/lit/ - Literature

just read the fucking book and find out

jesus

People here are going to hate on it, because that's what they do. I liked it a lot, and it's dense, but it's not that complex. Going to read it again this summer.

>>2179970

I don't visit /lit/ at all, so I have no idea what the collective opinion is.

I purchased the book on my friend's recommendation early this year but put it off for a while, going to try and read during December.

It's not "dense" (whatever the fuck that means, probably the worst most vague description of prose style ever invented) it just uses big words from time to time

Nice 69
Not really dense, just weird and I guess the meaning comes more from your own interpretation of it as opposed to action, plot twists etc. So to get the most out of it takes involvement on the readers part, as opposed to passively being entertained by it, which is why lots of people are turned off by it. As for the suggestion to read it twice, it definitely makes more sense the second time but unless you're unemployed (represent) or something it's just way too long and you might as well read 2000 pages worth of other stuff.

Now we wait for this thread to fill up with angry posts.

Harold Bloom said it sucked so it sucks

>>2179977

>So to get the most out of it takes involvement on the readers part, as opposed to passively being entertained by it, which is why lots of people are turned off by it.

This actually really interests me now.

>but unless you're unemployed

Chronic unemployment, sir. I have all the time in the world to read this book.

>>2179979

dont step on your glasses after a nuclear apocalypse, now

>>2179978

Can you provide a link? I'm interested in Bloom's critique of IJ.

>>2179997

he doesn't "critique" it he just says dfw isn't talented

I liked it a lot. definitely read it a second time, I'll do it right after I finish Gravity's Rainbow (which by the way was a huge influence on IJ so you might like it as well). so much stuff I think I missed

>>2179987
BUT IT'S NOT FAIR

IT'S NOT FAIR

>>2180014
>post about Gravity's Rainbow immediately after quad-zero post
>>2180000

IJ is not "dense" in any comprehension way. There's not a whole lot within that's overtly esoteric. It is dense in that DFW's prose has a huge tendency not to "breathe". Many pages are huge blocks of text with exhaustive description or scenarios/events that carry on and on.

But IJ is surprisingly readable. Give it a chance. I shouldn't be too hard to get sucked in. The first 50 or so pages are some of the most engaging in the book.

Opinion on IJ on /lit/ (among those that have an opinion) is decidedly split. Tons of people love it, tons of people hate it. There really isn't too much in between. The haters are usually snobby Thomas Pynchon fanboys or people who haven't read the book and just hate on DFW because they perceive him as "hipster" or other such remote, incantatory bullshit reasons.

I can definitely understand someone not caring for IJ, but if you actually read it, I think it would be a rare person who couldn't find *something* to like.

>>2180102
In Lorna Koski's, The Full Harold Bloom, (WWD Eye Scoop), Bloom is asked about David Foster Wallace:

Asked about novelist David Foster Wallace, who took his own life in 2008, but who has a new book out, “The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel,” put together from manuscript chapters and files found in his computer, Bloom says, “You know, I don’t want to be offensive. But ‘Infinite Jest’ [regarded by many as Wallace’s masterpiece] is just awful. It seems ridiculous to have to say it. He can’t think, he can’t write. There’s no discernible talent.”

It’s all a clear indication, Bloom notes, of the decline of literary standards. He was upset in 2003 when the National Book Award gave a special award to Stephen King. “But Stephen King is Cervantes compared with David Foster Wallace. We have no standards left. [Wallace] seems to have been a very sincere and troubled person, but that doesn’t mean I have to endure reading him. I even resented the use of the term from Shakespeare, when Hamlet calls the king’s jester Yorick, ‘a fellow of infinite jest.’

“It’s sort of a dark time. Imaginative energy I think is very difficult to summon up when there are so many distractions. There’s a kind of Grisham’s law [in literature]; the bad drives out the good.”

>>2180115
"...STEPHEN KING IS CERVANTES COMPARED TO DAVID FOSTER WALLACE. WE HAVE NO STANDARDS LEFT"

Hahaha.

>>2180115

god damn do i hate that man's fat ass

best not see me in the streets bloom

>Harold Bloom
>implying he doesn't just troll for attention

>"literary critic"
These fags. Not good enough to create their own works, so they talk about other peoples'.

>>2180115

IJ is a survey of a certain generation, one that grew up with television, the internet, etc.

It is quite understandable that a fogey like Bloom cannot make sense of IJ. It's not even a bad thing. IJ is far beyond his experience.

>>2180131
I don't revere Harold Bloom all that much, but he's pretty much right about DFW.

DFW wrote like a teenager who desperately wants to be taken seriously, and for that reason I can't take him seriously. It is overworked for the sake of being overworked, and not because there's any intelligence or insight that derives from actually reading it.

Also, very few people seem to address this, but DFW has the most 2-D characters I've seen in a long time. They all talk like DFW, and they get moved about the page like dancing poodles in a circus act. None of them feel like real people.

The fandom for his books is pretty baffling, but I guess there's no other writer LIKE DFW. I mean, he seems to fill a niche in literary fandom of those too educated to read King but not educated enough to read Pynchon.

>>2180154
absolutely! i'm not a dfw megafan but quoting bloom as some kind of absolute authority meant to make people feel bad for liking him is kind of sad to see coming from young people

>>2180160

autofellatio

>>2180172
kinky!

DFW was butthurt about Bloom's anxiety of influence because it meant that DFW was up against Pynchon and that's anxiety inducing. So DFW went around saying he didn't like Pynchon and that Bloom and his theory of influence is stupid.

He hated it so much that he included it in his novel Infinite Jest and makes reference to it in a footnote. Bloom in turn, gets butthurt because someone is critiquing his theory and says that DFW sucks hard.

Want to know the truth? DFW is not that great but not that good. He's definitely not worth reading 1200 pages. Bloom's theory isn't objectively true nor is it entirely unprovable but stupid feuds like this make you wonder.

>>2180221
lol. Very few people actually acknowledge that Bloom's attacks on DFW were in response to DFW's attack on Bloom.

Not that I give a shit about either one hating the other. I like both of them. Deal with it.

>>2180221
I really don't think so.

It strikes me that Bloom doesn't really care that much about DFW nor "Infinite Jest."

I seriously doubt he gives a shit.

What I mean to say is that even if this "feud" you speak of never happened, I'm sure Bloom's words would be the same.

>>2180231
Maybe not. But I'm sure Bloom was aware of the reference DFW made.

Don't get me wrong, I side completely with Bloom on this one. DFW is an embarassing read. Read Gravity's Rainbow or Mason & Dixon instead.

>>2180160
>DFW wrote like a teenager who desperately wants to be taken seriously, and for that reason I can't take him seriously. It is overworked for the sake of being overworked, and not because there's any intelligence or insight that derives from actually reading it.
This is how I feel about myself. I am always looking to be taken seriously. I am always a kid at the adult's table.

>Also, very few people seem to address this, but DFW has the most 2-D characters I've seen in a long time. They all talk like DFW, and they get moved about the page like dancing poodles in a circus act. None of them feel like real people.
This is how I feel about other people. Not that they talk like DFW, but that they talk like I do. I concentrate on moving them about like dancing poodles in a circus act. I do not think they are real people.

so, like...

>>2180160
But therein lies the rub, because all of the characters in IJ are ostensibly self-consciously 2D and trying to find a connection while every single conversation has them talking through and past one another. And with kids at the tennis academy, there's that one part where one of the kids is talking to the tennis guru and this is all they're talking about, using the metaphor of The Show. It's direct exposition right in the middle of this gigantic book, it's basically this audience analogue right in the middle of the novel, and I think, at least for the tennis half, the poodle show is entirely the point, and the drug recovery house is the other side of it, but is also this sort of reverse poodle show.
And re Harold Bloom, he's pretty up his own ass. Sure, DFW isn't classically great, but HB thinks Cormac McCarthy is great, and he is, but in a totally different, and I think less relatable way than DFW is.

>>2180282
I used to write the same way. I wish I could tell you that you eventually get over it, but DFW was like, 50 when he died, so obviously some don't grow out of it.

>>2180297
eh. point is: there exist people for whom these aspects are important.

>>2180295
>it's meant to be bad. that's the point

Haha. No.

Is anyone else annoyed the title of this book is just a line plucked from Hamlet?

>>2180303
You're trolling me right

>>2180303

OMG that drives me crazy!! same with the sound and the fury. smh, faulkner. smh

Alas poor Yorick ...

Think that lines a bit older than Faulkner...

>>2180301
Not bad, just different. I think that it still gets its point across, usually well. But you probably disagree.

When I write my opus, I'm totally going to name it after a line from King Lear.

I'll tell you which line after I read King Lear.

Hamlet:
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of

infinite jest,

of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a
thousand times, and now how abhorr'd in my imagination it is!
My gorge rises at it.


My work here is done.

>>2180319
Holy shit, DFW is a genius.

>>2180329
No my post just reduced him to either an English teacher or a Star-Trek nerd.

>>2180335
Probably both.

>>2180313
Recommendations:
The dragon and his wrath.
Now, gods, stand up for bastards.
I should have been that I am.
Nothing will come of nothing.
I stumbled when I saw.
Reason not the need.
Things that love night.
They told me I was everything.

Just a few bits and pieces of fabulous lines. Get reading!

> no the characters are SUPPOSED to sound like two-dimensional teenagers

Hey, man. Maybe it is intentional, I mean, who knows when you've got a grown man who dresses like a 15 year old.

>>2180319
So he gets hard when he thinks of Yorick?

>>2180380
>implying all teenagers aren't 2-dimensional
>ignoring fact that half of characters in IJ are teenagers or younger
>implying I'm implying you're ignoring or implying

>>2180313
Almost every line of Shakespearean dialogue between a male and female character is part of a huge dick joke or dirty sex talk, and not many people today know it.

So pick one of those lines and to a few people your book will essentially be called, 'My penis is immense.'

If he mentions a sword, he is not talking about a sword...

>>2180397
Gorge rises=getting angry
But you probably already knew that.

>>2180478
Maybe it was a hate boner?

>>2179970
See what I told you OP? Just read it.

>>2180487
Probably

Just read the 10 pages where Kate considers suicide.

>>2179969
I heard that Plath does what this book does re depression as well and in about 800 less pages in The Bell Jar. Haven't read it yet. Thoughts?

>>2180512
I just finished that part and i have to say it has been one of the most memorable moments of the book so far for me.

>>2180585
untrue, ridiculous, fueled by the plath cult which is even more ridiculous than the dfw cult

>>2180595
Good to know. Still worth a read, though?

>>2180600
Not really, no.

You're better off reading other things.

>>2180600
I say it's worthwhile. A lot of people agree with me. It's a polarized sort of opinion.

I also think Tom Clancy and Stephen King are worthwhile to read. I like having some common ground with low-readers. Makes for better conversation and cultural understanding.

>>2180770
A reasonable AND sociable person on my /lit/?

whatthefuckisgoingon.jpeg

>>2180380
I'd call some of his early stuff this (particularly that early sci-fi titled story from the Amherst Review), but The Pale King displays some really mature prose.

>>2180160
>implying you didn't dress like that in the '90s
>implying you were even alive in the '90s.

>>2180221
How exactly did DFW attack his theory in IJ? I don't remember, it'd been a while since I've read it.

Guessing you're not still here, but shit. I was browsing a couple of pages back and saw the post.

The book is fractured in a lot of ways. Tons of end notes, and the story isn't even close to linear. So, to completely understand the events of the book you're going to need to read it twice. Also there's a good amount of stuff you just have to intuit, which you won't get until you've read it through twice or are using some sort of guide.

That being said, you shouldn't have any trouble understanding the "message" of the book only reading it once. It's all pretty evident.

>>2180115

oh no an aging, irrelevant curmudgeon can't understand the strange ways literature was/is moving, so he he'll just fling insults at the author instead of actually critiquing the work! not a single reason listed, just "DFW is bad cuz I say so". and we're expected to take him seriously, or respect him? fuck that.

get with the new sincerity, bloom. and stop shitting your pants.

The 'Infinite Jest' Is that the book is pretentious shit.

The author wasnt trying to write a good book. I mean, hes a good writer, so the prose itself isnt bad

but the book is purposely shit he wrote to try and seem deep

>>2181691
>but the book is purposely shit he wrote to try and seem deep

but it's not, you fucking idiot

>>2181691
It doesn't seem deep. It seems tryhard.

>>2181697
Replying to your own post is tryhard, tripshit.

>>2181697

It seems deep to morons

Congrats, you're not one

>pretentious
>tryhard

These were obvious codewords for "I don't want to take the time to think about it, so I hate it" like 20 years ago. What makes people think that they still work?

>>2181702
They are legitimate descriptions for things as they exist in the world.

>>2181702

I just wanted to piss people off, I've never read it.

[Snide baiting comment]

>>2181705
This is literally the "person thinks he's trolling when really he's just posting inane bullshit" image.