/lit/ - Literature

could only make it to page 150. dreadful stuff. I bet the people who think its brilliant are high schoolers who've just transitioned from salinger/orwell type stuff.

I just finished it, loved it, would never read it again, though.

I found it to be without relevance. DFW dwells on white bourgeois issues for 1000 pages while ignoring real problems like the occupation of Palestine

>>1893249

>read 10%, didn't have enough car chases, hurr durr you read books I don't lulz!

translated that for you

>>1893252
I like this gimmick. Please don't run it into the ground, it's got some real potential

>>1893260
It's just saying "LOL FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS".

it's like that's what she said, utterly devoid of comedic value and without any real point to make.

>>1893257

if a writer can't prove his talent in 150 pages then what's the point in continuing? his prose is awful & simplistic for someone so highly lauded as being "challenging". it's not in the slightest bit funny, especially not the abundance of fart jokes. he writes exactly like pynchon but much more gimmicky.

Why read it in the first place?

Just read Thomas Pynchon.

>>1893268
i haven't read any of dfw books. but, to be fair, there are more than a few books out there that aren't good unless taken as a whole. if you stop a tenth of the way through the sound and the fury it's a book about a retard, ulysses is about shaving, and lolita is about staying at a boarding house.

>>1893282
But all the authors you mention have some discernible talent. DFW doesn't and his lack comes across in the first 150 pages.

Maybe. I'm not clamouring to get back to it, but I feel it deserves a second and possibly third reread. I found it to be technically brilliant, but like much of his word the technical brilliance of his sentences was at the expense of the book's 'soul' for a better word.

>>1893282

yes but the prose in those three are infinitely better than IJ's. whether or not the plot is revealed, the writing style, in ulysses especially, is interesting enough to hold one's attention, whilst I didn't find IJ's writing to be anything but bland attempts at humour & meticulous tangents about drugs & tennis. & the retard part in the sound & the fury only lasts 70 pages (in my version the pages are quite small at that).

>>1893300
That technical brilliance is blatantly stolen from 60's postmodern writers.

Thomas Pynchon

>>1893303
Perhaps, but he's still able to carry it off. In some writer's hands it would be dull and heavy. His sentences are at least full and lively.

>>1893315
> he's still able to rip off other writers
> his sentences are full and lively

: /

Drop the tripcode. It's just going to embarrass you.

Fans of the book please ignore the tripfags and buttmad faggots who come and ruin every thread with their bullshit.

Questions about Avril:

Did Avril sleep with John Wayne?
What really happened between her and Orin?
What was her relationship with Hal's father?
Did you like her character?

I'm actually currently rereading it.

>>1893326
How, exactly? 'Ripping off other writers' in method and technique is one thing, but he's still able to do it with skill. Hence why I qualified anon's reply with 'perhaps' it's ripping off.

More like Infinite Chest.

>>1893346
Are you mentally challenged? You're saying that because he can rip writers off while coming across superficially as "full, lively, skilled" he's a good writer?

Please, DFW will be forgotten in 10 years. Stop embarrassing yourself with a tripcode. We have enough boring, uninspiring tripfaggots as it is.

>>1893252

I would not read Infinite Jest in its entirety more than once (MAYBE like 10 years from now), but I would certainly go back to it and read parts.

I'm sick of people calling DFW Pynchon. Does Pynchon have an exclusive right to long, tangential novels? It's pretty clear that both writers just had a lot going on in their heads that they needed/need to get out.

>>1893252
Awesome point, bro. If it's not about hot button overseas news issues it's not true, affecting or important.

I guarantee you that over 9000% of people who criticize DFW and IJ have not read more than 50 pages of IJ and yet make tons of judgements.

>>1893337

of course the underage IJ fans can only resort to calling others "buttmad" rather than attempting to refute the valid criticisms.

>>1893366
> hasn't read Pynchon
> herps and derps all over the place thinking he knows anything about post-modern poetics
> exclusive rights hurr durr
> im a faggot prove me wrong

/lit/ is really stupid today

>>1893369

Do you think I'm autistic enough to have the same arguments every night?

>>1893364
Oh get over yourself. Literature is about engagement with one's predecessors. DFW is able to take the sentences of the 60's post modernists and make them his own. You know full well that the extent to which a writer's prose is full and bountiful affects perception, it's evident the importance this takes beyond mere 'superficiality' by the reader's reaction if he's the opposite!

>>1893377

Sure is snooty lit snob in here. No I'm not formally well versed in "post-modern poetics." But I have read both Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest. I enjoyed both of them and like both writers. Why don't you lighten up?

Just because your English degree is worthless you don't have to lash out on forums with spouting about "post modern poetics" and how I'm inferior because I don't understand it well enough.

>>1893381
I think you're dumb enough to not be able to actually discuss literature.

> uses words like "buttmad" and "faggot"
> asks questions like "did you like the character"

I liekd da book it was fa-nee.

>>1893390

Right so because I enjoyed this book I'm now an idiot and can't possibly like anything else? Well have fun deluding yourself into thinking you're soooo much smarter than everyone else.

Oh God I couldn't do what I originally told everyone else to do, ignore these children.

>>1893387
Nice try, you haven't read shit or you wouldn't be making stupid claims like "EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO LONG TANGENTIAL NOVELS"

I'm glad you wallow around in your ignorance and rub your nose at people who make an effort to learn and moving beyond questions of "was this character nice do u liek him?"

certain sections are definitely worth rereading imo (the filmography footnotes, some stuff about onan politics etc) but as a whole i don't think i could get through it again. issues with filler and such.

>>1893249
>>1893252
>>1893268
>>1893303
>>1893364
>>1893369


hmmmmmmm delicious butthurt hater tears

cry more

dfw > pynchon

>>1893394
>Right so because I enjoyed this book I'm now an idiot and can't possibly like anything else? Well have fun deluding yourself into thinking you're soooo much smarter than everyone else.

looooooooooool are you that stupid?

I'm insulting you for not being able to engage in serious discussion and you retort with BAWWW SO BECAUSE I LIKE A BOOK IM A BAD PERSON HOW DARE YOU

All you DFW fans are equally retarded.

>>1893401

fans like this are why he killed himself

>>1893402

>comments on my language
>uses "looooooooooool"

>>1893397

Please, pretentious english major, just deliver my pizza already. I've been waiting an hour and you're not getting a tip. Meanwhile I'll be reading my my favorite parts in Infinite Jest AND Gravity's Rainbow because I happen to like both.

>>1893408

YES! I WAS ONLY PRETENDING!

>>1893411
> doesn't understand parody, satire
> complains of elitism

You really are fucking retarded.

>>1893401
This is how the average DFW speaks in real life. They will call people "buttmad" instead of resorting to discourse, they will call their mothers a "nigger" when she tells them it's time for bed.

Pynchon versus David Foster Wallace, huh?

Which one wrote the really long, rudderless self-indulgent experiment in navel-gazing? You know, the one that is pretty insubstantial for all its alleged depth, more concerned with exhibiting how clever the author is than expressing an engaging story? The one whose characters never rise above the level of ciphers, with cursory symbolism just *shoehorned* in to the extent that it's basically the equivalent of Family Guy jokes?

That guy sucked.

lit-related threads will never be taken seriously here
sadfrog.jpg

>>1893442
lol u new. /lit/ never talks about books.

>>1893434

Oh the irony.

you could literally not be more bolivious to your stupidity.

>>1893439

>implying we'd waste time arguing with people to dumb to appreciate his work

>>1893453
What's bolivious?

>>1893457
> >implying we'd waste time arguing with people to dumb to appreciate his work
> people to dumb
> to dumb
> to

Gotta love DFW fans.

>>1893461
>>1893464

this it to easy

bump

>>1893337

Did Avril sleep with John Wayne?

Yes. It's pretty obvious they were having relations. The naked football scene isn't explicitly sex, but the implication is pretty clear.

What really happened between her and Orin?

Incest.

What was her relationship with Hal's father?

Complicated.

Did you like her character?

She was an interesting character. Actually one of the more interesting ones, IMO.

>>1893850
>>1893850

Shit, forgot to spoiler proof that shit. Well, it's nothing big, and my opinion anyway...

>>1893850
I really don't think Orin and Avril had relations, but that's just me

lol holy shit guys leave DFW threads alone if you're going to go off on this garbage. It's seriously just annoying now. I'd be willing to bet that every single "Thomas Pynchon" post (except >>1893441 which is hilarious and nobody noticed :/) haven't read either. DFW is barely like Pynchon, no matter what the back of your book says. Pynchon is a much better writer, but they had totally different styles. It's totally irrelevant. I love DFW and I love Pynchon, for very different reasons.

Back on topic. I've read IJ twice and pretty frequently pick it up to re-read certain bits. It is a necessity to read it twice. It's a completely different experience than the first time and basically a completely different story. It's weird lack of suspense actually works much better when you know exactly what's going to happen because there are so many forgettable details that solve lots of little puzzles.

>>1893337
Avril's character is probably the most mysterious and by the end of the book definitely gave me weird erections. There are tons of textual clues about her that never quite fit into anything definite. One odd thing is that most of the action of the book takes place on April 1 and her name is Avril I. She's French-Canadian so her name is literally April first in plenty of the characters' native tongue. There's also a connection with the Fool (Yorick) and April Fool's day; April 1, Yorick is Jim, Jim is April's Fool. I don't know what the point of it all is, but none of that is a coincidence.