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/lit/ - Literature

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10886732 No.10886732 [Reply] [Original]

I literally know nothing about this book
why do you guys post about it so much? what's it about?

>> No.10886741

>>10886732
It's full of insults about you

>> No.10886742

>>10886732
never-ending funny stuff

>> No.10886745

>>10886732
It's big, and has tennis balls in it.

>> No.10886754

>>10886732
Tennis and drugs and disabled Canadians

>> No.10886769

>>10886745

Basically me

>> No.10886780

>>10886754
This actually sold me on the book, thanks anon.

>> No.10886784

>>10886732
advanced videophony

>> No.10886793

>>10886769
That's why you're my favorite book.

>> No.10886855

>>10886732
never ending witticisms

>> No.10887873
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10887873

It made a pretty good prediction of post 2000's culture that we are currently experiencing. It also has some good humor.

>> No.10887899

>>10886732
it's an extremely complicated story about some group or some individual sending an endlessly entertaining video around North America rendering them unresponsive. It involves on the one hand a super serious tennis academy whose goal is to train professional tennis players from a young age, and on the other hand a halfway house with recovering drug addicts.

>> No.10887953

>>10886732
It's a story about drugs and rehabilitation.

Only 80% of the book is about a boring tennis academy, and 10% is about some weird terrorist plot, and 10% is actually good and deals with a halfway house for druggies.

The plot is extremely disjointed and you need to read the book twice to actually understand some of the elements. Wallace likes to reveal important plot details before you get any sort of context to what it actually means.

Overall it's a decent book. Very long, and very frustrating at times.

>> No.10887996

It's a good natured book about loneliness.

>> No.10888002

I'm so happy that Daveposting/IJ shitposting is picking up speed again.

>> No.10888643

>>10886732
It's good, but start with his short stories or essays. I very much enjoyed Brief Interviews With Hideous Men as a sort of 'intro' to IJ.

>> No.10888660
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10888660

>>10888002

>> No.10888676
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10888676

>>10888002

>> No.10889019

If you read House of Leaves, you basically read it like that but its a comedy.

>> No.10889037

If youre young, all of the parodies of corporate shit you grew up on were inspired by this book and it will seem very thin. You had to be there, it wont ever read the same now as it did then. Also none of the adults can understand him because hes too deep 4 u, which is why the normies love this book and its descriptions of getting stoned and jacking off + watching cartoons.

>> No.10889038

>>10886732

It's about addiction, and like addiction, it takes FOREVER to get through.

>> No.10890470

It is about what the other anons have said but I think the point he was trying to express was more about purpose. In America we pus so much purpose in entertainment that we would almost die for it. That is what happens in a drug overdose right? He says this is because corporations know the best way to sell things is to make people value themselves more than their communities. So we just endlessly consume trying to fulfill the purpose our selfish desires in order to one day become actually happy. Some people he says don’t just consume though, they work on self improvement which is a higher goal but comes from the same place. This is what is symbolized by the tennis academy. They train with maximum effort in order to one day get into the show. Which is a tennis tv show or something I forget but it’s incredibly prestigious; it is the highest honor for a tennis player. Some people in the book say when they have gotten (yuck have gotten sounds awful I apologize) there that they feel empty. Our selfish philosophy has us aiming forever at a goal that is not worth it. The journey is something to distract you and that is nice but it turns people inside out. What Wallace thinks is the cure is to live for something other than yourself. You have to sacrifice yourself for something else. This is the archetype of the hero and we all know it is right but so few of us can do it nowadays and that is why we are empty. Even our idols who are supposed to be heroic are vain creatures at the front of a company with a net under your pockets. Infinite jest is a simplification of the problem and in some ways the problem itself. Many people read the book just to say they have read the most notoriously difficult book of the 90s. They are not doing much different than the tennis students. They will work through this massive complex work and at the end move on to the next seemingly impressive feat without ever acting out a heroic deed and getting no true satisfaction.

>> No.10890726

>>10890470
You just convinced me to get the book thanks!

>> No.10890828

>>10890470
Thanks for the rundown! I might have to buy it now, sounds good. Is the author Christian by any chance?

>> No.10890834

>>10890470
>In America we
Stopped reading

>> No.10890982

OP here, this book sounds dumb by your explanations

>> No.10891268

>>10886732
It's a meme

Why? it's fucking difficult on purpose for the sake of being difficult at times. It's long and wordy, the plot moves forward at an excruciatingly slow pace. It's full of asides that do not matter, information that provides no means to no ends. The footnotes make you fucking flip the book around every fifteen goddamn seconds and it's a god damn nightmare.

But it's still good.

That's why it's a meme