Infinite Jest discussion thread

[Anonymous No.18507966]

please discuss

[Anonymous No.18507968]

>>18507966
Nigger

[Blarty Hongo !H0lVGXJNm6 No.18507973]

>>18507966
The Ken Erdedy chapter was my favorite part toward the beginning of the book. I was a bit disappointed there wasn't more of him as the book progressed.

[Anonymous No.18507974]

who /Mario Incandenza/ here

[Anonymous No.18507977]

>>18507966
wtf why are the mods interacting with us?

[Anonymous No.18507978]

haha! It is not april fools but this mod seems to be playing jokes.

>>18507973
He is in many of the Ennet chapters, he getting a hug from Roy Tony is great.

[Anonymous No.18507983]

>>18507966
Why was this stickied?

[Anonymous No.18507987]

>>18507966
Should I actually read it? I've heard some people get filtered by it and I'm wondering why exactly that is.

[Anonymous No.18507989]

>>18507983
To discuss Infinite Jest

[Anonymous No.18507990]

>>18507966
fun mods!
>>18507987
it is long and kind of obtuse at some points

[Anonymous No.18507992]

>>18507966
The general ethos and vibe of that book was utterly destroyed by the 2010s which makes reading it comfy but also unsettling. Its concerns seem sort of quaint now

[Anonymous No.18507996]

Butterfly don't hide, now this place is blowing up because of us. Tell them all you love me :3

[Anonymous No.18508010]

***NEW SINCERITY ALERT***

IT'S HAPPENING

>ITS HAPPENING

IT'S HAPPENING

>ITS HAPPENING

IT'S HAPPENING

>ITS HAPPENING

IT'S HAPPENING

>IT'S HAPPENING

IT'S HAPPENING

[Anonymous No.18508012]

why is this trash pinned

[Blarty Hongo !H0lVGXJNm6 No.18508018]

>>18507978
>He is in many of the Ennet chapters, he getting a hug from Roy Tony is great.
Yeah -- I mean, he has some good moments, but at the point he was first introduced I hadn't yet caught on that IJ was the sort of book where a character might have an entire chapter focusing on them and then end up mostly sidelined for the rest of the book.

The thought of eating an entire can of chocolate icing with a wooden spoon is simultaneously nauseating and appealing.

The Randy Lenz chapters were also particularly satisfying, maybe just because of schadenfreude. You know eventually something bad is going to happen to him.

[Anonymous No.18508020]

>>18507996
based and that stupid namefag will not respond to this thread now

[Blarty Hongo !H0lVGXJNm6 No.18508027]

>>18507987
It's really not THAT bad. If you can make your way through something like Gravity's Rainbow, IJ should be no problem. There are also some really uproarious moments.

>>18508012
Fuck off.

>>18507992
>Its concerns seem sort of quaint now
This is true. It's sort of like the little iPad things in '60s Star Trek: surprisingly prescient in some ways, really naive in others.

[Anonymous No.18508029]

>>18508020
SHE NEEDS TO.

WE NEED A PUBLIC STATEMENT IN REGARDS TO THIS RELATIONSHIP, BUTTERFLY :3

[Anonymous No.18508032]

>>18507966
Why are they holding the book in custody?

[Anonymous No.18508045]

>>18508018
Yeah, Erdedy is primarily there to give context to what Hal is going through in the last section, mainly the first Erdedy chapter'. It is a shame the rest of his parts are not of the same depth as his first appearance, but he is good and a very important character.

[Anonymous No.18508056]

>>18508029
Didn't say she shouldn't, I think she needs to.
>>18508027
I'll buy it then, got a bit of a backlog due to only getting back into reading recently. Haven't read Gravity's Rainbow but it's on my buy list as well.

[Anonymous No.18508059]

You know, I don’t want to be offensive. But this thread is just awful. It seems ridiculous to have to say it. The /lit/ mod can’t think, he can’t post. There’s no discernible talent.

[Anonymous No.18508063]

Kill yourselves retarded tranny jannies with your subhuman humor

[Anonymous No.18508064]

POSTING
IN
A
DAMN
STICKY
HI MOM

[Anonymous No.18508067]

>>18508056
Thank you :3

[Anonymous No.18508069]

>>18508032
it's their job

[Anonymous No.18508074]

>>18508063
Come on, anon. Live a little.

[Anonymous No.18508086]

>>>/qa/4570548

[Anonymous No.18508087]

Cringe

[Blarty Hongo !H0lVGXJNm6 No.18508088]

>>18508056
>I'll buy it then, got a bit of a backlog due to only getting back into reading recently. Haven't read Gravity's Rainbow but it's on my buy list as well.
Good luck! I read it while living in a hut, so I didn't have much to distract me from it. Hopefully I won't find my attention span has completely atrophied when I decide to read it a second time.

>>18508059
lol

[Anonymous No.18508095]

I want to try to stay on topic but I haven't read IJ yet so here goes:
- Good Old Neon is great
- I had high hopes for E. Unibus Pluram but thought it was an absolute slog to get through

[Anonymous No.18508103]

>>18507966
Posting in a sticky!
also did Orin fuck his mom? what was being implied there...

[Anonymous No.18508116]

>>18508103
i dont know if that actually happens but i think they have incestuous feelings for each other. does anyone have the pg where they fuck?

[Anonymous No.18508135]

>>18508103
50/50. It can be looked at either way. Personally I think it fits better that it is not that Avril is roleplaying fucking her son but roleplaying as Joelle, the last woman she believe had who she loved. Remember that she was cheating on Himself out of spite, she believed the reason he would not have sex with her was because he was cheating on her.

[Anonymous No.18508136]

>>18507966
Is today's date a significant date in the book or something

[Anonymous No.18508151]

>>18508136
>>18507737

[Anonymous No.18508152]

>>18508136
Yeah a self-important newfag entered the tranny team of jannies and wants attention

[Anonymous No.18508171]

>>18508116
I forgot where it was but he implied that they found foot prints in steam in her car and Hal walks in on John Wayne fucking him mom dressed in football gear near the end.

[Anonymous No.18508175]

>>18508135
>Joelle, the last woman she believe had who she loved.
kek. I mean,
the woman who she believe Himself loved. She read into Himself giving up booze for Joelle, she did not know that he had really done it for Hal.

[Anonymous No.18508176]

>>18508152
based tranny janny

[Anonymous No.18508180]

>>18508069
what the frog doin?

[Anonymous No.18508188]

I haven't read Infinite Jest

[Anonymous No.18508201]

>>18507966
Mods are talking...

I'm scared...

[Anonymous No.18508202]

>>18507966
Is it just me or has the world over the last couple of years started to feel like a bizzaro mix of DFW, Kurt Vonnegut and JG Ballard? Everyone was so busy worrying about a 1984 or BNW-style dystopia that we forgot to read other potentially prophetic literature for clues. its no wonder we didn't see any of this coming.

[Anonymous No.18508205]

>>18508175
oh i never thought about this.

[Anonymous No.18508207]

>>18507966
Based Janny, I never read Jest.

[Anonymous No.18508209]

and then you delete my threads with questions about nietzsche

[Anonymous No.18508210]

Bruce Green is the best secondary character hands down

[Anonymous No.18508215]

>>18508202
South Park creators said something along the lines of "reality has become satire"

[Anonymous No.18508217]

>>18508209
lol pwnd

[Anonymous No.18508219]

Hey anon, I know you are in the thread. I don't have the secret key, but it's also not a difficult book. Also fuck you, the fact that it lacks a plot was on purpose. I love this book. I have a folder of forty images of david foster wallace.

[Anonymous No.18508221]

>>18508210
No the kid who threatens suicide if he doesnt get first place is the best

[Anonymous No.18508229]

>>18508219
>I have a folder of forty images of david foster wallace.
I do hope all forty are stills taken from the same (sweaty) interview

[Anonymous No.18508231]

did anyone else jack off to joi's film where the faggte gets raped and give aids to the dude??
we my fav part of the book

[Anonymous No.18508239]

>>18508202
Sort of. They all got some things right. Really surprised by how much Vonnegut got right in Player Piano.

>>18508205
It makes sense thematically and her fucking Orin is right in line with the red hearings in the book but you can not really prove it one way or the other as far as I can tell.

[Anonymous No.18508248]

>>18508229
Most.

[Anonymous No.18508249]

>>18508180
He didn't return his neighbor's HDMI cable.

[Anonymous No.18508250]

>>18507966
Can we have a /kino/ general here to discuss film and theatre?

[Anonymous No.18508257]

>>18507977
/lit/'s been chosen as today's mods' playground

[Anonymous No.18508260]

Yeah. This board is dead.

[Anonymous No.18508261]

>>18508250
believe it or not there's actual an entire board for this anon

[Anonymous No.18508262]

>>18508248
heres a rare one

[Anonymous No.18508263]

>>18508210
Gay. That is a Gay Man's name.

[Anonymous No.18508266]

>>18508210
I always found it interesting how Bruce Green is the pivot for the plot, his childhood trauma causes him to become hypnotized by Don Ho and not call out to Randy despite seeing what is going to happen.

[Anonymous No.18508269]

Quick! More David Foster Wallaces!

[Anonymous No.18508274]

>>18508248
You lack the young DFW, picture in Broom of the System.

[Anonymous No.18508278]

Where, online, do i buy used books with no shipping fee?

[Anonymous No.18508281]

>>18508248
dump them.

[Anonymous No.18508291]

>>18508262
Based. Thank you friend.
>How many times have I seen the interview? More times than I’d like to share. I once fell asleep to it every night for a week. It was just so calming and evoked a strange temporal comfort, of another time and place where I wasn’t so inundated with trivial information about the world or with ideological predispositions that made me care. You could tell he wanted to either not speak or talk on a point for hours, but the long form interview is the closest thing television got to real informational literature. It’s fantastic. The camera man is a jokester and the interviewer is callously attempting to be genuine only after he forces her to. Their play between preconstructed question and the accidental narrative arc he gives the whole thing is magical. In a twist of irony this interview has had more impact on me than most of his writing. I’ve read lots of his essays and enjoyed them. I’ve tried to read infinite jest twice, both times stopping somewhere between p100-200. His demeanor, his regretful and bashful intellect, it’s all things I wish I could see in myself. I want to be more secluded and smart, but I’m the loud, boisterous and obnoxious fellow at parties everyone either loves or despises. I’ve learned I don’t care much for that life but I’m too deep into my own life to really be able to rewrite my entire personality, and even if I could, wouldn’t it just be a false replication or simulation of who a person wanted to be. I think I’ll watch it to sleep tonight. These past few months have been rough, and DFW in that video is more a friend than any of my personal friendships and relationships have ever been. I hate, and I assume he would go, this idolizing, but I think he gets at it in the interview when he talks about how reading lets you get into the mind of a person more so than we ever will talking to them. I know this may be too sincere or honest for /lit/ and for the dfw meme, but life is just really hard these days. It’s nice to find nice things in the world.

[Anonymous No.18508297]

>>18508262
>you will eat the bugs

[Anonymous No.18508300]

>>18508250
There's a regular /film/ thread on /tv/ (unless it's died since I last checked it a few months ago). You could always discuss drama here, though, and consolidating all discussion of drama into a single thread might actually not be a terrible idea, since most drama threads (except schizo Shakespeare authorship stuff) don't get many responses.

[Anonymous No.18508310]

>>18508248
>mario1.jpg

[Anonymous No.18508317]

When's the abridged coming out?

[Anonymous No.18508319]

>>18508310
Yes.

[Anonymous No.18508328]

>>18508274
How young we talking?

[Anonymous No.18508329]

Idk if anyone else relates but there's just something about DFW's prose that makes me want to write. I just find it oddly inspiring and the style seems like something that I could imitate and use as a starting point to develop my own style. Does anyone else feel this way?

[Anonymous No.18508333]

[Anonymous No.18508332]

>>18507966
How did DFW know so many words?

[Anonymous No.18508338]

>>18508328
I was referring to the author pick in Broom of the System, he is looking quite cocky in it.

[Anonymous No.18508344]

[Anonymous No.18508347]

>>18508319
horrifying

[Anonymous No.18508355]

>>18508329
Dfw is bad so he inspires others who think they could top IJ (you might be able to)

[Anonymous No.18508364]

I have been on /lit/ for +6 years and have still not read Infinite Jest.

[Anonymous No.18508365]

>>18508329
I often do imitations of DFW to get started, when I know what I want to do but not how. It generally yields good results as my imitations of him are poor and end up fairly unique.

>>18508344
I emailed that guy about his chart to see what he thought about it after all these years and if he would change it if he could. He did not respond.

[Anonymous No.18508388]

>>18508344
am I the only one who didn't get that Hal was dosed with DMZ at the end?

[Anonymous No.18508391]

>>18508364
Based

[Anonymous No.18508393]

>>18508364
7-8 years here, I still haven't touched the meme trilogy at all

[Anonymous No.18508394]

>>18507966
So is the book actually funny or not?

[Anonymous No.18508399]

>>18508388
He didn't get dosed.

[Anonymous No.18508413]

>>18508399
wdym?

[Anonymous No.18508421]

stiggy
i own the book but have not read, when i do it will be to impress some woman hahahahahhahaha.

[Anonymous No.18508425]

>>18508413
The whole idea that Hal got dosed has nothing to back it up and requires you to ignore everything The Wraith tells Gately.

[Anonymous No.18508428]

>>18508388
it was on his toothbrush if that's what you mean.

[Anonymous No.18508439]

>>18508394
Some parts, generally unexpected and brief, make me laugh out loud
But mostly it’s kind of grim

[Anonymous No.18508446]

David Foster Wallace once wrote a piece about David Lynch. In the piece, he coined a new term: "Lynchian". Wallace described a Lynchian tone as "the unbelievably grotesque existing in a kind of union with the unbelievably banal."

He described a husband beating his 1950s housewife to death because she bought the wrong brand of peanut butter. "I told you to buy the JIF," he'd say as he's clobbering her to death. This, he said, would qualify as almost perfectly Lynchian.

I think "I Am Jazz" enters into Lynchian territory. The .webm above shows a simple domestic scene. The women look like average suburban moms. They're relaxing on the couch. One imagines they might be discussing casserole recipes when we cut to them. But it slowly dawns on us that in the living room, with placid expressions on their faces, they're talking about the woman's transvestite son's genitals.

Despite the obvious subtext and the producers' hope to normalize this horror, the average person is totally disgusted. Nevertheless, the viewer is fascinated. We're drawn further into this. The sheer naked horror of what they're saying, the blasé quality with which they're saying it, it creates this brutal paradox that almost rapes the viewer's basic sense of what is decent.

[Anonymous No.18508453]

>>18508446
Kino post and kino webm

[Anonymous No.18508456]

>>18508428
I mean I didn't get that he was on any drugs at the end. I might have considered it at the time if I could come up with any reason why r how he would have been dosed

[Anonymous No.18508476]

>>18508456
You came to the proper conclusion. The idea he got dosed is pure conjecture with no basis and makes no sense.

[Anonymous No.18508477]

>>18507973
Same.
That one, Madame Psychosis's initial appearance through the radio, and the chapter about Marlon Brando.
Seven years after reading it, those are the three chapters that I immediately think of when I remember Infinite Jest.
Other really good ones: the whole description of Incandenza's filmmaking career; that school essay; and that chapter where everyone in a family dies, which was the funniest in the book for me.

[Anonymous No.18508491]

>>18507992
That is true, but the goal of the book is not to portray society. Its goal is to be well-written.
Society is going to keep changing, regardless.

[Anonymous No.18508517]

>>18507973
>>18508477
two very fine and, dare I say, based opinions you have both expressed there gentlemen.
The scene where Madam Psychosis smokes crack on page 224 really stands out to me. I loved the really long sentence. I also loved the one line where DFW describes a large quater back as "a 180-kilo future pro who had no teeth and liked to color".

[Anonymous No.18508528]

>>18508477
"... but he'll never be great"
Kino

[Anonymous No.18508545]

Have you found your beach /lit/?

[Anonymous No.18508560]

I don't know anything about that book
Why I need to read it /lit/?

[Anonymous No.18508574]

>>18508545
>And when he came back to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand, and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was way out.

[Anonymous No.18508578]

>>18508229
Anyone else remember /lit/ circa 2014 when stills from that interview were constantly spammed here?

[Anonymous No.18508582]

wtf why is this post stickied???

[Anonymous No.18508590]

>>18508103
>>18508116
>>18508135
I think there are strong oedipal themes in the story relating to how we become infantilized by entertainment, even to the point of people shitting/pissing themselves like babies while watching the film. The rumors of literal grown toddlers roaming the earth, the scene where Hal goes to that self-help group where they act like babies, and the one film where Joelle is playing a mother apologizing to her infant for giving birth to him all sort of tie in. Really considering the book takes its name from Hamlet it shouldn't be surprising to find oedipal stuff since Freud latched onto Hamlet for that exact reason. I wonder if even calling her "the Moms" in plural was a nod to this, that she is a sort of stand-in for all moms, or something like that. Interesting that the Moms identity is rooted in her motherhood but Himself's identity is just a pronoun indicating maleness (and ownership, lol). The Moms loves "him," "his-self." And she responds to his rejection by turning to a fantasy with her own son? So is there an inverted sort of oedipal dynamic at play in the family as well as the larger typical oedipal dynamic? I'm spitballing here.
>>18508171
I'm pretty sure it was Pemulis that walked in on them, I think it was part of his attempt to blackmail them into letting him stay.

[Anonymous No.18508598]

>>18507966
is there a good cliff notes version of the book? i'm 200 pages in but haven't read it in 6 months. i don't want to reread those 200 pages but i definitely need a refresher before i just pick it back up dry

[Anonymous No.18508609]

>>18508545
I live on it. Great place but it has become poison to me and I can not wait to leave.

[Anonymous No.18508622]

>>18508598
You don't need a refresher, just power through and reread the first chapter after you finish.

[Anonymous No.18508633]

>>18508590
>I'm pretty sure it was Pemulis that walked in on them,
you are correct

[Anonymous No.18508644]

>>18508622
I wish someone had told me that. Re-reading the first chapter should be a must for anyone who reads it

[Anonymous No.18508652]

>>18508027
>>18508018
>>18507973
Why do you keep deleting threads about books that you don't like? Some authors trigger you?

By the way this thread is cringe.

[Anonymous No.18508661]

>>18508652
are you gonna post this is every thread?

[Anonymous No.18508667]

>>18508609
poison to you in what way?

[Anonymous No.18508688]

>>18508622
but i've already forgotten half the tennis kids and only vaguely remember the wheelchair assasins and cat burgular guy, i feel like i'm gonna miss out if i trudge on without remembering that stuff

[Anonymous No.18508711]

>>18508688
just read it again or listen to it through an audiobook for a week until you're caught up

[Anonymous No.18508726]

Is Infinite Summer still a thing

[Anonymous No.18508747]

>>18508393
>the meme trilogy
Call of the Crocodile
Behead All Satans
Harrassment Architecture?

[Anonymous No.18508783]

>>18507983
Probably notes, but theres a subtle irony in the fact that only the first two or three chapters look like they have stickies in them (excessively, at that), while the rest are probably unread

[Anonymous No.18508790]

>>18508590
Also, the fact that her son is being instantiated through John Wayne. John Wayne is always introduced as John N.R. Wayne for "No Relation" and I think this is also a joke of its own. John N.R. Wayne is Canadian but shares his name with an American actor famous for roles in films as the strong silent protagonist. John Wayne was idolized for this role which was seen to somehow encapsulate the American masculine ideal. John N.R Wayne is also a strong silent type that is extremely competent at one thing, namely tennis. In a typical book about a competitive tennis school John N.R. Wayne might have been the main character. But in IJ he's standing in for this masculine sort of ideal as its been exported from the US through media (to Canada) and then mutated and injected back in. I don't doubt this is related somehow to the fact that the Moms is also Canadian. There's some sort of incestuous relationship between images and ideas which were once fiction being absorbed into the cultures to which those ideas were foreign and then being raised up and reabsorbed into the original context. The fact that he's John "No Relation" Wayne is funny because he's the product of such a strange chain of transmission through media that the source material (John Wayne) is no longer recognizable. A game of telephone, a memetic transmission which results in the final product bearing no relation to its original "reality." Except the original reality is fiction and the new reality is an embodiment of that fiction--who is then himself injected into another fictional story (the incest role-play) which is an embodiment of another story that may or may not participate in reality (the actual incest between the Moms and Orin, depending on whether or not it happened).

[Anonymous No.18508797]

>>18508590
The problem with that is how does it tie into the theme? Society tends to never grow up because they are taught to chase rewards without care to what they are, just get that reward so you can feel good. Everyone's problem in IJ could be solved by being honest with themselves and those around them, even if it is unpleasant in the short term, but they were raised to avoid anything unpleasant, they were never taught that short term unpleasantness can lead to a longer and more profound reward, happiness. The reward seeking we teach our young become habits which are difficult to maintain and destructive.

Everyone in IJ is just seeking way to feel good NOW or dealing with the consequences of a life with that mentality. Everyone but Mario, he is the only character who is honest and he is honest as a rule, he can not even conceive of anything else, as he put it, he is the type who would buy land.

>I'm pretty sure it was Pemulis that walked in on them, I think it was part of his attempt to blackmail them into letting him stay.
And most likely Avril took the drug shoe to deal with his blackmail. We find out in the early chapters that she knows of his chemical recreation and this explains why he needs to talk to Hal so badly, he wants him to talk to Avril, and his disappearance and weird behavior.

>>18508667
It is just a reminder of what I had. I can not move on in life, the people here only see me as I was and anchor me, will not let me move on because to do so would require them to acknowledge their role in it all. I fought it for far too long, it is time to move on.

[Anonymous No.18508802]

I still haven't touched Infinite Jest and at this point I'm almost afraid to, for every person that finishes it there's at least one other person that gets filtered by it.

[Anonymous No.18508812]

>>18508790
Perhaps for the Moms to relate to her son it was easier to do so through a sort of media-mediation, projecting the image of a strong American character on her son and relating to that rather than to his actual self.

[Anonymous No.18508860]

>>18508797
That's the main thrust of the Oedipal complex no? That we would rather remain in mother's comfort than to experience the discomfort of maturing and becoming independent. Maturing is ultimately necessarily for long term happiness and success because the alternative is to remain trapped. Not literally, but through projecting the mother-son dynamic with every woman you try to have a relationship with.

Basically this,
https://youtu.be/FULyk1xP7HM

[Anonymous No.18508868]

>>18508860
But it is not that we want to remain, we are not taught there is anything else.

[Anonymous No.18508889]

>>18508868
Should also mention, this is the explanation of Infinite Jest V/VI, the guilt that the mother feels and how she kills her child.

[Anonymous No.18508920]

>>18508388
>>18508399
>>18508428
>>18508413
>>18508425
>>18508456
>>18508476
Actually the Wraith switched Hal's toothbrush with the once that Gately stuck up his ass when he faked that robbery. That's why Hal had to find Gately, so he could eat his ass because the Wraith got him hooked.

[Anonymous No.18508934]

>>18508868
>>18508889
Fair distinction but I'd still say it's Oedipal, whether we choose it or never knew there was a choice.

[Anonymous No.18508950]

>>18508202
>Kurt Vonnegut and JG Ballard
Are any of their books good?

[Anonymous No.18508954]

>Infinite Jest sticky
>not even 130 posts
/lit/ is dead

[Anonymous No.18508955]

Have someone read that book on Spanish version? It's that good as English version?
Thanks guys.

[Anonymous No.18508973]

>>18507966
Ahem...
Fuck jannies and fuck your stickied thread. Your never-ending dilation is the only infinite jest I know of.

[Anonymous No.18508992]

*upboats bread*

[Anonymous No.18509033]

>>18508954
No kidding. Only seen one high quality infinite jest discussion thread since I finished reading it.

[Anonymous No.18509034]

cool, American Psycho tomorrow?

[Blarty Hongo !H0lVGXJNm6 No.18509057]

>>18508652
>Why do you keep deleting threads about books that you don't like?
I'm not a mod. I can't delete threads.

[Anonymous No.18509077]

>>18509057
In the mod sponsored thread I suggested every week gets a different topic/author/book pinned for the week. Seems like it would be good for this place but the mod had left so who knows if anyone in power noticed.

[Anonymous No.18509083]

>>18509077
Tagged wrong person. Oh well.

[Anonymous No.18509096]

>>18509057
Is there anyone here who can tell me what a Blarty Hongo is?

[Anonymous No.18509110]

>>18508364
Me too brother

[Anonymous No.18509109]

>>18509096
Barty Hongo, (noun) A tripfag.

[Anonymous No.18509126]

>>18509110
It’s fun. I’m impressed it’s the book /lit/ chose as the meme. It really shows what old 4chan culture was like. The post modernity /pol/ shit would never let this book fly as its flagship. Addiction, weakness, an hero authors, length, complexity, sports, drugs. Just strange. I love it. But it’s strange.

[Anonymous No.18509132]

>>18509077
You can contact the mods at #4chan @ Rizon. https://www.rizon.net/

[Anonymous No.18509164]

Does this book have something to do with father and son tennis players?

I think i had a priest reference it in one of his sermons lmao
He didn't name the book tho

[Anonymous No.18509165]

Those crippled commies did those vid store guys dirty man...

[Anonymous No.18509180]

>>18509165
They aren’t commies you idiot. But you’re right.
>>18509164
There’s some parts about family and it’s relationship to tennis. There’s one part that’s a 10 page long monologue of a dad to a son about tennis. Pretty funny stuff.

[Anonymous No.18509197]

>>18507966
Posting in the Infinite Jest sticky
I'm not discussing shit though

[Anonymous No.18509201]

>>18509197
Why not?

[Anonymous No.18509206]

>>18509126
We didn't choose it, just one of the three books that always had very active threads back in the old days, back when /lit/ was quite slow and there was almost always a thread on the first page for each in the trilogy. It most likely came about because they offered a great deal of room for interpretation which gave great discussions, we were mostly a fiction board back then who did not care about getting it "right," we wanted discussion, not citation, muddling through and figuring it all out as a group was the fun of it. Now this board is obsessed, all that matters is citation and consensus, largely ruined the Ulysses threads and they tend to just be anons listing off reading guides and the like, try and discuss and you get citation.

[Anonymous No.18509314]

What killed irony? You have noticed its recent decline too, right? Was it Trump?

[Anonymous No.18509325]

>>18509206
There are right answers anon.

[Anonymous No.18509328]

sneed

[Anonymous No.18509329]

Has anyone read the footnote that lists all of Himself’s films? I always skip it.

[Anonymous No.18509353]

>>18509329
I read it. I was memed into believing that if I didn't read every word of every footnotes then I wouldn't understand the rest of the book

[Anonymous No.18509369]

>>18509325
To some things, yes. But notice that I put "right" in quotes and said we had our fun in figuring it out together. We still strived for those correct answers but also acknowledged the value of interpretation and that fiction authors are often intentionally ambiguous to allow more room for interpretation. No one enjoys citation wars and most people who engage in them are incapable of doing anything but cite.

[Anonymous No.18509382]

>>18509206
/lit/ was always bad except that it actually did used to be a lot better, I miss the actual fiction discussion. 2016 ruined everything.

[Anonymous No.18509387]

>>18509033
>>18508954
This is a good sign.
That there is a thread at all is a bad sign.

[Anonymous No.18509404]

>>18509329
Yes that is one of the best parts. Sets up themes, twists, and jokes throughout the whole novel

[Anonymous No.18509430]

>>18507966
why

[Anonymous No.18509435]

I loved the themes in IJ but I do not think the 'quirkiness' holds up at all. I just cringe when I read all the puns and randumb details and the cross dressing characters who have missing legs etc. I know there is a 'meaning' to much of it. But much of it just rubs me the wrong way. I much preferred the parts that are just straight up sincere, so mostly the stuff with Gately.

[Anonymous No.18509442]

s A g E

[Blarty Hongo !H0lVGXJNm6 No.18509446]

What are some noteworthy Shakespeare allusions in IJ?

We have the title, of course. We have (prince) Hal, who plays tennis. We have a possible ghost haunting Enfield Academy, which ties in with Hamlet (or half a dozen other Shakespeare plays). What else is there?

[Anonymous No.18509454]

>>18509382
We were still decent in 2016, 2012 was probably the beginning when it was being reported that 4chan was a conservative haven and things just slowly got worse over the next 8 years, than corona hit and things really took a turn. You can pretty much chart 4chans fall through the news reports on it being such and such and the shut down of various other sites, with each we got a burst of new users who refused to leave. On the positive side, things seems to be slowly improving, I have made more posts in the past month than I have in the previous 6 and even gotten into some good discussions and seen some good discussions of the sort which I have not had here in years.

>>18509435
Gately lies to himself and everyone until the end where he is finally honest with himself as a means to distract himself from the pain. The reason he ended up in the hospital is ultimately because he lied to himself and ignored those things he needed to deal with (by his AA philosophy), he did never admitted that he chose getting high over saving his friend and that is what allowed the old Gately to come out when the canuks showed up.

[Anonymous No.18509455]

>>18507966
Mods doing things to my favorite board.

[Blarty Hongo !H0lVGXJNm6 No.18509465]

>>18509435
The one element in IJ that I believe is now worthless is the deranged entertainer elected as president of the U.S. Trump has, at least for now, rendered all "Ha ha wouldn't it be crazy if a professional wrestler/a disembodied head/some random actor was president??" jokes obsolete.

[Anonymous No.18509467]

>>18509446
unfaithful wife cheating with her dead husband's brother

[Blarty Hongo !H0lVGXJNm6 No.18509473]

>>18509467
Are there strong allusions to anything Shakespearean other than Hamlet and the Henriad? I was more or less Shakespeare-illiterate when I last read IJ, so I probably missed all of them, if they were there.

[Anonymous No.18509489]

>>18509465
We had entertainers in office before, many, including president. Ronald was an actor before he was President.

[Anonymous No.18509534]

For me, it’s Mike Pemulis

[Anonymous No.18509549]

>>18509454
The world ended in 2012

[Blarty Hongo !H0lVGXJNm6 No.18509555]

>>18509489
Yes, but the intended humor/provocation of Johnny Gentle, and other such fictional presidents, is the notion of, "Hah, wouldn't it be just CRAZY if [visibly bizarre/unsuitable person] were president?" It's not merely the fact that Johnny Gentle is an entertainer; it's also that he's the sort of person who, one assumes, could never be president.

[Anonymous No.18509584]

>>18509034
Yes

[Anonymous No.18509585]

>>18509555
>>18509489

Well you're both right in the sense that Johnny Gentle is just an extrapolation of Reagan. It's just that Trump was an even bigger leap than DFW or others would have predicted.

[Anonymous No.18509587]

Maybe it's just me but I never really found the book dull in the beginning. It's slow but I don't think by any means it's unreadable at the start as some people say

[Anonymous No.18509596]

>>18507966
uh yeah this book sucks

[Anonymous No.18509599]

>>18509555
He didn’t mean it as a complete joke, he was taking a grim look at how much entertainment affects our lives. If anything I find Johnny Gentle to be more poignant than funny, because of trump.

[Anonymous No.18509610]

>>18507966
Laughed so hard at the thought of the old AA guy slowing down his Le Sabre, leaning out the window and shouting "Live it up!" at the fucked homeless guy standing on the sidewalk.

[Anonymous No.18509624]

I'm drinking mountain dew right now.

[Anonymous No.18509626]

>>18509549
It’s weird how many bad things happened that year

[Anonymous No.18509634]

I just googled it and read the wiki and I don't think I would like it.
Do you all have any suggestions for books about cats?

[Anonymous No.18509637]

>>18509465
Trump was a businessman though primarily not an actor.

[Anonymous No.18509645]

>>18508747

[Blarty Hongo !H0lVGXJNm6 No.18509657]

>>18509637
Yes.

[Anonymous No.18509660]

>>18509637
A businessman largely famous for being on TV. not technically an actor sure but you're splitting hairs at that point.

And I know he was incredibly famous before the Apprentice but the Apprentice gave him a different *type* of fame.

[Anonymous No.18509668]

>>18509634
>Do you all have any suggestions for books about cats?

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - T.S. Eliot

[Anonymous No.18509679]

>>18509555
The point was that these jokes are not going to go away, they happen everytime someone crosses over from entertainment to politics (entertainment). Only thing that changed is that anytime someone does it on the right there will be a Trump aspect thrown in.

But the point DFW was making i that politics is not different than entertainment from the perspective of how most people consume it and how they use it to replace something missing in their life. The trend of adding entertainment value is ancient and has been on a steady increase in the US for a good century.

[Anonymous No.18509680]

>>18509660
It's not splitting hairs imo because being a businessman is somewhat comparable to running a country while being an actor is really not. Of course the irony here is that the president doesn't actually run the country and is in fact an actor, making this whole subject rather ridiculous

[Anonymous No.18509686]

>the video of the drunk guy yelling DAVID FOSTER WALLACE out of hist car at innocent bystanders has been scrubbed from youtube

[Anonymous No.18509688]

>>18507966
Did you know that Wallace voted for Reagan? Based or cringe?

[Anonymous No.18509696]

>>18509688
Neither, it was just how he voted.

[Anonymous No.18509843]

I saw someone mention there's a DFW biography yesterday. Is it good?

Even if it's not good I want to read it honestly

[Anonymous No.18509863]

Re-reading IJ is a pleasure.

[Anonymous No.18509882]

https://voca.ro/11gqykXWUKhY
<333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333

[Anonymous No.18509886]

>>18509882
AWE

[Anonymous No.18509917]

>>18509882
faggot

[Anonymous No.18509982]

>>18507966
Can we have an Underworld sticky the next week?

[Anonymous No.18510006]

>>18509555
>it's also that he's the sort of person who, one assumes, could never be president.

i.e Ronald Reagan

[Anonymous No.18510027]

THEY LET THE THREAD LOOSE

[Anonymous No.18510032]

>The Holy Trinity of Infinite Jest characters
Eric Clipperton
Joelle the PGOAT
Marathe

>god tier, aka characters who were really close to making the Holy Trinity
Michael Pemulis
Himself
Orin Incandenza
Lyle

>good tier, aka characters who were interesting enough but something held them back, maybe it was the lack of screen time
The Moms
Don Gately
Mario - low because despite all the weirdness about him, he himself is not an interesting character BUT how characters interact with him is what makes him interesting
Hal - basically an autistic robot
Kate Gompert
Most of ETA

>low tier, pretty much forgettable characters or characters who were close to being in shit tier
Hugh Steeply - Like Mario, what's interesting about him is his interactions with other characters, not his character itself, though he comes pretty close to being in good tier
C.T.
Most of Ennet House

>shit tier, aka their very presence is the reason for some of the worst chapters in the book
James Sr.
Poor Tony
Wardine be cry

>randy lenz tier
randy lenz (obviously)

[Anonymous No.18510035]

>>18510027
RRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[Anonymous No.18510039]

>>18509634
>Do you all have any suggestions for books about cats?
Kafka on the Shore :^)

[Anonymous No.18510050]

>>18509467
>unfaithful wife cheating with her dead husband's brother

Is this suppose to be Avril you're describing? She fucks her own brother, not JOI's.

[Anonymous No.18510076]

>>18510050
Half brother maybe, probably step brother and we get very conflicting information on if they are fucking. 50/50 like most of these types of thing in IJ.

[Anonymous No.18510110]

I was away from /lit/ for a while but I recently picked up IJ and finished about 80% of it and came back to find a thread just like this one. You do get a bit of incite of the mentality of older school 4chan by reading IJ. I’m sure a lot of us could relate to smoking weed, watching tv and jerking off and a major addiction/ vice. But 4chan has become too degen to the point where is eating itself. I was really disappointed to see mein kamf as the top book of 2020. Maybe we can recover.

[Anonymous No.18510120]

>>18510110
4chan is objectively less degenerate than it was in the 00s. There was tons of very sketchy stuff here.

[Anonymous No.18510125]

Mods get bored today?

[Anonymous No.18510139]

mod deleted my post he's on a power trip

[Anonymous No.18510182]

>>18509668
>>18510039
Thank you....
I will read them both...

[Anonymous No.18510187]

>>18510182
See also The Master and Margarita, the cat is anthropomorphic though

[Anonymous No.18510202]

>>18510032
>Marathe as top 3 instead of Gately

t. canadian separatist

>>18510110
doubt it was less degenerate, maybe more sincere

[Anonymous No.18510205]

>>18510187

I don't mind.
I enjoyed "The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr." thanks....

[Anonymous No.18510217]

>>18510120
Yeah. This site has its reputation for a reason. 2006 era.
I didn't come here back then but when I did start to visit rather recently I was surprised to find that it was not as much of a vile cesspit as I had anticipated. Like the 'Offended?' page on Encyclopedia Dramatica.

[Anonymous No.18510238]

>>18510217
Honestly it's quite tame now apart from a handful of very angry people on pol. It's the rest of the internet that is getting sanitized so people still think it's bad here, also with it being a quasi hate crime to say faggot or whatever these days.

[Anonymous No.18510262]

>>18510217
I was here around 2006, it was never that bad, though there were less actual retards on here back then.

[Anonymous No.18510271]

>>18510262
You're forgetting the gore and seepy spam, very rare you see that now

[Anonymous No.18510352]

I'm on page 405 of my first read through, the Eschaton clusterfuck and the AA meeting with the crackhead mom with the dead baby are my favorite sections so far. I've been doing ~100 pages per day and I think my pace is only going to speed up because its pretty engaging. I wish Quebec actually had based cunts living there in real life though.

[Anonymous No.18510424]

>>18510110
>mein kamf
It was just ballot stuffing and not many anons actually voted.

[Anonymous No.18510437]

>>18510424
A lot of people voted for Mein Kampf as a spite vote because a seething tranny brought it up as a possibility in the OP and willed it into existence.

[Anonymous No.18510452]

>>18510006
at least Reagan was head of the SGA but yeah, in general it was seen as bizarre at the time

[Anonymous No.18510461]

Some Jannies are newfags. Like it could get any worse

[Anonymous No.18510487]

>>18510271
But then even reddit used to have gore pages and borderline cp. That shit was never on /lit/ because this board was added much later. Reddit has really undergone the biggest shift of any of the websites. Also isn't insane that shitredditsays was a laughing stock when it first cropped up and now that type of rhetoric is standard? I can't remember if Nagle mentions SRS in Kill All Normies, but that was an important turning point for the entire Internet in my books.

[Anonymous No.18510567]

This thread isn't stickied anymore?

[Anonymous No.18510603]

>>18510567
You're quick.

[Anonymous No.18510613]

>>18510487
You could just tell starting around 2012 or 2013 that that stuff was looming

[Anonymous No.18510728]

>>18508476
are you kidding me? how else do you explain that people were saying he was making faces and the whole first chapter where he is found to be acting like a madman on drugs?

[Anonymous No.18510759]

>>18509587
It was slow and the very start. I didnt like the beginning at all. However, once I got to the chapter about the guy waiting for weed I was hooked. That had been the funniest thing I've read in a while.

[Anonymous No.18510765]

>>18510032
Gately would be in the top three. He was most of the focus of the story.

[Blarty Hongo !H0lVGXJNm6 No.18510801]

>>18510759
>once I got to the chapter about the guy waiting for weed I was hooked
Same.

>>18510567
I know, I know. I was enjoying having an actual conversation about a book on here for once, but I guess the rogue mod relented.

[Anonymous No.18510816]

>>18509353
Why would that be a meme? I don't understand why people consider the endnotes as separate from the book itself. They are literally the book. Would you skip a paragraph in a normal book? Why are endnotes any different?

[Anonymous No.18510821]

>>18510262
fewer* actual retards

[Anonymous No.18510824]

>>18510487
>But then even reddit used to have gore pages
I remember r/nomorals. That was insane for me at the at the time.

[Anonymous No.18510825]

>>18510032
t. skipped endnotes
Holy Trinty is:
>JOI
>Pemulis
>Lenz

And how could you not enjoy James Sr.'s drunken rants to Himself from the perspective of his (Himself's) autist physics brain? Worst chapter in the book? You have no taste!

[Anonymous No.18510832]

>>18510728
What would happen if a background character on Cheers were to do something which made them the focus? Same thing that happens to Hal. The Wraith pretty much spells out what happens to Hal. Now give one piece of evidence re: Hal getting dosed which is not purely conjecture based.

[Anonymous No.18510942]

>>18510832
In the very first chapter. He thinks hes communicating normally but he is actually making no sense at all as evidence by what the people say. He seemed like a lunatic, i.e on drugs. That would explain that part completely.
I remember what part youre talking about. Youre saying that because Hal was acting different and talking more or something that people were just saying that it seemed like he was going from smiling to crying just to put him down and out of attention? I didnt think he was making faces either because he said he felt his face but it makes sense that wouldnt realize it if he was tripping. Then they bring up the whole part about Pemulis getting drugs and it just goes nowhere? Pemulis had something really important to say to him, maybe it was to say that Hal was tripping.

[Anonymous No.18510953]

>>18510942
He starts having face issues on interdependance day, before the DMZ goes missing and they slowly builds from there. Pemulis was explained earlier in the thread I believe and he could not know Hal had been dosed if he had, Pemulis had no idea what happened to the drug shoe.

[Anonymous No.18511042]

>finished infinite jest about five months ago
>don't remember a single thing about Ken Erdedy outside his introduction

[Anonymous No.18511065]

>>18511042
Also my favorite part of the book was Himself and his father squeezing that bed through the hallway, the whole thing an anxiety-ridden scene, so when Himself gets back to his room, alone, he defuses all that tension by focusing on a doorknob, or something like that. Really got me.

[Anonymous No.18511971]

I'm scared of starting IJ.
Maybe next summer.

[Anonymous No.18512154]

>>18508239
>Really surprised by how much Vonnegut got right in Player Piano
This might seem a bit of a trivial connection but the pentagon alien disclosures makes me think of Slaughterhouse 5. The way the UAPs move, its almost like they're slipping into our reality from the 4th dimension, which is what it would look like for a three-dimensional object to pass through a two-dimensional plane. What if a flying saucer is just how we perceive a four-dimensional "sphere" in three-dimensional space? What if by viewing us in this way, they're observing us like "bugs in amber"? Maybe in order to understand us better they have to see us in individual slices of spacetime.

>"...Tralfamadorians don’t see human beings as two-legged creatures, either. They see them as great millepedes—“with babies’ legs at one end and old people’s legs at the other"

It could also just be a psyop, of course. But its interesting to think about.

>>18508950
I really like Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat's Cradle from Vonnegut. JG Ballard is one of my favourite writers– I think he comes the closest to predicting our present reality better than anyone else. All of his biggest titles– The Atrocity Exhibition, Crash, The Crystal Word, Empire of the Sun, etc.– are all superb in their own right, but if you want to read something that is REALLY emblematic of our current way of life, try his short story The Intensive Care Unit

[Anonymous No.18513120]

the best chapter is the Interdependence Day AA meeting when Joelle rips the rug from under Gately, so fucking good

[Anonymous No.18513131]

>>18513120
i dont really remember what happens during that chapter, but the best chapter is eschaton

[Anonymous No.18513145]

>>18513131
What about the puppet history show? I liked that bit too. But Eschaton was the part that really hooked me, for sure.

[Anonymous No.18513602]

>>18513131
its the chapter right after Eschaton, Gately takes Joelle to her first AA meeting and it intimately details the system and culture of AA only for Joelle to deconstruct the etymology of a misused word and unravel the entire ideology of AA thats come to give comfort and inspire Gately, its the chapter I remember being most enthralled by and seems kinda like a thesis chapter for the whole book, being exactly at the center as well it's like IJ's soul

[Anonymous No.18513726]

>>18510801
Shut up tripfag. There's nothing stopping you from having a normal discussion about a book through conventional posts. Jannies shouldn't get to sticky their own threads to talk about their flavor of the month book.

[Anonymous No.18513757]

>>18507966
I like the chapter where the guy starts eating broccoli and the broccoli takes over his mind and starts shitting all over his face and it goes on forever and then Obama looks into the camera and says "Oh boy this jest sure is infinite huh?"

[Anonymous No.18513775]

>>18513757
reported

[Anonymous No.18513958]

Will he ever run out of jest?

[Anonymous No.18514058]

>>18513958
>t. finite

[Anonymous No.18514185]

>>18513958
Because this was a stickied thread, is it going to die at 317 posts or 999?

[Anonymous No.18514340]

>>18507966
Hands down favourite part was the “You learn that…” I was in love after reading that

[Anonymous No.18514360]

>>18514340
?

[Anonymous No.18514424]

>>18514360
Things you learn in Boston AA
https://howling--fantods.tumblr.com/post/172459342889/things-you-learn-in-boston-aa-excerpt-from

“ That the little-mentioned paradox of Substance addiction is: that once you are sufficiently enslaved by a Substance to need to quit the Substance in order to save your life, the enslaving Substance has become so deeply important to you that you will all but lose your mind when it is taken away from you. Or that sometime after your Substance of choice has just been taken away from you in order to save your life, as you hunker down for the required AM and PM prayers, you will find yourself beginning to pray to be allowed to literally lose your mind, to be able to wrap up your mind in an old newspaper or something and leave it in an alley to shift for itself, without you.”

The entire monologue is brilliant half deadly serious half humour.

[Anonymous No.18514458]

>>18514424
>Things you learn in Boston AA
Oh yeah. Three words were just not enough to make the connection.

[Anonymous No.18514530]

>>18514458
Yeah sorry about that, I just finished it for the first time. I now see why it takes so long to “finish” it’s not that it’s terribly arduous but there is so much shit you miss. I feel like reading it again just to pick up the little things. When I just re-read the first chapter “call it something I ate” boom.

[Anonymous No.18515808]

>>18514424
you learn that blacks and hispanics are more racist than whites.

[Anonymous No.18516545]

Youre supposed to put this book on display not read it you brainlets

[Anonymous No.18517370]

>>18511065
elaborate pls. never understood this scene. FUCK YOU I UNDERSTOOD IT BUT I WANT to hear what you think... reminds me of my childhood a lot.

[Anonymous No.18518017]

>>18517370
Review The Wraith section, he explains his childhood there and both young Jim chapters should make sense. Then compare them to Hal combined with what The Wraith says about his son and the book should start making sense. I think there was some discussion on this earlier in the thread.

[Anonymous No.18518115]

>>18511971
You have to stick to a schedule if you ever want to actually finish it. I set myself a target of 50 pages a day when during a summer holiday break from uni and got it finished in roughly a month. Threw the thing across the room and into the bin the moment I turned the final page.