/lit/ - Literature

Read a collection of his great non-fiction, then read a collection of his meh short stories, then skip IJ. It's not very interesting.

read his essays
e unibus pluram, a supposedly fun thing I'll never do again
you can read or listen to this is water

>>5268702
into the trash.

Fucking pynchon.

Does anyone know where I can get
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again epub?

>>5268702
i just dived into IJ

>>5268702

start with his wiki page, end with his wiki page.

I started The Broom of the System a few days ago after reading the Tractatus Logico-Philosophica and half of Wittgenstein's Investigations (I'm currently in the process of finishing The Brown Book and planning on attacking On Certainty when I'm through with it). With Wittgenstein in mind it seems like an interesting book. Is it worth going on with?
Also, I relate more strongly than I like to DFW.

>>5268808
And how did it go?

>>5268808
I did too, I had to read it twice (most people do) but it became one of my favorite books. Then I went back and read his stuff in chronological order.

>>5268702
Honestly, start with the essay "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S Fiction", then Read the short stories "Good Old Neon" and "My Appearance". After that, read "Brief Interviews with hideous men" and the rest of his short fiction in "Girl With Curious Hair" (skip westward the course of empire) and "Oblivion". After you have finished those, I would say go on to "The Pale King", then, finally "Infinite Jest". Personally, I'm not a huge fan of infinite jest, but his short fiction and non-fiction is 10/10, The Pale King is also really good. I think he works best when he is writing short fiction, The guy gets lost in a novel, his tangents and digressions have tangents and digressions and his line of thinking can end up recursive and cyclical (which is his intention), But I think his style works best when it's confined to a short story or essay.

Is this edition worth it

>>5268941
>his short fiction and non-fiction is 10/10

Pleb detected. Wallace excelled in his novels. His short fiction is by far the worst writing he did and his non-fiction is extremely hit or miss.

>>5268976
Its pretty good

>>5269008

Parts of infinite jest are even more hit or miss

Read an essay collection (Supposedly Fun or Lobster, doesn't matter which), maybe try some of his short stories and then just dive into IJ

IJ is incredibly accessible. Readability was important to him.

You can definitely dive right into IJ. It's not particularly hard if you've ever read serious literature before. It's main difficulty is its length.

>>5269584
>inb4 lmao look at this pleb thinking 1000 pages is long

http://stanford.edu/~sdmiller/octo/files/GoodOldNeon.pdf
I started with this short story and it's pretty good.
Then I went to try and read the whole book "Oblivion" but that isn't very good. Kinda boring.

>>5268702
>I don't think diving into IJ straight away would be the best move
It's not that hard. use the IJ wiki when in difficulty.

start with trillaphon its basically infinite jest but like 10 pages long

>>5268842
>more strongly than I like
what's wrong with relating to him

>>5269591
it is objectively the 22nd longest novel ever i dont know who u are trying to trick with this kind of post anon

>>5268941
>The Pale King is also really good
Isn't it unfinished though?

diving into IJ at all isn't the best move, either

>>5269637
yeah but it just means some of the later sections are early drafts its not like the ending is missing or anything

>>5269626
he killed himself

>>5269652
oh, alright. thanks

>>5269633
really? source? i just... it seems, with so many books written, there must be quite a large number longer than IJ

>>5268702
Read his essays first. You'll get a feel for his style in small doses

>>5268976

Yeah that's what I have, it's great.

>>5269567
>>5269584
This, you don't need to prepare for it or anything, the first few chapters are gonna be obtuse &/or hard &/or shit no matter what.

If you want a taste test, try Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. If it does at least make you smile and if you can get past the bits on depression, then you may enjoy IJ.

>>5268976
why would you give a fuck about the edition

Also read IJ before reading TPK, although TPK is probably better.

>>5269668
DFW's essays are utterly embarrassing.

I just watched a couple youtubes then dived right into infinite jest and i can totally vouch for it

>>5269667
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_novels
theres probably a lot of longer nonfiction though

>>5269674

Readability; spine; how prone the text is to blotching; size of text etc

>>5269689
aaaah okay. that makes sense.

>>5269689
the text is small but it's a good quality book

>>5268702
Here, in its entirety, is the first "essay" from Hideous Men. If you think that this is good, you should buy all the DFW books, then kill yourself as he rightfully did, although it should have been during his teens.

A RADICALLY CONDENSED HISTORY OF POSTINDUSTRIAL LIFE

When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces.

The man who’d introduced them didn’t much like either of them, though he acted as if he did, anxious as he was to preserve good relations at all times. One never knew, after all, now did one now did one now did one.

>>5269708
what's your point?

>>5269708
I like DFW but don't really like this story.

>>5269708
I think that's an introduction to the rest of the book, at least I find it's less cringe-inducing when interpreted that way

I just dove into IJ and loved it. I haven't read anything bad by him though so if you are more interested in something shorter, go for it. Just don't read the posthumous one, it's for completists only.

>>5268702
I didn't find Infinite Jest that hard to just dive into. His prose gets autistic at points, but none of it is that hard to understand. The only thing I recommend is get two bookmarks, an extra one specifically for the footnotes will help out immensely.

>>5268702

his "journalism" ----------> The Broom of the System ----------> Girl With Curious Hair ----------> Brief Interviews w/ Hideous Men ----------> Infinite Jest ----------> Oblivion

Start with the Greeks

>>5270099

The Pale King is easily his best work, even if it's unfinished.

>>5268941
>>5271752
I've only read the Pale King from him, so basically everything's downhill from there?

you can jump right into any of his works but i think its important to remember that DFW was very concerned with the state of art and television and advertisement and the struggle to form an authentic self and the interactino between all these

BIWHMs first story, a brief history of post industrial society (or something like that) is a good start imho because its like 6 sentences and it reads like the introduction to a novel or like a thesis

>>5269708

i should have read the thread before i posted

this is the short story i was referring to and i think it can stand as a thesis of sorts of all of davids oeuvre

>>5271752
>>5271969

that would be a controversial opinion (that the pale king is wallaces best work)

>>5272025
His prose is and general voice are at their least cloying in TPK. Thematics were meh. DFW can't see ideas through to the end or otherwise just isn't that great of a thinker. Worse things could be said of a novelist to be sure. Infinite Jest was more entertaining and consistent. The addresses to the audience as the author in TPK were enough to make my head turn inside out, super lemon like. I feel the words irksome, parse, w/r/t and others I'm forgetting are off limits bc of his carelessness wi them. Or that by using them I would draw unfavorable comparisons. His short fiction I found mostly mediocre. The non fiction essays were fun but usually facile and reductive.

>>5272025

Don't get me wrong - IJ is an amazing novel, through-and-through. It's just that some of the chapters in TPK are better than anything DFW wrote before it. You have the pinnacle of his creative writing abilities in sections like Chris Fogle explaining how he worked for the IRS, the Steve stories, the Rand conversation etc etc. IJ's sum was greater than its parts and obviously had some fantastic chapters (eschaton, year of glad, grief therapist, you know the rest) but they don't hold anything up to the best of TPK.

I understand it's a controversial opinion though, I don't mean to come off as a definitive source.

Broom of the System isn't much like his future work. It's not very good and it's honestly the kind of stuff I'd have written at 15 after reading through some Wikipedia articles on Wittgenstein. For a well-read grad student it's not impressive at all. Read his essay collections. They're funny. Regardless of what anyone tells you IJ is by any measure (other than some postpostmodern subjectivist point of view under which dog shit is equal to Joyce which I can't really argue with) his greatest work.

>>5271752
While I respect your opinion, most people will probably not have that experience.

So, on an off topic note, I just listened to This Is Water. People praise it for being insightful and eye-opening, but really it is just... well, stating the obvious. "You experience things through your own eyes with your own mind, and should remember that other people do so aswell. Be aware of this!", is that a fitting summary? Well no shit then. Is there more to it than just "Stirner a shit"?

>>5272403
He stresses throughout the speech that these observations are extremely cliche, and that this doesn't mean there isn't a powerful truth behind them. His delivery, use of examples, etc. are the means by which he attempts to illustrate that power and truth, and in my opinion he's successful. It is a moving speech that reaffirms basic truths in a moving way.

>>5272435
acknowledging bromides as bromides and then proceeding to use those bromides is DFW's worst parlor trick

>>5272435
I see.

I didn't get much out of it that I didn't consider obvious in the first place. Though the fish story was a nice frame.

>>5272445
They're not bromides, they're all encompassing, vital truths fundamental to our integrity as human beings. I challenge you to pick some well-worn cliche and use DFW caliber rhetoric to approach the heart of why it is truly meaningful and not just a cliche.

>>5272445
david foster wallace always tries to impress plebs with stupid shit, like all his stupid little footnotes of shit from freshman calculus, yeah, for some liberal arts chick who didn't take any math in college he looks like a genius but anyone who did some science classes he looks like a try hard, but all of his writing looks like this ultimately, it's just bad pop shit for people who bought college degrees but aren't really very smart

>>5272475
People who love DFW do so because of the emotional content, not because of his intellectual pretensions.

>>5272500
i know. he writes sentimental shit for chicks.he's a very commercial writer, really paluiniak or bret easten ellis tier, even if he does name drop wittgenstein left and right he aint' fooling anyone

thing is I really don't think he does this in TIW

>>5272514
well on second thought he fools a lot of people

>>5272445
>bromides
Holy fuck what is it with buzzwords that attracts people so much
Wasn't "platitude" good enough?

>>5272475
What's wrong with the tryhard pretense? It works as far as his target audience is concerned, so you can't blame him for that on a meta-technical level. Sucks for everyone else, but his stuff's still entertaining enough that you can forgive him this fault.
(and this coming from someone who does notice when DFW has it stupidly wrong, which is pretty damn often)

>>5272534
I'm not following. Is this just a hostility to synonyms or a misunderstanding of what a buzzword is or both? Its not like I'm reading this into DFW. It's written all over his fiction. He talks explicitly about the alleged power of cliches.

>>5272588
>alleged
He demonstrates their power, certainly more than you have demonstrated otherwise.

>>5272542

In what situations was DFW horrifically wrong about things science-related? I'm aware some of his medical-lingo used in Infinite Jest was terribly outdated but I've never noticed any mathematical inconsistencies - he never really goes into very much detail, he just sort of brushes off a formula and goes back to the prose.

Or am I somehow misinterpreting your post when you said he 'got it wrong' in a number of ways?

>>5272601
They aren't powerful by their nature. It's self contradictory. It's sort of cute until you think about it.

>>5272633
His whole essay on prescriptivism was pretty ridiculous

>>5272642
>a phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought.

It's familiarity that makes an idea cliche, not its innate power or lack thereof.

>>5272649

I've never read it, will I find it somewhere online?

>>5272675
How can it be powerful if it's familiar to the point of meaninglessness?

>>5272684
it's not powerful it's just popular

>>5272689
but I agree

>>5272684
Well, that's the whole idea of something like This Is Water, to look through the familiarity to locate meaning.

It's fine if it doesn't work for you, but there's nothing inherently misled about the endeavor.

>>5272701
I mean it's not like I don't understand what he's getting at. To me it just seems overly confessional and limp wristed. Like that by just being honest he's saying someone worthwhile.

>>5272719
I think if any of his work deserves the criticism it's that speech, but to extend the criticism to all his work seems ridiculous to me.

>>5272117
For what it's worth I totally agree, and so do a few of my friends.

I was talking more about the cliche stuff. Which is more thoughtful in IJ but still to me uninteresting.

>>5272719
i dont disagree but you have to understand wallace grew up gen x, where honesty, sentimentality, and other kinds of genuine emotional expression were forbidden, or at least looked down upon

>>5272766
what the fuck are you talking about? ever see the shitty grunge music that came out of gen x aesthetics it's all really mopy serious stuff about how bad everything is, DFW is like the Stone Temple Pilots of pop lit

>>5268808
This is what I did. I don't think it put me at a disadvantage, in fact I just came away wanting to read more of him

I just let him try and impress me with his big book and it worked

>>5272766
>>5272778
yeah, I think his brand of sentimentality has to be contextualized through literature or pop culture, not the spirit of a given generation (which I'm not convinced even exists).

>>5272633
His French is awful even when it's not supposed to be.

>>5272852
so is his math, he's pretty fraudulent

>>5272865

Which maths though? In what books?

>>5272870
everything and more is fraught with errors

>>5272870
A quick google search will reveal that there aren't very many. (though that might still end up being, overall, rather frequent considering he doesn't make maths happen that often either)

I'd say they're mostly exacerbated by the pseudo-erudite tone, and later by the inevitable attempts by the "polymath"'s apologists to find some hidden meaning in them. The fact remains that the illusion is flimsy.

Mildly unrelated, but I didn't want to start my own thread. Has anyone here read DFW's This is Water? Everyone I know who has read DFW has never even heard of it.

>>5272649
>prescriptivism
>science

>>5273185
It's a (laughable) stance in linguistics, a
>science

>>5272445

Didn't Orin use this exact trick to bed young mothers?

>>5273225
IJ is strongly autobiographical. obviously a lot of the autism was glossed over

>>5273179
It's a commencement speech he gave. It's not part of his writings.

>>5272778
Saying that DFW is basically grunge is probably not so far off from the truth, and I mean that as someone who respects grunge.
But I should probably stop now before I accidentally encourage the /mu/ bullshit.

>>5273251
it's available as a little book too

>>5273251
>>5273591
The book is shit. don't get it. it's 1 word per page.

The transcript is available on the internet. You can find it pretty easily. Or just watch the thing.