/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.22338956]

Just finished pic related AMA

[Anonymous No.22338986]

>>22338956
Will it waste my time?
If yes, why? If no, why?

[Anonymous No.22338994]

>>22338986
No, because at some point you realize that all the parts that seem stupid and meaningless all connect like a puzzle piece. having faith that this will happen, and abandoning faith in an action movie-like thrilling conclusion helped me get through

[Anonymous No.22339047]

>>22338994
i agree with this. also just appreciate the little side stories in each chapter and don't worry as much about trying to piece together every detail of the big picture. you're not going to get it all without a second read through or (more likely) reading shit online anyway so don't ruin your experience trying too hard

[Anonymous No.22339096]

Explain the message of the book

[Anonymous No.22339957]

>>22338956
Is the tide really way out?

[Anonymous No.22340969]

>>22338956
Are you going to read his other stuff too?

[Anonymous No.22341895]

>>22339096
Don't watch television.

[Anonymous No.22341900]

>>22341895
but y tho

[Anonymous No.22341934]

>>22339096
I mean, there's a lot in there, but broadly speaking one of the major themes (especially with the main plot) is about the issue of personal responsibility in an individualistic society, framed as a kind of response to the rise of american hedonism/individualism/self-centeredness/narcissism in the 60s and after.

it advocates for this by exploring a lot of the effects of this self-centeredness and lack of responsibility run rampant, especially addiction and loneliness.

if you're always wanting more, you're in some sense addicted, and you need to exercise personal responsibility in avoiding or fixing this.

and if everybody takes, then there's nothing to receive from others.

it connects this in the abstract to the idea that there's always some spiritual deficit we want filled, and that these behaviors are in some sense just our misguided attempts to do so.

[Anonymous No.22341947]

>>22341900
It's bad.

[Anonymous No.22341949]

>>22341947
hmmmmmmm. how?

[Anonymous No.22341972]

>>22341949
It's a cheap and instant method of gratification. Akin to recreational drugs.

[Anonymous No.22342022]

>>22341972
what if I built my own TV from scratch? That would certainly be difficult to do, nothing cheap and easy about it. Would I then be justified in enjoying my hard-earned entertainment? Or if I synthesized my own drugs from precursor materials?

[Anonymous No.22342024]

[Anonymous No.22342082]

>>22338956
1. is this avril and himself and a) orin b) hal c) it's a-me, de-mary-sue
2. there's no way that J.Trudeau becomes himself and his broad the crullest month canadian who then births us into the IJ timeline
3. what kind of pussy did you think orin NEVER got. like what was on his cum-bucket list that had yet to be whiter shade of garbagepail
4. why are canadians the middle ground of humanity
5. why isn't there more descriptions of candy and better food in here yeesh a guy get to be starving but yeah read a medicine cabinet to me, aslan-zeneca & norvo-trak stardiscman.
6. how come he's still not wrong. welcome to jurassic park this potent of doomed future was penned way-bak-whenabouts...
6A.
Friday is for the Fryguys

[Anonymous No.22342128]

>>22342082
THIS PIC RELATES TO #1

>>22339096
DEAR MR HAND
please excuse my sparxs notes, there was a hole in the can and someone had filled it with a four loko clover, which was an early late model nostalgia sugar lovebomb. boppen-heimer licking john cougars melonballed tail. fighting kites.

when i started reading IJ by Dead Doorag (That Thing by Lauryn Hill) Dallas Airport Looks Like Boobs with Fort Squirting Forth Worth YANAWHATTAMSAAYYIIIIIINNNNN [inset j.roc who IS CANADIAN from trailer park boys which is the guys who attack the BIM-my nimby DONI G, who got in too much barbie trouble. again. he meant tight like tight bright out of sight not tight like a nun. for fun, says spongebob worthy. prince sneers under the cherryweed moon. and]
there is initially the thing with hal being interviewed except something is wrong but also not wrong in hals brain, but everyone elses brain, obviously.
other people are so passe.

of course, the description of the beautiful fictures of some bathrooms. some sanitized smells of western samsarra to be found in the transis-systemtional moments of a life, the steps between entire ages of humankind not only generational but personal aging.

then the bug in and out of the girder and a situation no fucking person left on earth can possibly undertand who wasnt there.

can you explain to a zoomer:
"you know your hard-drug dealer? the one who you require but is difficult to find? not like the pot guy."

and that's a whole other thing.

but guess what. everything. still. makes. sense.

[Anonymous No.22342201]

>>22341934
You seem to be focusing on the result and not the cause, people are raised without personal responsibility, we are raised to externalize such things, our responsibility is filtered through the expectations of our parents, our faith, our political ideology, our friends, etc; we are raised to perform in one regard or another and seek that external validation without question or thought, to seek the rewards doled out by our parents and our society; the shortsightedness of teaching reward seeking results in shortsighted reward seeking. Hal's realization during the II meeting:
>Hal had continually been held and dandled and told at high volume that he was loved, and he feels like he could have told K. Bain's Inner Infant that getting held and told you were loved didn't automatically seem like it rendered you emotionally whole or Substance-free.
Avril and JOI could not see past their own upbringing, they never asked their children what they needed or even asked themselves what their children needed, parenting as self feeding reward system; parents are rewarded for rewarding their children for meeting or exceeding the expectations built around the parents own childhood (the infinite jest which the title refers too). I am a good parent because I am not my parents and look at how well my child is doing! Raising children to seek rewards results in the same as outright neglect by the parents, 17 year old Hal is the same as 17 year old Gately, both are barely functional and and being carried by their coaches.

[Anonymous No.22342283]

>>22338956
Fuck, Marry, Kill:
Hal Inc, Michael Pemulis, John Wayne.

[Anonymous No.22342731]

>>22342283
>marry
>pemulis
So you want to be used and generally treated like shit?

[Anonymous No.22342736]

>>22339096
Cynicism is funny.

[Anonymous No.22343934]

>>22342082
The funniest answer to question 3 would be that Orin never got pussy from a physically disabled person

[Anonymous No.22344000]

>>22342024
This book is what English undergrads call a "red flag book" meaning that if you speak about it publicly, the women in your local area will go on pussy strike because they are worried that you might be a racist sexist mansplainer. I would recommend againt reading IJ. Go watch Barbie movie instead and learn how to properly respect wamen.

[Anonymous No.22345251]

Did you bust to the mom?

[Anonymous No.22345260]

>The Chinese Finger Trap Escape Forum, and step on it

[Anonymous No.22345265]

>>22338994
>all the parts that seem stupid and meaningless all connect like a puzzle piece
Butterfly Effect. Fascinating. I know a book that have similar theme.

Drum roll:

Stephen King's 11/22/63.

[Anonymous No.22345328]

>>22338956
I also finished it a few days ago and loved it, highlighted about 160 sections.
some of my favorite scenes or moments from memory: thanksgiving with the Incandenzas from Joelle’s POV, Poor Tony’s withdrawal sequence, the Eschaton scene, Bain’s letter to Steeply, all the Boston AA scenes, JOI’s wraith talking to Gately in the hospital, various cartridge scenes throughout the book (the schizophrenic being injected with a turkey baster of mind reading fluids), various AFR scenes (the mute brother Lucien being killed, the sound engineer being swooped up into a van by AFR skiing down the hill), descriptions of depression in Kate Gompert’s scene, and Gately’s rock bottom at the end.
wondering what I should read next

[Anonymous No.22345337]

>>22345328
>wondering what I should read next
Franzen - Freedom.

[Anonymous No.22345374]

>>22345337
i’ll check it out. also been hearing a lot about this Pynchon fellow.

[Anonymous No.22345383]

>>22345374
Pynchon is good but very different than Wallace. Franzen is Wallace but more influence from realism, especially Freedom. Freedom is essentially Franzen's version of IJ and a very clear homage to his dead friend, great book and a great followup to IJ.