Infinite Jest

[Anonymous No.1024732]

This is easily the most fucked up book ever written. I just finished it and I'm buggin' out.

[Anonymous No.1024740]

You don't read much, do you?

[Anonymous No.1024743]

>>1024740
Why would you assume that?

[Anonymous No.1024773]

How did you like it?

[Anonymous No.1024778]

>>1024743

Because "easily the most fucked up book ever written"

[Anonymous No.1024780]

>>1024743
Bump for this anon to name a book that leaves you more messed up.

But more importantly anybody that wants to interface about how sick they are of reading the word "interface" or "X" or "like" or plenty of others that are clear favorites of DFW.

[Anonymous No.1024787]

>>1024773
Thought it was pretty fantastic, still piecing everything together and connecting all the literary references and stuff like that so my opinion of it is gradually improving.

[Anonymous No.1024807]

>>1024778
I really can't think of anything that even compares, do you actually have an opinion either way or just assuming that I'm wrong because I used an absolute?

[Anonymous No.1024829]

>>1024807
>>1024780

Against the Day, Gravity's Rainbow, Naked Lunch, Ulysses

I'm assuming here that "fucked up" refers to formal experimentation, "realism" that goes beyond strict realism, transgressive morals (at least for when it was written), and an envelope-pushing intellectual commitment, so if I'm wrong forgive me

[Anonymous No.1024866]

Is there an edition of this book in print that does NOT have the Dave Eggers foreword? I don't want his name printed on any of my books.

[3rd !!kIagKJOiZJR No.1024943]

I strongly recommend the essay 'Tense Present' (available online, revised and reproduced in 'Consider the Lobster' as 'Authority and American Usage'). If you have a passing interest in writing the discussion it presents on how words adapt over time and through strong-handed gatekeepers is worth it alone. Aside from that it's hilarious and intelligent.

I'm taking Wallace in from the end of his career to the beginning and speaking with other fans of his ("I prefer the earlier, funny ones") I'm looking forward to Infinite Jest and The Broom of the System. Oblivion and Brief Interviews, while funny, seem a lot more critical and sad than people seem to claim they are.

>>1024829
Formal difficulty- the resulting mis-comprehension of material- being what makes it "fucked up?" Throw Gass, Beckett, and select Faulkner in the list too.

[Anonymous No.1024949]

OP, how does one 'bug out'?

[Anonymous No.1024981]

>>1024829
You could make valid arguments for those based on your criteria, I guess I should've been more specific. I don't think Naked Lunch really stands out like the others do, though. I meant primarily the ending but I didn't want to throw spoilers around. None of those have the same emotional or psychological impact that IJ does imho. You're left feeling brutalized at the end not just intellectually but emotionally due to the poor resolution. AtD, GR, and Ulysses are more experimental and challenge traditional Engilsh lit a bit more than IJ did. But none of them have enough meaningful characterization to develop a connection in the same way IJ does. Finnegans wake is also probably the most "fucked up" based on your (reasonably assumed) criteria I think.
Naked Lunch really only stands out -- compared to these others -- for transgression, which I don't find as impressive really.

[Anonymous No.1024988]

>>1024866
Yeah, the first edition obviously. Don't be such a twat, that's a great foreword and Eggers is a great author.

[Anonymous No.1025000]

>>1024949
See Tribe Called Quest "Buggin' Out".

[Anonymous No.1025003]

>>1024943
Fair warning Infinite Jest is incredibly sad.

[Anonymous No.1025155]

Bitches don't even know.

[Anonymous No.1025163]

>>1025155
Good call anon. I'll "This." this post.

This.

[Anonymous No.1025171]

This book got me into Byzantine erotica and for that I'm truly grateful.

[Anonymous No.1025173]

>>1025155
>I am retarded and can only relate to things that hit me, smell like trees, or make me cry

Oh.

>and then the author pontificates over the nature of recollection.

[Anonymous No.1025175]

>>1025173

>implying Benji can relate to anything except himself

>implying pontification and dramatization are the same thing

[Anonymous No.1025180]

>>1025155
Shit Just got real

[Anonymous No.1025195]

>>1025155
Sound and the Fury is cool if you're down with SOC (yeah you know me). I don't think it's got the same lasting personal impact that Infinite Jest does.

[Anonymous No.1025201]

>>1024981
>I don't think Naked Lunch really stands out like the others do

Huh? How so? In terms of what he said, Naked Lunch is the ultimate. At least the others have some semblance of a coherent narrative.

[Anonymous No.1025202]

what is op's book about....I'm too tired to google

[Anonymous No.1025212]

>>1025202
Addiction, entertainment (see addiction), tennis, Byzantine erotica, Deformity and disability, Frank Sinatra as president of the North America, radical wheelchair-bound Quebecois separatists (see disability), Boston

[Anonymous No.1025216]

>>1025212
sounds like a book for a person with adhd

[Anonymous No.1025218]

>>1025201
>formal experimentation, "realism" that goes beyond strict realism, transgressive morals (at least for when it was written), and an envelope-pushing intellectual commitment
experimental: yeah
realism beyond realism: sort of, not really
transgressive morals: certainly
intellectually challenging: really not as much as you'd expect out of something written so crazily; nothing in comparison to the others listed

[Anonymous No.1025224]

Infinite Jest is shit-tier. It's a soft option for soap opera addicts. Read Gravity's Rainbow, Naked Lunch and Finnegans Wake and good life to you.

[Anonymous No.1025226]

>>1025216
They'd have no chance of getting past the first hundred pages or so. It's written with painstaking detail and is not as jumpy as it might sound.

[Anonymous No.1025230]

>>1025218
>intellectually challenging: really not as much as you'd expect out of something written so crazily; nothing in comparison to the others listed

Are you kidding me? Naked Lunch was greatly influential in its use of satire, eerily accurate predictions of the future, allegory and social criticism.

It's not the book's fault you can't read into it.

[Anonymous No.1025233]

>>1025230
Not anon, just wanted to point out that what you quoted and your response have seemingly no relation at all.

[Anonymous No.1025240]

>>1025233

Yes they do. He said that Naked Lunch was not especially challenging to the intellect. My response was that there's plenty of subtext and poignancy in the prose.

[Anonymous No.1025247]

>>1025226
I have severe adhd (PI, which means I am ultra-calm, just inattentive), and I love this book.

[Anonymous No.1025250]

>>1025247

But even people with ADHD are able to concentrate on things they really care about.

[Anonymous No.1025256]

>>1025250
So, we agree then. Conflict averted!

[Anonymous No.1025264]

>>1025224
You're probably right. Guys let's just forget this thread, Infinite Jest is shit-tier.

[Anonymous No.1025269]

>>1025256

I wasn't that guy. I was just chiming in with some life experience. I have a friend who can barely do work, it's really hard for him and he can barely even wait for me to finish speaking to him before he starts talking. And yet he can play PC games for like 2 days at a time.

[Anonymous No.1025279]

>>1025212
>Frank Sinatra
what the fuck man.jpg

There are a few good resources if you want some help understanding the narrative. Easily enough you can read http://infinitesummer.org/archives/category/summaries which is what I used while I was reading. There's also the Infinite Jest wiki: http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/index.php?title=Main_Page
And a pretty great explanation of the ending can be found here: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend

Did anyone else feel like it was one, really long and drawn out suicide note?

[Anonymous No.1025293]

>>1025279
Thanks for the links, but I think I'm gonna reread large portions of it so I've got my own grasp on things. I'll hit those up when most everything makes sense, just to get some the subtleties I might've missed. I just read it straight and I was fine with the narrative.

Johnny Gentle is most definitely a caricature of Frank.

[Anonymous No.1025299]

>>1025279
>Did anyone else feel like it was one, really long and drawn out suicide note?

I got that vibe at the beginning, but by the end not so much. It felt more like the aftermath of a serious mental breakdown, sort of the like the weird resolutions of 1984 and Clockwork Orange.

[Anonymous No.1025399]

Melmoth the Wanderer.

Dude I'm telling you...

[Anonymous No.1025403]

>>1025399
Shit yea! Awesome book.

[Anonymous No.1025469]

Yeah, IJ is one of my favorite books.

And ditto what that one anon said about reading Tense Present. It's basically a manifesto for anything Wallace ever wrote.

[Anonymous No.1025481]

>>1025399
I've been looking for a copy of that in the bookstores, nowhere to be found.

[Anonymous No.1025522]

>>1025240

How long must you continue with this shit?

[Anonymous No.1025528]

Finnegans Wake
Naked Lunch
Gravity's Rainbow
god-tier


Infinite Jest
shit-tier

[Anonymous No.1025551]

>>1025528
DF Wallace offed himself for writing such a steaming shit pile.

[Anonymous No.1025565]

>>1025551

He offed himself because he finally grew up and realised how fail he was.

[Anonymous No.1025628]

>>1025299
I guess at the end it was different, because I had a solid feel for the characters, both before and after the events in the later half of the book. It's just calling JOI himself, his principle film being called Infinite Jest, something you want to watch over and over. And then you put down the book, and you want to just read it again. I don't think DFW was much of a drinker or a drug user in general but I'm sure he's done some mild stuff, and it just seemed like the JOI drinking was a direct analog for anti-depressants.

[Anonymous No.1025881]

Add Les Chants De Maldoror to the list.