Infinite Jest By David Foster Wallace

[Anonymous No.19595600]

I found out about this author and book from /lit/. After doing some background research and watching some of his interviews decided to give it a shot.

I'm only a few chapters in and so far not too impressed. My main issue is that he seems to be overly redundant and makes the story move painfully slow. Is it worth pushing through to the end?

Or am I doomed to be disappointed by every book I read now that I've read all of Dostoevsky's work?

[Anonymous No.19595605]

>>19595600
>few chapters in
>don't like it
Drop it.

Like life, if it's not enjoyable, it's probably not going to be later on, despite what people say, so may as well check out early.

[Anonymous No.19595611]

>>19595600
You probably will not like it if you can not see why he is being redundant. The narrative does pick up as you progress through the novel, so you have that to look forward to if you do decide to continue on.

[Anonymous No.19595622]

>>19595611
what am i missing? is it something to do with the main character being an OCD autist?

[Anonymous No.19595632]

>>19595622
Empathy.

[Anonymous No.19595650]

>>19595632
thank you for the detailed and elaborate explanation. it's much clearer now. looking forward to finishing the book!

[Anonymous No.19595699]

>>19595650
A long detailed answer was not needed here, the redundancy is there for empathy.

[Anonymous No.19595914]

>>19595600
I'd recommend dropping it now and picking up again next year during Infinite Summer. not sure if this board still schedules readings like that but I love the book club feel of those weekly threads.

[Anonymous No.19596164]

>>19595611
For me, the narrative picked up once the Canadians were introduced.

[Anonymous No.19596181]

I have been reading it for around 150 pages. It's been a nice read so far what am I in for?

[Anonymous No.19596193]

>>19596181
>Time spread him and entered him roughly and had its way and left him again in the form of endless gushing liquid shit that he could not flush enough to keep up with. He spent the longest morbid time trying to fathom whence all the shit came from when he was ingesting nothing at all but Codinex Plus. Then at some point he realized: time had become the shit itself: Poor Tony had become an hourglass: time moved through him now; he ceased to exist apart from its jagged-edged flow.

[Anonymous No.19596226]

He didn't have enough material for such a massive work, but he wanted to write Le Great American Novel. So the material he did have was stretched very thin, making the book around 500 pages too long. Many such cases. Sad!

[Anonymous No.19596247]

>>19596226
>unqualified opinion
>trust me, bro
Many such cases. Sad!

[Anonymous No.19596332]

>>19596247
You don't have to take my word for it though, you can read the novel for yourself. Are you really willing to die on the hill of 'Infinite Jest, the 1000 page novel with 200 pages of footnotes, contains no filler'? You seriously think it's some taut, economic masterpiece without an ounce of flab
Also
>unqualified opinion
Stop asking for Daddy's approval faggot. But in any case, I am a literature professor at Yale, so my opinion is very qualified.

[Anonymous No.19596340]

>>19596332
>literature prof at yale
>does not know what a qualified/unqualified opinion is
To qualify an opinion is to provide evidence to back it up, an unqualified opinion is "trust me, bro." Think it is safe that we can all ignore your opinion and your larp.

[Anonymous No.19596646]

>>19595600
I think you should read what you like and not what people consider to be great.
I've read the first chapter, I didn't like his style at all and couldn't find that great writing style nowhere. So I dropped it.
The story has nothing to do with me, I'm not a dude grown in a big modern city, I wasn't a know-it-all college kid, infinite jest describes a world that is completely alien and unattractive to me

People said I'm filtered. Well, if filtering is not enjoying something, then yes.
But why should I read this in order to be considered literate? There are big books out there I wanna read (such as The Book of Jacob, by Tokarczuk) and this one is no longer a priority for me.

[Anonymous No.19596722]

>>19596340
>To qualify an opinion is to provide evidence to back it up
Wrong, its an opinion with qualifications and caveats you utterly dumb motherfucker. Nothing more humiliating then when a pleb like you tries to act smart and only exposes their own stupidity.
Take the L and learn.

I note with interest you don't defend the view that Infinite Jest contains no filler.

Obvious filler for me would be half the footnotes (unnecessary and rarely as funny as they need to be to justify them), all the ebonics, the descriptions of dope etc.

Again, take the L and learn.

[Anonymous No.19596769]

Interesting. Infinite Jest carried me on the prose, by the time that wouldn't have been enough, the story was fascinating.

I would recommend starting with his short story collections Girl With Curious Hair and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and then you can decide if you want to finish. There's no reason to do so, btw, unless you read so you can swing your dick around.

[Anonymous No.19596772]

>>19596340
you sound like a massive fag
>unqualified opinion
go back to plebbit

[Anonymous No.19597022]

>>19595605
A very DFWesque take.

[Anonymous No.19597146]

>>19595600
>Is it worth pushing through to the end?
Yeah. Once Gately becomes the main character the book picks up. The tennis stuff is stull fun though.

[Anonymous No.19597196]

>>19597146
>The tennis stuff is stull fun though.

Agreed and I never watched a full tennis match in my life. Maybe you'll like him on Roger Federer too https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html

[Anonymous No.19597405]

>>19596722
That definition is referring to a specific field which is not literature, you should be able to figure out what it means to qualify something. Why would I defend when I don't know the attack? You state that they are filler but not why, since you never defined what is not filler, there is no way to defend because you left yourself with nearly unlimited room for moving the goalpost. So, state your view of the theme, give some examples of things which support your view, this will give a common structure for debate which can not easily be altered without acknowledging that you have changed your own view. I will happily get into this with you, but you need to make it more interesting and worthwhile than weak baiting.

>>19596772
You are a massive fag.

[Anonymous No.19597411]

>>19595600
Newfags please go away no one cares

[Anonymous No.19597438]

>>19597196
Thanks for this, Federer is my favorite player to watch, should be a great read.

[Anonymous No.19597459]

>>19597438
>Federer is my favorite player
Djokovic is the goat.

[Anonymous No.19598106]

>>19597459
>Federer is my favorite player TO WATCH
I don't really have a favorite player in that sense, I want a good game to watch and don't care who wins. Federer tends to produce those games, even as he ages out of competitiveness.

[Anonymous No.19598771]

>>19598106
Ana Ivanovic is my favorite player to masturbate

[Anonymous No.19599183]

The book centers around the theme of his quote "everybody worships" as in, everyone has a thing, be it drugs, or tennis, or avoiding drugs, or television, or talking about yourself, etc. The way the book deals with this is multifaceted. Obviously you have the footnotes, which rip you out of the story and force you to constantly realize you are reading a book and make it to where you are never quite in the flow state of reading, which is the addiction of the reader. The footnotes also represent the disassociation that tennis represents, this back and forth without being engaged with someone in a direct, two way mode. Which is another aspect of the book. All the characters talk past each other whenever they do actually have a conversation. Everyone is disconnected because they are obsessed with their own stuff going on. When characters actually do work together to do something, when the plot is actually happening, it's not even in the book. It happens between the end and the beginning, which is why you have the whole time jump nonsense, both so that there is no plot but also, again to make you realize you are constantly reading a book and being self aware of the book. The MacGuffin of the book is itself an object of desire of the individuals, so much so that it kills the viewer, and a fake out of there actually being a plot, the repetitive reference to it, as if something is going to happen, but because we know the plot happens after, it never does. All the while, while all this disassociation is going on, he is writing in a maximalist style, so that you empathize with all the characters who live in their own little bubbles, yearning for them to come to know each other as you know them, but that's the magic of reading, that's the joke, they never will, only you will, isolating you even further and causing an internal emotional turmoil that will never be resolved, which is, the whole deal with the fungus and hal and his emotionally stunted growth and his eventual radicalization to the human experience.

[Anonymous No.19599238]

Im not articulate enough to explain why I liked IJ without resorting to blogposting

[Anonymous No.19599287]

>>19599238
Oh yeah. This book called me out left and right. I felt exposed in a way I really didn’t enjoy but at the same time I felt understood.

[Anonymous No.19599397]

Did the Wardine be cry characters ever get mentioned later in the book?

[Anonymous No.19599437]

>>19599183
>everyone has a thing
Hal and Gately's problem is that they don't have a thing, they have no identity of their own. No one ever bothered to ask them what they want out of life and they were raised to never even consider what they want, just told to chase the carrot on the stick. Despite coming from very different backgrounds they both end up the same, unable to speak for themselves and being carried through life by the people who dangled those carrots which they never wanted, Gately the football coaches, Hal the ETA staff, but those people can offer nothing once Hal and Gately cease chasing the carrots. This applies to the majority of the characters.

>>19599397
Yes, Roy Tony is one of the dealers for Poor Tony/Bobby C/Emil Minty and the man who tries to hug Erdedy. Cleanette is the narrator of that bit and is at one of the NA/AA meetings, Ennet House and works at ETA, she hauls off the cartridges, was in CTs office after the Eschaton debacle and finds the squeegees on the dining room haul.

[Anonymous No.19599453]

>>19599437
Hal's thing appears to be being an autist who memorizes dictionaries

[Anonymous No.19599461]

>>19595600
>overly redundant
What would be an example of a text that's under-redundant? Adequately redundant?

[Anonymous No.19599471]

>>19595600
t.b.h. it's too gen x for me to tolerate, it feels like watching an overly verbose episode of the simpsons. don't get the hype.

[Anonymous No.19599481]

>>19599461
>adequately redundant

redundant on purpose to make a point, in just the right amount

>under-redundant

trying to make its point with redundancy but failing by not being redundant enough

[Anonymous No.19599496]

>>19599453
He only does that to get the carrots which his mom dangles and he pretends to hate it but her carrots are the most important ones for him. We get this primarily from his flashback why waiting for the fallout from the Eschaton but it is brought up throughout the novel. The last part of the novel is his realizing that carrots are not enough but they are all he has and pot provides the same level of reward without all the effort and suffering.

[Anonymous No.19599523]

>>19599287
It just kept happening too which is what really made it. It wasn't just 1 or 2 characters

[Anonymous No.19599585]

>>19596193
PT is one of my favorite plot lines.

[Anonymous No.19599609]

What was the deal with the yogi guy in the gym at the school?

[Anonymous No.19599639]

>>19595605
jokes on you, i'm pushing through it just so that i can brag about how i suffered my way till the end.

[Anonymous No.19599674]

>>19599639
Make sure you read The Pale King next!

[Anonymous No.19599863]

>>19599639
I flaked on a blind date and came into work looking dazed from lack of sleep while reading IJ. the desire to read and finish the book starts getting in the way of your social life and personal health. method reading.

[Anonymous No.19599892]

>>19596646
>If the book isn't about my life I cant get into it
Jesus Christ this is the kind of people who post here?

[Anonymous No.19600186]

Why are so many insufferable people in love with Infinite Jest? What about it drives them to read it, and to insist other folks do as well?
Infinite Jest seems to convince its readers that they are floating above the bestial herd. They’re … just … better? Whatever his gifts, DFW’s writing is preternaturally good at creating Dunning-Kruger in its audience. The Author is readable and relevant and graceful and pretentious, often in the same sentence.
DFW’s writing telegraphs intelligence the same way handguns telegraph strength. Buying a gun is easy. A man who buys a Glock is duped into thinking he is physically strong; a gun is the crystallization of effortless power.
DFW is an accessible writer. A man who reads Infinite Jest can be fooled into thinking he is more intelligent than other people. The book, for all its virtues, is the crystallization of effortless superiority.
In Infinite Jest, it’s pure uncut DFW—just like Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and off-putting for the same reason. Here’s a guy telling you how self-conscious he is about how self-conscious he is about how self-conscious he is about being smart, all while writing in a way guaranteed to get across just how smart and educated and self-conscious he is.

[Anonymous No.19600213]

>>19600186
>masturbates on the thread
Why do you care? Just hide the thread, use the filters.

[Anonymous No.19600297]

>>19599481
Thanks for backing me up on that one anon. I understand using redundancy to deliver a point, but it can be overdone; which is the case so far in my opinion. I read 2 more chapters yesterday and I think I might be missing the point of the book completely. DFW is obviously a very smart guy, so I'm most likely getting filtered. Maybe he's just writing to a different audience i.e. upper middle class North Americans.

[Anonymous No.19600458]

>>19595650
Someone gives you an honest (and correct) answer and you reply with some bitter smug remark. Good luck out there anon

[Anonymous No.19600531]

>>19596181
Infinite Jest has a slow and dull rhythm accentuated with stunning and wonderful sections of prose and insight. These parts come at you not when you least expect it, but just when you just don't expect them. They hit you like a brick and leave you stunned.

One of the best parts of the book you've already read, the Erdedy chapter where he's alone in the room waiting for the woman to call him about the weed so he can get high for several days straight.

Kate Gompert's section in the psych ward is amazing.

You've probably read the conversation between Orin and Hal about their father and the microwave, which is another section like that.

My favorite section in the whole book, probably in the middle-ish, is the part about the MIT engineer listening to Madame Psychosis' broadcast in the early morning.

If you liked any of those parts I mentioned there's plenty more of them. The trick of the book is how it lulls you along before exploding with great sections like these. A lot more of that. It speeds up a bit at the last 250 pages, though.

[Anonymous No.19600553]

>>19599437
>No one ever bothered to ask them what they want out of life and they were raised to never even consider what they want, just told to chase the carrot on the stick.
Like, maybe, one of the problems with modern society he's trying to talk about?

[Anonymous No.19600643]

>>19600553
It is the core problem which the rest stem from. When you are only taught to chase the carrot and seek those short sighted goals and easy rewards it makes it easy to fall into the habit of short term pleasure seeking and avoiding what is difficult and not immediately pleasurable. This is what separates Hal from Mario, they had much the same upbringing but the carrot was never dangled in front of Mario, Avril would use the big words which Mario did not know which challenged him, with Hal she would use the big words he does know so she could reward him, she dumbed things down for the smart son but never for the "dumb" son.

[Anonymous No.19600650]

>>19600531
Everybody knows eschaton is the best part
>MAP AND TERRITORY

[Anonymous No.19600668]

>>19600458
come on now anon, that was not an honest answer. it may have been correct but without an explanation it's meaningless.

[Anonymous No.19600676]

>>19600531
The part where he's waiting for weed is one of the best? Ok thanks anon, I'm officially done with this book.

>Oh wow look at these fancy words that aren't even in most dictionaries explaining this stoner's anxiety about waiting for weed.
Bravo Wallace, bravo!

[Anonymous No.19600696]

>>19600650
the arguments about whether or not the snow is a part of the map were the best part

[Anonymous No.19600703]

>>19600676
Talking about how he concealed his addiction in open-air by subtly pretending to be a meth addict.

Talking about his "one-last time" mindset, buying expensive bongs over and over again. Buying the metric tons of food, hiding from the addiction his psychologist called just as bad as an alcoholic.

Hiding from his job. Arranging his phone calls to be transferred.

The fixation on the bug on his metal shelf, going in and out of the supports, with Erdedy feeling somehow just like that bug.

The interplay between Erdedy and the bug was great. The perpetual anxiety between getting the weed and his continual problem with addiction, and the crushing toll it takes that makes him feel just like that bug hiding from the small ray of light.

It was a really good section.

[Anonymous No.19600723]

>>19600668
It was 100% honest, you asked what you were missing and I told you.

[Anonymous No.19600725]

>>19600703
You forgot to mention the most kino part of the chapter, when the door bell and phone ring at the same time, leaving Erdedy completely frozen between the two.

[Anonymous No.19600785]

>>19600703
Yes, he described it very well and I fully understood the emotions he was conveying. I guess he wanted to juxtapose eloquent writing with degenerate subject matter? I just wasn't entertained by it.

[Anonymous No.19600821]

>>19600785
You are not supposed to be entertained by it. This is that empathy thing again.

[Anonymous No.19600855]

>>19600821
And here's a curt token response right back at you.

[Anonymous No.19600867]

>>19600785
Describing a realistic portrayal of addiction as “degenerate behavior” shows that you do not have the empathy required to enjoy Infinite Jest

[Anonymous No.19600908]

>>19600867
Infinite jest does not have the subtlety or finesse required to be a good book. I appreciate the comments in this thread though. I am glad I can safely move on to the next book on my list knowing that I have missed nothing of value.

[Anonymous No.19600939]

>>19600908
I empathize.

[Anonymous No.19600942]

>>19600908
Can you explain what you meany by subtlety and finesse? You already completely misread one of the most overt chapters in the book so it’s hard to take your words seriously

[Anonymous No.19600943]

>>19600867
I use that term somewhat as a joke and I understand addiction very well. The addition parts in IJ are top tier since he actually knows what hes talking about for once lel

[Anonymous No.19600961]

>>19600943
Then why did you expect to be entertained by that part?

[Anonymous No.19600965]

>>19600961
I am simply butting in to your conversation to defend the term "degenerate behavior" because it amuses me

[Anonymous No.19600979]

>>19595605
Based take. I hated Crime and Punishment after 50 pages, stuck it through to 300 and hated it even more, decided fuck it, finished it, hated it even more. It doesn't get better if you already don't like it.

[Anonymous No.19600985]

>>19600965
So you larp as him and then immediately admit to that larp? Just doesn't ring true.

[Anonymous No.19601006]

>>19600985
I have only made two posts anon. I was just saying I dont think using the word degenerate precludes empathy. We must be honest about our degeneracy I think

[Anonymous No.19601010]

>>19600942
I don't think I could explain it any better than a dictionary. Apologies anon. Do you own DFW's estate or something? Why are you defending his work so fiercely?

He is attempting to comment on 90's and 00's upper middle class western society. His prose is good but his book is just a bloated satire piece, so I'm going to have to pass.

[Anonymous No.19601072]

>>19601010
>He is attempting to comment on 90's and 00's upper middle class western society
Half the book deals with the dregs of society and it is not done so from the perspective of the classes above them. He goes out of his way to show that the problems he speaks of goes beyond class.

[Anonymous No.19601311]

>>19596646
>>19600186
Agreed. This book was repeatedly recommended to me by a middlebrow pseud that went to college. He was very sheltered and very narcissistic. I cannot relate. I am not a suburban privleged kid.
Same guy liked David Lynch, too. Pottery.

[Anonymous No.19601387]

>>19599639
Infinite jest or life?

[Anonymous No.19601420]

>>19595600
I found it tedious, and in fact a little embarrassing, when he writes about drug addiction / drug dealers / etc, because he comes off as a yuppie tourist parasitizing the agony of the people whose suffering he voyeuristically consumed for his "art". He never even went to prison for anything. He's a convincing enough fake to fool the average middle class pseud but he doesn't actually know what he's writing about and it shows

[Anonymous No.19601435]

Don Delillo is much better

[Anonymous No.19601440]

unrelated but does anyone have this video of a guy in a care yelling DAVID FOSTER WALLACE to people on the street?

[Anonymous No.19602103]

>>19601387
yes

[Anonymous No.19602133]

>>19595600
>Dostoevsky's work?
I agree with everything you said but Dostoevsky is absolute horrendous shit.

[Anonymous No.19602152]

>>19596646
Fucking hell what a fucking idiot. And proud of it too.

[Anonymous No.19602212]

>>19602133
Yes, Nabokov is 10 times better

[Anonymous No.19602308]

>>19600650
This reminded me of a Decemberists music video where they re-enact eschaton. My twin brother played one of the kids. Not an actor or anything he just knew tennis.

https://youtu.be/xJpfK7l404I

[Anonymous No.19602341]

>>19601420
>he comes off as a yuppie tourist parasitizing the agony of the people whose suffering he voyeuristically consumed for his "art"

Yeah I generally enjoyed the book but there was definitely something kind off about it the whole time. Ironically the sincerity feels very phony.

[Anonymous No.19602350]

>>19595600
I had an enormously fantastic time reading it, I loved reading this book, plus I found out about it from a random youtube essay and not from this trashhole. lit's obsession with Infinite Jest is what made me interested in lit, not the other way round like all of you npc's. Anyway, will probably never read again because it is stupid and trivial and there are too many other books to read. You have no obligation to read this book unless you really want to against your better judgment.

[Anonymous No.19602432]

>>19595650
useless retard

[Anonymous No.19602781]

>>19599892
>>19602152
>You don't like the book I love therefore you must be an idiot

Okay buddy, whatever you guys say.
How can I read a book in which the message I can't relate? It's simply dull for me.

All the arguments DFW readers use against those who aren't interested in reading are similar. And I love how you guys get butthurt by it.

>It's too long and is full of long scenes that doesn't develop the plot
Then you say "hehehe afraid of big books?"

>the book means nothing to me, it doesn't seem to add anything in my life
then you say "hehehe so you are simple minded then"

>the writing is just not that good
then you say "hehehe you don't get the genius of it, in fact you have been filtered"

Alright, go on. Say whatever you need. I access /lit/ for almost a decade now and since the very beginning I see the same pretentious people (native anglophones, I presume) trying to push this xoomer piece of garbage as if it was the creme de la creme of literature.
In reality, you guys read nothing else and therefore can't recognize a decent book from a bad one, your shallow views are comparable to college booktuber mentality.