/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17420293]

post the most abstract book you know

[Anonymous No.17420309]

>>17420293
The dialogue is pretty explicit, anon.

[Anonymous No.17420310]

what does this even mean i felt like infinite jest was very concrete and believable

[Anonymous No.17420313]

>>17420293
This is the Big Boss of literature

[Anonymous No.17420328]

>>17420293

[Anonymous No.17420332]

>>17420313
Talk about the books you've read.

[Anonymous No.17420336]

>>17420309
>>17420310
The way he gets the main themes across is somewhat abstract, certainly abstract enough that most people seem to think it is about about things like addiction, depression and consumerism. I would personally not call it abstract but I can see why some would.

[Anonymous No.17420341]

>>17420310
>>17420309
the word was given to me as a hallucination during and extended fever dream and i'm too embarrassed to ask what it means

[Anonymous No.17420345]

>>17420332
I read it and loved it.

[Anonymous No.17420418]

>>17420313
Fool. The real is not abstract. This is one of the more concret book I can think of.

[Anonymous No.17420420]

>>17420336
>blah blah solipsism blah mario is the answer
fuck off

[Anonymous No.17420462]

>>17420420
great post. very informative.

[Anonymous No.17420475]

>>17420418
>The real
the what?

[Anonymous No.17420510]

>>17420418
My nigga a pseud

[Anonymous No.17420518]

celine - death on credit

[Anonymous No.17420523]

>>17420462
>infinite jest is not about addiction, depression and consumerism

[Anonymous No.17420541]

>>17420523
It is not, those are things in the book. Might as well say Infinite Jest is about epileptic dogs and sports medicine. You are making a good argument for it being abstract.

[Anonymous No.17420583]

>>17420541
addiction gets mentioned a lot, you can't deny it's a central theme.

[Anonymous No.17420608]

>>17420541
is his presentation abstract or are you having trouble ordering its hierarchy

[Anonymous No.17420661]

>>17420541
??? If you listen to interviews with DFW it is pretty apparent that addiction and depression are the topics hes interested in especially considering his own issues with both. As far as the presentation of the topics i wouldn't call it abstract has he basically is beating you over the head with the idea of it being annular the whole book, also he says in an interview he tried to structure it as a Sierpinski gasket.

[Anonymous No.17420715]

A CLARA IN MY THROAT SMASH WHOLES US LOVELY

Hawthorn besides you, mere mouths my leaning.
The young lungish wanna splurge. I, too,
long. Birdshit. Let not well, until shouts you
delightful cockatoo. I wanna hold
on upon neck. Hot iota. On least
flown, off a ramus sudden, at a rabbit. O
some living ellipses! see through, hollow
through thrust, and she due. O come again,
the porch is getting night. Dart. And because swept hot
the belongs to us. Bent bodies wanna
part, set sounds among the look hunting crowd
of light. Hawthorn besides you: thumps, punch
outs, the if stops who hurry up homely.
The neck eludes knee. Puffs puff. Hulas hoop.

The book is all lesbian erotica, but the grammatical play is somehow more titillating.

[Anonymous No.17420749]

[Anonymous No.17420783]

>>17420749
she's the master

[Anonymous No.17420790]

[Anonymous No.17420827]

>>17420783

[Anonymous No.17420846]

>>17420583
Separatism gets mentioned a lot, is it a central theme as well?

Addiction and recovery are used to show the main theme at the extreme. Big hint on the main theme, people have to go to things like AA to be honest, to communicate openly. It all ties together. Everything in the novel supports a single theme and the novel does support his whole new sincerity spiel.

>>17420608
I am having no issues.

>>17420661
A sizable chunk of the novel has nothing to do with addiction or depression, how does that serve the novel? Did he just throw in all this other stuff for fun? Are Marathe/Steeply there just for the sake of plot and a couple topical stories? They support the main theme as much as addiction and depression do. As does competitive tennis, lexical prodigies, sodomizing your children, UHID and everything else in the novel. He did not waste a word.

Not sure what the gasket has to do with this.

[Anonymous No.17420861]

>>17420336
Of course those are fucking things the fucking book is about. Just read a single DFW interview

[Anonymous No.17420907]

>>17420846
Before you start kicking over every obvious theme in favor of one super theme, could you kindly explain what the “main theme” is?

[Anonymous No.17420915]

>>17420861
In almost every interview he also hints at the main theme, he never gave it away directly, just hints. This is part of the main theme and the cause of much of the addiction in IJ, they are taking the easy path and avoiding the difficult despite the long term gains. This is also something he also talks about in most interviews.

[Anonymous No.17420964]

>>17420907
Part of it is hard work and the gains achieved through hard work, and I agree with that. I will help people understand it and offer guidance but I will not give hand outs, the hard work is very much worth it. If you want to avoid the hardwork there are plenty of scholarly articles from back in the late 90s which explain it, but I would highly recommend putting in the time.

[Anonymous No.17420970]

[Anonymous No.17420988]

Had to read pic related in undergrad. Was weird and I don't remember any of it.
>>17420293
Idk how this is abstract the plot is there and the themes are in your face

[Anonymous No.17421013]

>>17420964
link me an article if you're not going to spill yourself. I'm not gonna reread the book in an attempt to form some unitary thematic confluence when the metatextual cues all aver anticonfluencialism and the need to halt the sort of involuted and obsessive reflection that such a reading would require.

[Anonymous No.17421036]

>>17420964
>>17420907
>this guy again
don't you realize how gay you sound saying that?

the "main theme" is getting out of your head and having some empathy, like mario. accepting your circumstances like he does. this is also shown in the AA meetings, where there's that one girl who blames her upbringing for her addiction, and the other woman who killed her own baby but took responsibility

[Anonymous No.17421066]

>>17421013
check out the infinite jest chapter in understanding david foster wallace, it's really interesting.

[Anonymous No.17421083]

[Anonymous No.17421096]

>>17421036
Don't really care how gay I may sound. This is anonymous after all.

You are closer to it than the addiction idea, but Marathe and Steeply do not really fit in with that. You have to write them off as just cheap plot device.

[Anonymous No.17421129]

>>17421066
I have it. I've read it. is there a specific page with a juicy hint to what you're getting at?

[Anonymous No.17421220]

>>17420293
Of ones I've read, probably The Unnamable

[Anonymous No.17421236]

Literally anything by Evola

[Anonymous No.17421297]

>>17421129
Not sure what he is referring too, but you do get some clues as to one of the causes regarding the problems dealt with in the novel in the interviews of Notkin/Joelle. The simplest way to understand everything would be to read the professional conversationalist, young Jim and wraith chapters, they should give everything you need assuming your memory of the rest of IJ is decent.

[Anonymous No.17421343]

>>17420293
Death on the installment plan. Starts with 60 pages of excellent storytelling then devolves into 400 pages of schizophrenic rambling. It's still decent

[Anonymous No.17422028]

>>17420313
Reading it rn. Really tests your patience desu. Can't imagine it measures up to Ulysses.

[Anonymous No.17422040]

The guy who did this thread has probably taken babby's first lit crit class and is know gushing about some non-existant idea that exists only inside his head. Bugger off, you dolt.

[Anonymous No.17422057]

>>17421096
Jesus fucking Christ, you idiot. Why do I think you're Australian, Asian and LARP as a polymath?

[Anonymous No.17422073]

>>17420846
>Separatism gets mentioned a lot, is it a central theme as well?
Yes, yes it is. Not because of the separation part, but because Marathe uses his political actions as a cop out from the business of living. He basically treats his association to the AFA as a surrogate for alcohol/pot/heroin/TV/whatever. The Marathe/Steeply chapters are like DFW slapping the reader in the face and saying: "look here, dumb dumb, I'll spell this book out for you in these chapters as if I were writing a non-fiction essay, so pay attention".

[Anonymous No.17422129]

>>17420313

This. I tried reading a page and my head hurt so bad I had to take two Tylenol.

[Anonymous No.17422176]

>>17420293
This, and I had to read it for school. I'm not really a postmodern guy, I'm more of a classics guy. I liked it though, I don't know why /lit/ seems to have such a hateboner for it.
>>17420970
Kek

[Anonymous No.17422197]

>>17420313
>>17420293
"abstract" doesn't just mean "confusing" you dopes.

[Anonymous No.17422205]

>>17422176
The hateboner is just an equal and opposite reaction to a regular boner.

[Anonymous No.17422212]

>>17420749
>>17420783
interesting i'll give it a look

[Anonymous No.17422562]

>>17422057
No clue, but wrong on all counts. This seems more your issue than mine.

>>17422073
>Yes, yes it is. Not because of the separation part
So it is but it isn't. Your explanation still leaves Marathe and Steeply as just a weak plot device, along with most everything related to the entertainment and even himself, they serve no purpose. Seems an odd thing for a novel which is not plot driven to stick in a big hunk of plot for no real purpose.

So how do parents tie into your view? He gives us information on most everyone's parents and many are just a little factoid having nothing to do with addiction even by your looser deffinition. Parents are everywhere in the novel and the main focus of the entertainment. We are given something on at least one of the parents of almost every character. Why does he give us this information? Think it might be important? There are a few other details he gives for every character, but those are up to you to figure out.

What about the recurring themes regarding communication/cessation of communication/figurants? This is everywhere in the novel and takes up much of it. AA, dream duty, Marathe and Steeply are both trying to get the truth through lies, Hals phone calls with O, Inner Infant, the entertainment destroys ones ability to communicate, professional conversationalist, young Jim, the interviews, people suddenly wanting to talk to Hal when he isolates, most of Marios bits are almost nothing but communication and much of the time he is literally communicating about communication, Gately in the hospital needing/wanting/attempting to communicate, the wraith and what he goes through to communicate, Hal's eventual inability too communicate, thanksgiving dinner, long bits of banter at eta/ennet, on and on it goes. DFW has a downright fixation on this in IJ. Could this be important?

[Anonymous No.17422617]

>>17420313
Newfag

[Anonymous No.17422799]

>>17422562
I get the feeling you're fixated on the idea of IJ as being Lacanian in the same way that Broom is Wittgensteinian. Which, yes, it is, but it doesn't provide the novel some mystical unity in the way you seem to think, nor is it some hidden secret that's key to 'decoding' the entire thing (if Lacan isn't your proposed central tie, I assure you I could tie together every element of the book to Lacanian theory just as you seem to claim you could with whatever alternative through line you propose). But just as Broom is more about Lenore as a character than Wittgenstein, IJ isn't some cryptic work of theory. DFW makes these characters alive, non-theoretical, embedded in a world and caught in paradox, intractable contradiction, and unsettled questions.

[Anonymous No.17422895]

>>17422799
>I get the feeling you're fixated on the idea of IJ as being Lacanian
Nope. Nothing mystical either. I find it interesting that you do not answer my questions or even ask questions, just work under the assumption that you have all the answers. He wrote IJ to reflect how he saw society becoming, he filled it with things more compelling and entertaining (distracting) than the truth just as life is. He does not hide the truth, it is not cryptic, it is right there plain as day for anyone willing to ignore the easy to attain and short sighted entertainment the book offers in abundance. He has expressed this in interviews and used much the same technique with a slight change in TPK, the lack of stimulation instead of too much stimulation, the very thing people use entertainment to avoid, boredom, tedium, their own thoughts. The two books compliment each other wonderfully, using many of the same techniques and many parallels between characters.

[Anonymous No.17422983]

>>17422895
I didn't answer those questions because I wasn't the poster they were directed at. My whole issue here is that you've been in multiple threads saying "IJ isn't about addiction or consumerism... it's about this one singular other thing that you have to be as high IQ as me to see, and I'm not gonna tell you what it is because you need to do your homework." Which is just hellaciously pretentious and highly annoying.

If you have an interpretation of "the main theme", just lay it out. I'm obviously interested enough in your reading (despite my frustration with your approach) to try to puzzle out what you're getting at. Readers often come to wildly different conclusions about books, and no amount of "hard work" is going to guarantee other readers will arrive at your interpretation. The only way to make that happen is to convince them with your reasoning.

[Anonymous No.17423029]

did Hal take the DMZ and if so, when? don't come at me with that weak toothbrush bullshit.

the book is pretty explicit with its themes, the only ambiguity is the gap between the last and first chapter. other specifics obviously but the book is a lob shot, you can figure out where it's going

[Anonymous No.17423046]

[Anonymous No.17423117]

>>17422983
If I thought you needed to be "as high IQ as me" to understand it I would just spell it out and brag about having figured out what you failed at, but instead I say you can figure it out and I will happily offer guidance to anyone who wants too. You do not need to be a genius to figure it out and anyone who managed to read the entire book will most likely be able to figure it out, you just need ignore what is fun and entertaining, as I said, it is not cryptic or hidden, it is just those mundane details he drops in before or after something far more interesting a fun.

I am not concerned about convincing anyone, I use an anonymous message board for a reason, people can take what I offer if they want, if they want to view it as a book about addiction, that is fine by me, readers interpretation is as important as authors intent. Also, this is the second IJ thread I have been in for quite some time, last one was last weekend and there was at least one other anon of my view. I was in a short lived TPK thread but did not talk mention IJ and only made a brief comment.

>>17423029
Nope, no DMZ. The missing year is not all that ambiguous, Hal fails his drug test, goes into Ennet house and meets Gately where he finds out about what the wraith told Gately, digs up his father and then fulfills his destiny as a figurant.

[Anonymous No.17423148]

>>17423117
My language use in that post is embarrassing.

[Anonymous No.17423150]

>>17423117
so what's the deal with his perception of reality in the first chapter? just a panic attack?

[Anonymous No.17423191]

>>17423150
He is a figurant. Remember what the wraith said about figurants, their role in TV/film and what would happen if they become an active part of the scene, there would be a medical emergency and one of the main characters would save them. Hal became an active part of the scene and they called an ambulance. His roll as a figurant is to not speak. This is what the wraith (Himself) feared Hal was becoming, what he (the wraith) had been for most of his life. The young Jim and wraith chapters sum this all up.

[Anonymous No.17423215]

>>17423117
>Hal fulfills his destiny as a figurant
So is the greater theme of IJ not depression or addiction but rather the various ways that modern American culture and sincerity and irony add to the figurants cage?

[Anonymous No.17423222]

is this thread still going because op won't admit that infinite jest is really not abstract

[Anonymous No.17423268]

>>17423215
You are in the general area and it would not be difficult to make it work as a simple summation without straying from the truth. There would be a few things you would have to bend abit to get under that umbrella, but it is quite good for such a simple sentence.

>>17423222
I don't think OP has been in the Infinite Jest conversation, if he has he has just asked a simple question or two and not joined into the discussion. It probably would still be going if it were not for my hijack, there probably have been enough on topic posts to keep it alive. It really is not an abstract novel and no one in the discussion has said it was, closest is my statement that I could see how some would find it abstract.

[Anonymous No.17423299]

>>17423117
I've read and reread the book (and all his other books). I've read the Boswell (and his butchering of Lacan) and many other essays and posts. I've thought about the book a lot and I'm interested in hearing other people's thoughts on it. I just have no desire to be led to your alleged insight by method of drawn-out socratic dialogue.
Please just drop the "you have to work for it" principle for one reply and answer: what do you consider to be the main theme and aim of the book?

In fairness, I'll put myself out there too. I think the book has heterogenous themes, but that it's heavily undergirded by engagement with Lacan and other postmodern theorists. If I had to point to one main theme explored, it would be how desire is structured. I think the book's aim (beyond the foremost aim of being good literature) is to exhaust vicious forms of involution (addiction, paralytic thought helixes, entertainment, the methods of 60s postmodern fiction), to make the reader confront the lack at the heart of his subjectivity, and to 'traverse the fantasy': to accept the lost object as lost.

[Anonymous No.17423357]

My diary desu

[Anonymous No.17423417]

[Anonymous No.17423464]

>>17423299
It is not as much about the hard work as it is about the reward. For years I had a friend who did much the same for me, just hinted at more and pointed out the flaws in my theories. At times it drove me absolutely mad, but on that reread where I finally figured it out I became very thankful he did it, the reward was better than anything I could have expected. Seeing everything unfold and fall into place during that reading was probably the most satisfying bit of reading I have had, seeing how complex and intricate Infinite Jest really is and how everything ties together so neatly and completely was the biggest reward I have ever gotten from reading fiction.

You get in spitting distance with the answer in >>17423215. You will know it when you find it and it is simpler than you think, there is no need for philosophy, as I said, anyone who can manage to get through the book can figure it out. You will figure it out, you will laugh at yourself for how obvious it was and you will appreciate it in a new way. It is infuriating at times, but it really is worth it.

[Anonymous No.17423494]

>>17423464
dude, crawl out of your own ass and give your interpretation. nobody else is going to relive your experience of it, and you're being an annoying prick with your riddling

[Anonymous No.17423555]

>>17423494
I don't expect people to relive my experience, I just shared mine and know how people respond to successfully achieving something difficult.

All this time you have spent asking for a hand out and insulting me you could have been asking questions which would help you find the answer, already demonstrated that I would happily answer any other questions, but you fixate on the only answer I explicitly stated that I would not give. Perhaps next time, it is bedtime for me.

[Anonymous No.17423572]

>>17423555
nice trips. kys

[Anonymous No.17424249]

dunno if this is what you were thinking but Swift's 'A Tale of a Tub' is a wonderfully fucked up text. It's completely nuts and self defeating, to the point where determining the actual characteristics of its satire and its target is pretty difficult. It's a real intellectual whirlwind that is almost determined to go over your head.

Other weird texts off the top of my head:

H.T. Tsiang's The Hanging on Union Square is a real formal challenge.
'A Vision' by W.B. Yeats, a really nasty bitch of a text also. This book hates you as a reader for sure.
J.H. Prynnes poetry is pretty challenging.
Breton and Soupault's Magnetic Fields is a hellacious read.
Self Condemned by Wyndham Lewis can be really frustrating, especially with its way of meandering.
I think if you aren't ready William Carlos Williams can be really tough. And people here won't tell you this but Pound's Cantos are basically impossible to read as a critic without Hugh Kenner's reconstruction of his intellectual history in The Pound Era (itself no cakewalk).

And this might be personal but I think Djuna Barnes's Nightwood is very sneakily difficult as well.

[Anonymous No.17424788]

https://libraryofbabel.info/

[Anonymous No.17424813]

For me it's Rolf Dieter Brinkmann who breaks with the normal concept of writing and creates a book by compiling impressions, snippets and all sorts of coomer stuff.
I wrote my thesis on this

[Anonymous No.17424840]

[Anonymous No.17424934]

>>17423299
I posted in another thread that if he does actually give his opinion of the overarching theme, it will probably be something very vague like "humanness", "communication" or "sincerity".I'm beginning to think he's a troll who can do nothing but tease or a burgeoning schizo who thinks DFW was dropping hints and puzzle pieces.Either way this dude comes off as a pretentious dick who won't put his answer out there for fear of criticism

[Anonymous No.17425113]

>>17424249
cheers

[Anonymous No.17425154]

>>17420293
He's a narcissist and it comes off from the book. A midwit that thinks he's the next Joyce.

[Anonymous No.17425245]

>>17420418
>>17420475
>>17420510
Though the anon put it in abstract terminology himself out of the effort to be exact, he's point is completely right. When ever do the words in Joyce depart from the emotion, or that more general word the "meaning"? They're not speaking, or failing to, about puffery, and in that they are thoroughly modern (most articulately going back to Pound's Imagism and "aptness to purpose", but the artistically modern was still preceded by people like Dujardin).

Of course the anon for irony or not, misses that Joyce is the most abstract of all writers in his difficulty by complete complexification and difference through that and other things from the normal use of language; some have characterised his particular language as a super-charging of meaning to its utmost potential in every singular word, even the ultimate aestheticizing of Irish-English to sound like another language. That is not puffery, that is an attention to art, which is shown so simply in his earlier works, an attention to a true sincere detail of emotional experiences, or in his earliest intellectual conception of art, as drama portraying the centre of life.

But here the man lies bare, his concreteness (though truly such a word could never be used with Joyce without some irony) lies in the fact that to self-reflect on the work and take it out of itself in anywhere is nihilising to itself. It is a work which like the words of it, exist like in a dream the trees in a forest as the only thing present to bare witness to (or define) the ineffable unique which exists between, standing open like a clearing or beyng, but the absolute peering of a presence which again, denies itself by its own --to put it utmost crudely as yet more-- singularity. As Heidegger said of the resulting conclusion of the ideas in Plato's Parmenides, "The dialogue literally leads to Nothing." But as a purely literary and particular phenomenon, again like a dream, this one is.

[Anonymous No.17425494]

>>17420293
RC Waldun's "The Learned Disguise" was a fantastic read for me. Very deeply layered and abstract. Almost like a fractal. He's the Hemingway of the younger generation. I expect great things to come.

[Anonymous No.17425636]

I think my book is pretty abstract. Doesn't make it a masterpiece, or even passable depending on your taste, but it is abstract.
>https://mega.nz/fm/RAtxERzT
Still don't know if I should bother with gumroad.

[Anonymous No.17427129]

This thread is cringe

[Anonymous No.17427169]

>>17422562
These comments on Inner Infant have been discussed by DFW himself in interviews, and they're tied to what DFW called the "pop psychology" of his day, and they inform much of his famous story "The Depressed Person". Yes, communication is an extremely important part of IJ, as it has always been for DFW in general. The addiction theme is obviously huge, and it's tied up to these characters inability to get out of their heads and find solace from without instead from within. This is, again, tied to the "pop psychology" thing, since he felt Americans were increasingly blaming their parents for their woes, and fixating on their own pasts and experiences as a way of "finding a way out". You're just posturing if you think the use of substances/sports fixation/political fixation and other obsessions from the characters (Orin's sexuality, James Incandenza's manic tendencies towards film making, etc) isn't a huge theme. You're just a piece of shit.

[Anonymous No.17427319]

>>17427169
Doesn't Gately find, perhaps not exactly a way out, but he finds something (the tide way out) when he confronts his rock bottom memory, and looks himself in the mirror? I read that moment as a possible "way out" of his need for AA as substitute addiction brought about by earnest reflection and self-appraisal, rather than the pop-psych attempts to recall and relive the mythical wholeness of the infant/mother bond (see also the samizdat, Joelle sucking at the teat of the crack pipe, etc.)

[Anonymous No.17427320]

>>17424934
I pointed out some of the places where the addiction theory does not work, I outlined which sections to read to get a decent idea, and I stated I would answer any other question. Combine that with the things which I did say and it would take little effort to come up with a few questions to clearly demonstrate if I had or clue or not. That is apparently beyond you and that other anon, you would rather bitch to no end instead of putting that time towards coming up with those few questions. Lets see you humiliate me with your knowledge, prove to everyone that I have no clue.

>>17427169
They are huge themes, never denied that, just said they are not the main theme.


Probably will not be back here until next weekend, but I will swing through later tonight to see if anyone asked some worthwhile questions and respond if needed.

[Anonymous No.17427338]

>>17427319
Remember why he is confronting those bits of past he had up until then avoided. It is important. You are putting the pieces together well.

[Anonymous No.17427368]

>>17427338
Fuck off you wannabe guru, I'm trying to discuss literature not go on a goose chase to gargle your balls.

[Anonymous No.17427417]

>>17427338
how does the AA girl that blamed her parents and retard sister play into it? or the woman that had a stillborn?

[Anonymous No.17427894]

>>17420313
>Finnegans

Plural. No apostrophe.

>Wake

A verb.

[Anonymous No.17428329]

>>17427894

[Anonymous No.17428623]

>>17423117
Hal ends up in the hospital bed next to Gately.

[Anonymous No.17428751]

>>17427417
They are both in denial, using something other than the issue itself to distract themselves from the real issue just as Gately is using his rock bottom to distract himself from the pain instead of confronting the real reason he used in the first place which would allow him to accept medication to remove the pain, which he may eventually do after we leave him as the tube is pulled from his throat.

Both of your examples tie into the often ignored theme of parents which once again the young Jim and wraith section provide context for, Hal's inner monologue during the last third of book also comes into play in a less direct fashion. Interdependance day with AA provides many insights in general, especially Gately's inner monologue and his observations.

>>17428623
So you are saying that Gately spent a year in the hospital and then traveled back in time with Hal dig up his father?

[Anonymous No.17428841]

>>17428751
Hal injures himself to get out of the tournament and the kid with the monitor stuck to his head is just getting released from the hospital, freeing up the bed next to Gately. Joelle is on her way to the hospital at the time, the three converge there. Though I'm baffled by Wayne, was he a Canadian separatist and if so why would he help them dig it up?

Another worrying tidbit is that Gately compulsively snacked when he was on drugs and in the graveyard scene he's apparently grubbily eating corporate snack foods with both hands. Did he accept the painkillers?

And isn't all the anticonfluence stuff reminding us that there is no catharsis in neat and tidy answers to these questions? That our own reflections on the material are more important than the entertainment and excitement of the "plot"?

[Anonymous No.17428934]

>>17428841
>And isn't all the anticonfluence stuff reminding us that there is no catharsis in neat and tidy answers to these questions? That our own reflections on the material are more important than the entertainment and excitement of the "plot"?

[Anonymous No.17428941]

>>17428841
Jonette Foltz directly mentions Hal's intake into Ennet house and Gately's inner monologue mentions Hal in Ennet house. Hal is still laying about when we leave Gately, so it would still require time travel, not as much, but at least a day.

John Wayne could be two things, there are hints that he and Hal have an unspoken bond and will become close friends, he comes along as a friend and wears a mask because he is no longer allowed into Canada, he gave up his rights as a citizen to go to ETA. The other would be that he is the AFR plant, remember that the AFR sometimes wear masks. Both interpretations have their faults and are easy to poke holes in, it is something we are not supposed to know.

Fax is the one who compulsively snacked, Gately become inert when high, remember the joke his friends make, it was like he had shot up concrete.

You essentially have anticonfluence spot on, DFW drops clues like this everywhere, with anticonfluence he is saying the plot is not what is important.

[Anonymous No.17429013]

>>17428941
Oh thanks for clearing those up. The image of Gately greedily eating in the scene always made me feel like he just got out of the hospital though.

Do you think there is intended ambiguity in Avril possibly being Luria P.? Who is Orin referring to in the "Do it to her!" 1984 scene? Since Avril was Canadian and involved with people targeted by Orin via the Entertainment.

I think it's very possible ambiguities like that (Joelle being disfigured or not, C.T. and Avril being together a la Hamlet) are there to be unanswered nagging questions to entice us is into the plot trap.

[Anonymous No.17429173]

>>17429013
Avril being Luria P. is not really possible, remember that after Himself killed himself she ceased going anywhere beyond ETA and the Headmasters house and traveled by way of the tunnels as much as possible. The entire Orin interview bit is suspect, it contains everything he obsesses over, roaches, wheelchairs and the current subject, also if the Swedish hand model is Luria P. and Luria P. is involved with the AFR, why does she hide when the supposed AFR comes to the door? Why would he even need to come to the door? But why would she have the portable O2 tank? This is one of those things we are not supposed to know and any theory is filled with holes. Might be one of his nightmares, might not be.

As for Avril being involved with the targeted people it is hard to say, most of the information we have regarding that is from unreliable sources and the information that is reasonably solid suggests they were just flings she had because she thought Himself was having affairs, This also ties into her affair with John Wayne, everyone loves to view that as her using John Wayne as a surrogate Orin, but she has the pom poms, she could be just be role playing as Joelle, (the twirler) the last person she believes her one true love was intimate with. Another thing we are not actually supposed to know.

Joelle was almost certainly disfigured, she admits during her interview that she used to joke about her disfigurement being her beauty and implies it when talking to Gately. To believe she was not disfigured requires also believing that Hal and Orin do not know the truth, which is not likely.

Avril and CT are just as ambiguous, we can make the case either way but just like the above mentioned, it would have no effect on the novel, nothing changes one way or the other. As you put it, plot traps, in the case of IJ, plot is always a trap and that is the only purpose it serves, to distract.

[Anonymous No.17429208]

>>17429173
Forgot to mention. These plot traps do serve other purposes, they raise important questions that lead to the answers. Why did Avril start sleeping around? Nothing is just a distraction or trap in IJ, it always raises an important question you should be asking.

[Anonymous No.17429313]

>>17429173
Good point about Orin, how would the AFR know about his roach killing method after all. Though I think it is mentioned that the AFR leader had been to Arizona when they're at Antitois.

Another great point about Avril and Wayne, the surrogate Orin is obvious but role playing as Joelle is far more poignant.

I believe there is conflicting information about the acid throw, Orin is called the acid-dodger extraordinaire or something to that effect but is it ever confirmed that it hit Joelle's face? My interpretation was that for the purpose of The Entertainment, transfixing beauty and transfixing ugliness would be interchangeable, hence all the pleasure and pain dichotomies and the references to The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa. And isn't she the angel Hal remembers being with them at Himself's grave?

Lastly, the DMZ. There's lots of references to it, some speculate Himself created The Entertainment as an antidote to it or was synthesizing it himself as an antidote to the mold Hal ate as a child. This would have been synthesizing inside him and quitting marijuana triggers his dissociative state. Near the end he withdraws into himself and for the first time he forgets the definition of words while noticing other things around him in a more experiential and less rational way. Then there's the wraiths possibly moving things around, Himself haunting Stice(?), the DMZ-looking stuff that appeared on toothbrushes... and if the disassociated episode near the end leads directly into his mental state in chapter one, why the inversion of first forgetting language, while later being the same intellect internally but only appearing incoherent externally? I think you're spot on about the figurant episode too. That is exactly what Himself was afraid of happening to Hal, though more internally, right? A master of language, extremely competent, living up to every expectation, though empty and anhedonic inside. While in chapter one, he does very much seem to have an internal life, and pathos.

[Anonymous No.17429327]

[Anonymous No.17429334]

>>17429313
Oh and the whole thing with Himself's wraith instantiating language into Gately's consciousness, while having to dedicate enormous spans of time to every instant of presence seemed like a metatextual reference to writing itself. And to the themes of concentration, dedication, attention etc. of course.

[Anonymous No.17429339]

[Anonymous No.17429373]

>>17429327
heard of this.

[Anonymous No.17429549]

>>17429313
You have to ignore a fair amount of evidence to believe that Joelle was not disfigured, including her own explanation during her interview which ties in perfectly with her statement to Gately. Bigger question, how would this matter? Does it change anything?

Hal does not see the angel Joelle, or at least does not mention it, this is from Gately's foreshadowing of the event during that all important Interdependance Day with AA chapter. Most likely this is just the confirmation that she is dead, remember her last appearance in the novel, there is a blizzard going on, someone is following her and she is trying to figure out what to do because she had just been informed that her life was in grave danger.

The DMZ is just speculation and conjecture, there is nothing to back it up in the slightest. We know the drug shoe disappears and that Pemulis gets very nervous afterwords and needs to urgently talk to Hal in private. There is one person who has something to gain with the drug shoe, we know that person knows about Pemulis's chemical activities, we also know Hal has great sway with that person. Still conjecture, but less.

It should also be remembered where the DMZ came from, the Anatoli brothers bought it from someone with a Swedish accent.

Swedish accents are used as a clue throughout the novel and tie in with one of the more subtle techniques he uses, it has three narrators, Hal, Gately, and Marathe. Sometimes it is very obvious as too who is narrating, Hal has perfect grammar, Gately makes mistakes (Sir Osis of Thuliver), and Marathe uses a fair amount of French grammar/syntax (his wrist's watch), but most of the time it is very subtle and easy to miss. This mostly provides clues for sorting out the plot, but it does offer a few other odd insights.

[Anonymous No.17429589]

>>17429549
Need to add little more on narration.

There are actually three primary narrators, quite a few smaller ones and likely and one over reaching narrator. It follows the Sierpinski gasket structure, plot and theme also follow this and comprise their own gaskets.

[Anonymous No.17429604]

>>17429549
So do you think there's an explanation for the state Hal enters into? And the fact that the DMZ is mold growing on another kind of mold just like what Hal ate is just a red herring? I was also under the impression that it was 80s Bill who sold a batch of stuff from Enfield to the brothers - the tapes and DMZ from Himself's discarded items in the tunnels.

[Anonymous No.17429683]

>>17429604
As I said, plot is always a red hearing in IJ. All we know about the person who sold the DMZ to the Antitois brothers (where did I get an Italian name like Anatoli?) is that they are a Hippie and they speak with a Swedish accent, there is conjecture on the web that the hippie is 60s Bob, but the only connection I have ever seen to back this up is that they are both hippies and it is never suggested that 60s Bob speaks with a Swedish accent. I find this dubious at best. If I had to speculate on the original source of the DMZ I would put it as an FLQ plot, it fits their modus operandi and explains the Swedish accent.

The mold/Himself connection has absolutely nothing to back it up as far as I can tell, pure conjecture.

[Anonymous No.17429702]

>>17429683
Fair enough, but then don't you think the conjecture is because of the connections the book is teasing out of the reader?

And again, what causes Hal to forget words, to become less autistic for lack of a better term? And then why is his vocabulary perfect as ever again, in the Year of Glad?

[Anonymous No.17429757]

>>17429702
also yeah, Bob, not Bill, I read the book a few months ago, my first read of it and it's a lot to keep a hold of. Can't wait to read it again though, I bet there's so many aha moments waiting for me. But mostly because of the reflection and emotion it brought up in me.

[Anonymous No.17429841]

>>17429702
The book suggests things more compelling than the truth to distract you from what is important.

Forgot about the Hal question. Nothing causes Hal to forget words, everyone forgets words or names at times and eventually remembers them, we are just seeing Hal's full inner monologue and his thought process, he does remember those words/names eventually, just takes a moment. He is distracted at the time and going through withdrawal from pot, so not exactly at peak performance.

[Anonymous No.17429925]

>>17429841
okay then, thematically, do you think the failure to find The Entertainment turns him into the figurant in the following year? I know the naked truth of the themes is the point and the gap between the "end" and the "beginning" is a mystery meant to elucidate its own inanity but is just so damn enticing. That one sentence in Hal's inner monologue about the graveyard scene just keeps coming back to me.

What I do find peculiar is that if Orin desecrated the grave to find the master copy, and if that released Himself's wraith, wouldn't he be aware of this, sending Gately and Hal on a fool's errand?

Another thought, the experialist notion feels like two things: shirking responsibility by saddling another with your literal waste, yet also in the sense of addiction condemning and discarding parts of yourself to keep the whole from collapsing under its own weight.

[Anonymous No.17429988]

>>17427320
Fuck off. Interesting IJ questions are already being discussed. Your comments haven't added anything of substance. You're just spewing empty thrash you probably read from some other pathetic IJ is a meme faggot from here. So fuck off and only come back when you have anything of interest to say.

[Anonymous No.17430026]

>>17429925
Hal had been becoming a figurant for years, it was what Himself was referring to when he said Hal did not speak but Himself could not explain himself since he also did not speak, this relates back to theme regarding parents and once again to those all import young Jim and wraith sections.

What evidence is there that Orin dug up the master? The only thing that remotely suggests Orin being involved is that some tapes were sent out from the south west but those tapes originated from the NE border and were distributed from the southwest and some around Boston. It should also be remembered that Marathe was stationed at the AFRs southwest distribution center, what did they distribute? No one knows, another compelling hole to distract from what is important.

The wraith did not send Hal and Gately to dig up the grave, fairly certain the wraith did not even mention it was supposedly buried with him, digging up the grave was Hal's idea.

>shirking responsibility by saddling another with your literal waste, yet also in the sense of addiction condemning and discarding parts of yourself to keep the whole from collapsing under its own weight.
You are getting there. When you do reread, pay very close attention to that first section, everything up to where it gets to the 'present' day at ETA/Ennet house.

>>17429988
Who exactly do you think has been the one answering all of the questions?

[Anonymous No.17430053]

>>17429549
I've always believed 60's Bill (or was it 60's Eddy) was the one that sold the DMZ/cartidges to the Antitois, which he (60's Bill) got from Kite, who we learn in the last part of the book as an acquitance of his.

[Anonymous No.17430098]

>>17430026
I meant that in the sense that Gately's future vision of the dig seemed to me to be instantiated by the wraith, like the language

So Orin at the post office, the oedipal anger at Avril's lovers, just another red herring? The possibly unreal interrogation scene a major red herring?

That last comment is so vague. You mean the first chapter? I know what occurs in it. There's so many ways to interpret it in the context of the rest of the book, but how does that relate to the concavity/convexity? Just in that very broad sense of expanding or diminishing yourself for/because of something? The Steeply/Marathe discussion is pretty explicit about all that stuff already, I'm not blind to the allegory of the political situation. Is your claim that there's a simple unifying point just an extension of the book's joke and lesson that I'm now encountering outside of it?

[Anonymous No.17430144]

I've always found the whole Hal/Gately/John trip to Himself's grave site too strange. Why would Hal and Gately get involved with the whole Entertainment situation? Maybe Wayne, if we assume that he is the student the A.F.R./ANTI-O.N.A.N. have infiltrated at E.T.A. And plus hasn't the U.S.O.U.S. learn about the possibility of the Master copy being buried with Himself from Joel already? How come the other 3 could get there before the U.S.O.U.S? Remember Gately's still in the hospital and will be there for quite a long time. Why the hell hasn't Steeply or any other agent get to the burial site before the other 3?

Ultimately, there's not enough information to construct an accurate scenario of what happened in the year between the end of the book and the beginning. I enjoy reading the many theories, but ultimately all of them involved an ass pull of some sort.

[Anonymous No.17430169]

>>17428941
When does Foltz mention this? I'm pretty sure Hal never gets directly admitted as a resident.

[Anonymous No.17430309]

the real question is, why did that one guy measure his dick EVERY DAY?

[Anonymous No.17430320]

>>17430053
We get a rundown on where the Antitois get their cartridges, and there is a fairly interesting suggestion where they may have got their copy of the entertainment. The main Antitois chapter that follows Gately's ride in the Ventura and shows their demise is worth a reread, it has a handful of curious bits of information scattered throughout.

60s Bill could be the source of the DMZ, I am not sure how you can connect Kite. My one issue with the 60s Bill hypothesis is the previously mentioned Swiss (Why have I been saying Swedish all night?) accent which is an important clue throughout the novel and suggests otherwise.

>>17430098
Gately did not have a future vision, remember that Gately is one of the narrators and he is reflecting on the past, occasionally he drops in bits from later on. All things plot are red herrings, but as I said, they serve a purpose beyond being red herrings, you just need to ignore how they apply to the plot and look to how they apply the themes.

I meant first section, not chapter, essentially everything before Interdependence day. All I meant by it is, you don't need help, you stated you are planning to reread it and when you do, you will likely sort it all out because you are already almost there.

>>17430144
>Why would Hal and Gately get involved with the whole Entertainment situation?
Because after Hal ends up at Ennet house he starts talking to Gately and they put the pieces together regarding who the Wraith is.

>>17430169
No, he does not directly get admitted within the scope of the book, it happens in the missing year. A quick scan suggests the online index misses this, it is just dropped in. Foltz expresses feeling regret during Hal's intake for judging him when he stopped by regarding information about NA meetings. It is just one brief sentence dropped in out of nowhere, as is often the case with important information in IJ. It is after Gately gets shot and she has taken up his duties, but the online index has nothing for her after Hal comes by for NA info. If I have time I will give a quick skim of the book and report back next weekend on this, sort of owe this one to everyone, I have been directing people to the online index for that bit of info for years now, I assumed it would be there.

>>17430309
Same reason you do.

[Anonymous No.17430358]

>>17430320
infinite jest doesn't use characters as narrators in that way. it usually gets focalized through different characters and those characters bleed into the narration. They aren't "reflecting on the past" nor is the narrator limited to what the character focalized through would know.

[Anonymous No.17430385]

>>17430358
It is not rigid, but there are definite narrators, I told you how to find the main three. It could be argued as just variations in narration style and there is just one omniscient narrator, but the difference is essentially academic once you see how it is used. End result is the same.

Also, don't just read the last post and respond, I went into the narration a few posts back. You come off like an idiot when you just respond to the one post out of context.

[Anonymous No.17430437]

>>17430385
Jesus, what a prick

[Anonymous No.17430461]

>>17430320
>you will likely sort it all out

I doubt it, you're making it sound like some intricate zen koan

>same reason you do

is this a burn or do you mean the character is a narcissistic human, is it just a petty joke against the authoritarian?

[Anonymous No.17430505]

>>17430437
What do you expect? You just jumped into a conversation and ignored the context. Address the point in context of what was previously said and you will get a better response. Not going to rehash what has already been discussed just because you want to interject your views.

>>17430461
>I doubt it
I don't. You are putting it together, all you need to do is not get distracted by plot on your reread and you will most likely have it. All I am saying is that I don't think you need hand holding.

>is this a burn or
just a shitpost response to a shitpost.

[Anonymous No.17430573]

>>17430461
Stop feeding this troll. It’s just some obsessive proto-schizo on a power trip. He thinks he’s /lit/‘s personal IJ tutor because he spent too much time concretizing his headcanon, but doesn’t know the first thing about literary theory or the author’s philosophical influences. Because of this he missed all the metatextual stuff that makes his raison de publier of there being “the main theme” through which everything else becomes clear absurd. As an obsessive he’d be a good source of information, but he responds in vague bullshit to keep getting (You)s.

[Anonymous No.17430576]

>>17430505
okay well, all my questions about the "ending" are just fishing for things I might have missed to sate my curiosity, and I think I have ingested the themes and how they overlap quite well already. I've struggled with drug addiction, escapism in media, self-involvement, debilitating self-hatred etc, all very trite in this day and age but, this made the book a very raw and honest experience for me. I guess what I'm asking is, doesn't the anticonfluential nature of the plot also apply to the supposed central theme? I can FEEL how to roll all these themes and allegories into a ball and reflect on that feeling honestly, isn't that "enough" without an ultimate solution or point? The tao that can be named is not...

[Anonymous No.17430593]

>>17430573
if this infinite jester is just holding up a mirror to my obsessing over plot questions then at least it's motivating me to be more observant in my next read

[Anonymous No.17430620]

>>17421343
Not like this.
60 pages of excellent storytelling - 400 pages of schizophrenic rambling - beautiful, touching ending.

[Anonymous No.17430674]

>>17430593
Except he asks leading questions that tell you to observe some things over others. You’ll end up in the back of your mind reading it to divine this cretin’s point de capiton. Again, he’s obsessed over the details enough to be useful, but he never quits from his one misguided aim. That’s why there’s the other IJ thread skewering him.

[Anonymous No.17430774]

>>17430573
If my goal was what you suggest were true I would take on a tripcode or just go over to that infinite jest forum, I am anonymous for a reason.

>>17430576
I get what you are after, I just don't think you need it. What I said last night regarding readers interpretation being just as important as authors intent comes into play here, when you figure it out you may not find his intent to be all that important or even insightful, your original interpretation may remain as what is most important for you. Right now you feel that there is a greater idea, but that does not mean it is important to you, but you have shown that it is important for you to see the difference between intent and interpretation, you see that much, you see there is more to it than yourself.

>>17430674
They are only leading in that they suggest there is more.

[Anonymous No.17430793]

>>17430774
>If my goal was what you suggest were true
lol. I might be getting a little drunk now.

[Anonymous No.17430858]

>>17430774
I guess if I were to put that amorphous feeling about the book into a word it would be consciousness. Being conscious of what thoughts you feed into and why, what you put work into, what you allow yourself, what you tell yourself. The consciousness in flux between reader and writer (concavity, convexity). The function of art; whose catharsis?

New sincerity or whatever applies, is subordinate. Consciousness is not motivated by irony or deflection. Instinct is not ironic.

[Anonymous No.17430942]

>>17430858
If you were to reduce Infinite Jest to a single word, consciousness might be hard to be beat, perhaps conscientiousness gets closer since it implies an awareness of ones consciousness as well as the more common meaning which also applies.

[Anonymous No.17430970]

>>17430942
Yeah that's even better. So does this word not encapsulate whatever central intent your propose?

[Anonymous No.17431087]

>>17430970
Sure, but only because it is very broad. We could come up with a dozen other words that would do just as well with little effort, consciousness is almost as good, communication can do just as well. Single words are not concise, as your previous post shows, we can easily modify them and their definition to make them fit many situations, but they can just as easily be modified so they don't fit.

Either way, I like the consciousness/conscientiousness idea, and they probably added a slight tweak to my views, not completely sure if anything actually changes yet, need to think on it some.

[Anonymous No.17431161]

>>17431087
I do have to ask then, what makes you so certain about your interpretation being THE intent and not just the nexus of your personal interpretations of the book's many, many angles

[Anonymous No.17431163]

>>17420964
Nah. If you felt confident in your analysis of the book you would just talk about it. You being cryptic is just a sign of insecurity and leads me to believe your insight is spurious. A discussion is about making your point and laying down the evidence to support it. Most people fail to do the latter, but you failed to even do the former lol

[Anonymous No.17431287]

>>17420293

[Anonymous No.17431294]

>>17420293
not really 'abstract' but it needs more than just one read

[Anonymous No.17431301]

>>17431161
I don't know that it is THE truth, I do know it is considerably closer to the truth than addiction/depression which reduces half of the book to being there just for entertainment value. I did just admit that you may have altered my view somewhat. What I do know is loose ends just disappear and everything serves a purpose when you look at the novel from a certain view, I have tried to show this with my answers by showing the questions raised by these loose ends. I have also only given some of the questions which these loose ends raise, just to show the path but not to say I am right, I left most open for you to tie up and find your own way instead of my way. I know that if I am not there, I am very close, the entire novel supports it, but there certainly is room for some slight tweaks like the one you may have instigated.

When it comes down to it, I either have to believe that I am more or less right or it is a massive coincidence, and that is hard to believe, there is just too much in support to see it as anything but intentional. I just can not believe that the book's many many angles all point to the same thing on accident, there are too many of them and they all point the same way.

>>17431163
and yet you can not point out any issues with the things I have said, all you can do is obsess over this one thing. It is sort of like heroin or M*A*S*H for you. Are you taking notes on it and saving screen caps?

[Anonymous No.17431367]

>>17431301
jfc just say what your view is
>When it comes down to it, I either have to believe that I am more or less right or it is a massive coincidence, and that is hard to believe, there is just too much in support to see it as anything but intentional. I just can not believe that the book's many many angles all point to the same thing on accident, there are too many of them and they all point the same way.
makes you sound legit schizo otherwise

[Anonymous No.17431377]

>>17431367
>makes you sound legit schizo otherwise
I am ok with that.

[Anonymous No.17431428]

>>17429683
I mean is the theme that it’s empathy? Like the brothers K parody towards the end? Just try to fucking communicate honestly? Is that why its so simple?

[Anonymous No.17431451]

>>17431428
I'd say per the Mario/Hal convo "what do I do?" "you just did it" the proscriptive advice isn't so much 'empathize' as 'seek feedback from others' maybe not much of a distinction there

[Anonymous No.17431455]

>>17420293

[Anonymous No.17431458]

>>17431451
Well maybe in that convo but in the scene where mario reaches out and touches the homeless guy it seems to be about exposure of the most vulnerable aspects of the self, a type of new sincerity if you will. Which seems to cut against dfws critique of “pseudofreudianism” (particularly w/r/t that scene w hal in the mens group.)

[Anonymous No.17431522]

>>17431458
I think the men's group thing was bad because it's another grab at complete satisfaction in the same way the entertainment, drugs, and other addictions are. So I don't see it as cutting against sincerity/gooeyness as a whole. I guess the sincerity has to be coming from a recognition and acceptance that we all lack, not striving for unobtainable (or with the entertainment, obtainable, but undesirable) wholeness or something

[Anonymous No.17431560]

>>17431428
>Just try to fucking communicate honestly
That is certainly part of it but you should be able to see how it would not be supported by much of the novel on its own.

And I seem to be all tuckered out, sorry anon, I lack the energy and focus to go into any depth, it is bedtime for me. You and the other anon seem to be going in a good direction without me.

>>17431458
A very important fact about Mario is given there, I can't quite dredge up the wording and don't have the energy do look it up, but it is only a page at most, somewhere between his being sent out to get tokens and his encounter with Loach.

[Anonymous No.17431582]

>>17431560
Please don't come back.

[Anonymous No.17431588]

>>17431582
I know you love me and the attention I give you. It is ok if you can not say it, your intent is clear.

[Anonymous No.17431603]

>>17431522
For Belle Delphine !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRQZmaNz69s

[Anonymous No.17432850]

>>17429327
This.

[Anonymous No.17432880]

>>17420293
/thread

[Anonymous No.17433046]

For me it's war and peace
>It's another Tolstoy rant chapter

[Anonymous No.17434296]

>>17420293

[Anonymous No.17434303]

>>17434296
/thread

[Anonymous No.17435368]

>>17420313
TPBP.

[Anonymous No.17435421]

Not one of you has defined the term "abstract" yet, you're all arguing about what you think it means.
Before you have a clear definition of "abstract", you're all just going to argue semantics until the cows come home.

[Anonymous No.17435425]

>>17434296
To be fair, you have to have a pretty high IQ to understand The Learned Disguise.

[Anonymous No.17435617]

Anything by kant

[Anonymous No.17435621]

>>17420293
The Blind Owl
This Is Not a Book
Circe section of Ulysses
Sixty Stories