am I in for? How should I prepare? I don't ususally take notes when reading fiction but is it necessary here?

jesus christ I hate myself

>want to start reading philosophy already
>taking a break of the greek plays, stopped at sophocles
>decided to read IJ
>never been able to drop books in the middle
>it has some great parts, but also some long, boring chapters
>takes a long ass time to get through these boring chapters
>damn book holding back my /lit/ gains
>think about all I could be reading
>page 400 right now

=(

I went to the Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue and bought a copy of "Infinite Jest." I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character went for a "post-prandial stroll." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times.

started IJ yesterday, and as expected, just as happens with joyce at least in this dankhole of a board, specifically ulysses, the book is fucking great, detailed and interesting descriptions, funny dialogues, (lost my shit in the wardine chapter, I was expecting it I must say, and read the whole chapter smiling) and nice prose and themes, and 98.5% of the people that say it is shit is composed of shitposters who probably don't even read anything lacks patience, attention, dedication and/or neurons and couldn't get past page 30.

so I finally decided to read Infinite Jest. are there any essential/recommended books/essays to improved the experience?

I have read
>consider the lobster
and plan to read
>authority and american usage
>federer as religious experience
>the depressed person
>the nature of fun
and
>a supposedly fun thing I'll never do again
ps. I am not reading those essays purely to 'prepare' for IJ, but I've been meaning to read at least some of them anyways
as I haven't read all those essays I can't tell for sure, but it seems to me that they are all themes touched in Infinite Jest.

Is this (notes and also, somewhat all the guides etc) really necessary?

tl;dr

>>8693509

>>8522202
Gonna have to disagree with you there bro.

I just finished this, and I feel a little bit robbed. All that build-up for fucking nothing?

Was Gately's final flashback him dying in the hospital? And was Hal's weird seizure shit really supposed to be from fucking weed withdrawal? I thought the entire time he'd be some kind of subject for the tape, and since his dad's ghost explicitly said it was made for Hal he would survive watching it or something, but no. Fucking weed withdrawal? And how in the actual hell does everyone escape the AFR unscathed when they had just murdered dozens of teenagers and wheeled themselves into the academy?

All in all the middle of the book and the progression of some characters (I loved Marathe and Mario especially) was very good, but the massive drop off to not even ambiguous but blatantly unresolved plotlines leaves a much worse final impression.

What are your favorite door-stoppers, /lit/? Mine is unironically pic related. (Not even b8, I really enjoyed it.)

Also, how long does a book have to be for you to consider it a "door-stopper?"

Name one reason one shouldn't read this on an e-reader?

pro tip: you can't

"Fair maiden book peddler, deliver at once one copy of Infinite Jest by Sir David Foster Wallace, hallowed be his name, to my bosom."

She looked at me dumbstruck, my reference to high literature having rattled her minimum wage soul to its blackened core. For a moment, she averted her gaze downward and managed a silent prayer to Bernie Sanders to forgive her of debt and sin.

"DAVEY FOSTY WALLY" I adjusted to her level.

"DAVEY FOSTY WALLY" I bellowed several times in my studied impression of a caged retard.

The depraved normies of Barnes & Noble turned to face the scene. On cue, I promptly shit myself to gas them out. My freshly acquired retard strength knocked the normie cunt bookseller stiff.

I deftly scooped up a copy of Infinite Jest lying on a table in the Young Adult's section. A trail of trampled bodies with squashed empty heads led me to the exit where my mother waited to take me to the adjoining McDonald's for chicken tendies.