/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19226335]

What was your favorite tangent /lit/?
My all time favorite is the tennis champion who doesn’t actually play, he just brings a gun to every match, holds it to his head, and says “let me win this game or I’ll commit suicide.”
A close second is the essay on the history of video calling, explaining why it was replaced by the telephone

[Anonymous No.19226340]

>>19226335
I'm glad to see daveposting making a comeback.

[Anonymous No.19226391]

>>19226335
Clipperton is my favorite too but I also enjoyed the episode of the trainer whose brother is about to drop out of the priesthood (it’s towards the end, he winds up becoming a beggar just asking people to reach out and touch him)

[Anonymous No.19226480]

>>19226335
I like the section describing the AA meetings. Not particularly funny or anything, but I loved it.

[Anonymous No.19226612]

SACPOP

[Anonymous No.19226625]

M.A.S.H addiction.

[Anonymous No.19226642]

>>19226335
Why do you enjoy tangents within a book rife with sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia, anon?

[Anonymous No.19226728]

>>19226335
I like the section about the young gangsters written in barely readable ebonics myself.

[Anonymous No.19226802]

>>19226642
I wonder how much often these people fantasize about working for the Stasi.

[Anonymous No.19226805]

>>19226625
I almost forgot about that one, I died reading that one.

One of my favourites was “What you learn in Boston AA” it was perfect mix of humour and seriousness.

[Anonymous No.19226973]

>>19226340

I miss 2012 /lit/.

Favorite tangent was the filmography of Incandenza prior to Infinite Jest.

Favorite scene was the eschaton game
https://youtu.be/xJpfK7l404I

[Anonymous No.19226991]

>>19226973
I first found /lit/ around then and I assumed Infinite Jest was a recent book because of all the threads.

[Anonymous No.19227750]

>>19226335
the hamsters

[Anonymous No.19227763]

>>19226335
that tennis player is literally me, but with sex

[Anonymous No.19227783]

>>19226335
Loach. Brando.

[Anonymous No.19227802]

>>19226335
MARLON BRANDO, JIM

[Anonymous No.19227863]

I'm fond of Marlon Bain's letter to Steeply in the endnotes

[Anonymous No.19228573]

>>19226335
Gately beating the shit out of the mexicans and the life history the dwarf dude tells him in the hospital. And the family that dies member by member.

[Anonymous No.19229668]

>>19227863
Me too, combined with the chapter that sent you there. Steeply visiting the school. That was some of the heaviest stuff in the book for me.

[Anonymous No.19229677]

>>19228573
>Mexicans
You mean the quebecois lol? Or am I forgetting a separate event

[Anonymous No.19230188]

>>19226335
Memory is a bit fuzzy but I always like Lenz being obsessed with direction and time. Also, the meeting Hal went to with the guys acting like babies was hilarious.
For me, top three characters are:
1. Mario
2. Randy Lenz
3. the retired M.P.

[Anonymous No.19230203]

>>19226335
the father putting a rubber Raquelle Welch face mask on his retarded daughter and raping her at night

[Anonymous No.19230460]

>>19226335
I've read this only 6 years ago and I've already forgotten most of it.
For some reason the most vivid image was Pemulis's backstory as a kid who used to play against the wall in some urban hellhole, got accepted into the tennis school and is about to be expelled into the shithole he came from because he doesn't play well enough.

Oh and the suave POTUS flinging his microphone around.

I think there was someone with a phobia around exploding cans of beans, but someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[Anonymous No.19230475]

>>19230460
>I think there was someone with a phobia around exploding cans of beans, but someone correct me if I'm wrong.
It was a phobia of products with " 'n" in the name and things Polynesian/Hawaiian due to an unfortunate can of macadamia nuts which contained a spring loaded snake that killed his mother.

[Anonymous No.19230500]

>>19226335
been a few years since i read, but i loved the arc where the coke guy starts killing cats.

[Anonymous No.19230502]

>>19230475
Oh yeah, you're right. Was that Gately? Or someone else? I kind of remember the flashback scene with the Hawaiian music wafting in from the distance while he prepares to do some unspeakable act.

[Anonymous No.19230513]

The scene where Hal's father is telling him the story of that tennis game where his father (Hal's granpa) caused him to trip and destroy his knees. The description of his anxiety to disappoint his father and of his certainty that his father will consider him a failure as he feels the muscles and the tendons in his knees get destroyed.

[Anonymous No.19230518]

>>19230502
Green, husband of Mildred Bonk, one time roommate of the snake keeping, chicken fucking, hair lipped pot dealer that is a fairly central character despite having not direct role in the novel, the one who witnesses Lenz killing the dog. His aversion to all things Polynesian/Hawaiian caused him to zone out to Don Ho playing from the JBLs speakers pointed out the window which sent him into a trance and kept him from calling out to Lenz. His personal childhood trauma is the pivot point of the novel

[Anonymous No.19230523]

>>19226335
The game of Eschaton
The AA story about the foster home with a daughter in a coma (I wouldn't say I liked it - but I was memorable)
Himself's film where it just plays back to the audience and his film of the two petrifying monsters fighting (not the gay porn one though)
The nightmare about old Oriental woman with shopping bags

[Anonymous No.19230539]

>>19230523
>Himself's film where it just plays back to the audience
Some friends and I actually did that back in the early 90s. Sometimes I like to think we inspired DFW but there is no chance of that and I doubt it had not been done before, we probably were copying someone who I have forgotten all about. Still fun to think about.

Actually we were not copying someone else, we were just taking Warhol's living portraits to the next logical step and Warhol would have done it if the technology had been available to him at that time. Someone else who was actually known still probably did it before we did.