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/lit/ - Literature


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23909032 No.23909032 [Reply] [Original]

Alright I read the fucking thing. Mid AF.
Littered with English, math, and French errors. Narrative goes nowhere despite 1000+ pages. Some parts slogged and obviously needed to be cut out by an editor with balls. Footnote meme is gimmicky and gets v. annoying towards the end
Look, the premise of the novel is good. But the exectuion is definitely lacking. I can only assume that Pseuds salivate over this.
Guess I had my standards elevated after reading a legitimately good book (Moby Dick)

>> No.23909056

what a great board, i love spending all my time here

>> No.23909068
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23909068

>>23909032
Think about the book every now and then for a month, you'll come back and be like 'okay it was good', then maybe another month you'll say 'okay it was great'.

>> No.23909110

>>23909032
>He didn't get the jest

>> No.23909122

>>23909032
>I've JUST read entry level /lit/core and here's why I already know better

>> No.23909126

>>23909032
I get your criticisms but also >>23909110

>> No.23909502

>>23909032
>Littered with English, math, and French errors
Provide examples. Don't be a bitch. I will engage with you if you stop acting like a bitch.
>Narrative goes nowhere despite 1000+ pages.
Both plotfag and wrong
>Some parts slogged and obviously needed to be cut out by an editor with balls.
Again, it's on you to provide examples of what it was that filtered you

>> No.23909522

>>23909502
Anybody who speaks French can recognize that his French is shit, and it doesn't seem like it's intentional to have almost every instance of French be sloppy if not outright completely incorrect

Same goes for the Math e.g. the mean value theorem is used completely wrong, Pemulis gives the completely wrong derivative for x^n, DFW calculates the probability of some tennis tournament result completely incorrectly, etc. Yeah I've heard the argument that Pemulis making math mistakes is intentional, but given the fact that other math in the book NOT done by Pemulis is incorrect AND that DFW wrote an embarssingly bad math book which was lampooned by people who actually know math, it's hard to believe that DFW is playing 4D chess with mistakes instead of following Occam's razor that the dude was a pseud. For English, it's subtle but numerous: DFW completely misuses "urologist;" he uses "nauseous" incorrectly, etc. Check out the infinitejestwiki and each section points out mistakes that he makes in regard to English. Embarrassing AF for a literal english PHD

>> No.23909524

>>23909522
My interpretation is that the French is supposed to be shit because he hates the Canadians. It’s part of the joke.

>> No.23909530

>>23909524
Well if it's a joke it's not that funny. Just following Occam's razor here that's it's more likely that DFW thought he was smarter than he actually was and didn't bother checking his French

>> No.23909556

>>23909522
his essay talking about how calculus was "child's play" for him was super cringe since most "smart" kids get calc out of the way in high school, so it's like damn dude you got into amherst on legacy admissions without even doing ap calc? i mean that's fine, but don't try to turn your freshman math class into some kind of flex, dude.

>> No.23910493

>>23909530
I wouldn't recommend using Occam's razos while reading literature. If you do you'll turn into a plotfag and never get the messages of the book.

>> No.23910513
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>>23909522
Sid down, kid. I speak French and what's more is that I live in canada. I saw nothing wrong with any of the french in the book.

>> No.23910541

>>23909032
Its part of the meme trilogy because its funny to meme newfags into reading long or in this case shitty books.

>> No.23910544

David Foster Wallace wrote a whole book about math because "oh wow he's so good at math" but apparently it's complete bullshit. Pajeets on Linkedin level on nonsense.

>> No.23910563

Retard wankery for pseuds like In Search of Lost Time
Avoid

>> No.23910573

>>23909522
His math book got this pretty damning review:
https://www.rudyrucker.com/oldhomepage/wallace_review.pdf

>> No.23910587

>>23910563
Someone got filtered by ISOLT it sounds like

>> No.23910605

>>23909032
Perhaps the real jest was the reader all along....

>> No.23910611

>>23910587
t. No lifer who wasted months on that shit

>> No.23910616

>>23910611
Sad view of literature. Find a different hobby perhaps (apart from LARPing as erudite online)

>> No.23911062

>>23909032
>>23909522
Your own OP uses "footnotes" when you meant endnotes and mistakes the name of the whale (Moby Dick) for the title of the book (Moby-Dick). It's easy to be a pedant but difficult to create. Pemulis' incorrect use of the mean value theorem was definitely intentional because these are meant to be pretentious teenagers. I searched through the uses of "nauseous" and the only times it is used incorrectly is when it is spoken by a character, for whom the pedantic and non-colloquial "nauseated" wouldn't make sense. He uses "nauseated" in two other contexts showing he knows the difference. And you probably wouldn't have noticed the urologist mistake if it hadn't been for that one obviously butthurt surgeon on the Wiki. There's no easy medical-sounding substitution for what DFW meant and urologist intuitively makes sense, even if it's technically wrong.

>> No.23911133

>>23909032
The best part of the book was when the main guy said
>Damn, life really is like an infinite jest.

>> No.23911190

>>23911062
you're absolutely correct.
the urologist thing is clearly a joke and other mis-uses are "in character". Think transvestal.
the french errors are too (he's calling them dumb).
And the derivative thing is more about Pemulis showing his character.
the mean value theory thing seems to be sort of an abstraction for the sake of the "mean" average of hostilities joke.

OP didn't get it and is pedantic.

>> No.23911234

yeah lets say "clinical pathology technician who specializes in urinalysis" instead of urologist (which is a funny word and is what a child [and these are children] /would/ assume was a urine-analyzer.)

>> No.23911310

>>23909056
I love seeing your posts here

>> No.23911314

>Complaining that the narrative goes nowhere despite excessive amount of pages, yet still considering Moby Dick to be a good book
Something ain't right here

>> No.23911336

>>23911190
>hurr durr i was just trolling
yeah, right...

>> No.23911387
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23911387

>>23911336
>literature NEVER trolls the reader through intentional erro------ ACK!
He's writing in the metafictional tradition beginning in English with Sterne and Pope. You've got to be an actual dunce to think DFW didn't know the formula for a derivative.

>> No.23911589

>>23911387
>dunce
Confederacy of Dunces, great book!

>> No.23911626

so is this book actually good or not desu?
i will only jest a read if anons really make it seem good
>my last read
no longer human
pretty good read, start felt overly superficial cries of a bullied kid; but really enjoyed it as it went on

>> No.23912113

>>23911626
i think if you liked that, you will probably like IJ

>> No.23912310

>>23910513
Actual French Canadian here. You seriously didn't spot any of the mistakes? Tell me, what does AFR stand for?

>> No.23912333

>>23912310
Je me ne pas souviens

>> No.23912352
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23912352

>>23909032
Give Goodnight Moon a shot, probably more your speed x

>> No.23912371

>>23910541
what are the other two of this trilogy?
>Gravity's Rainbow
>?

>> No.23912402

>>23912371
Probably 2666 or Ulysses idk

Side note, who’s the qt? >>23912352

>> No.23912465
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23912465

>>23909032
you're a faggot and you type like a woman. i'm gonna come to your house and sodomize you with a two by four. That being said, you're correct in stating that DFW makes errors. He misspelled tetrahydrofuran TWICE back to back on page seven hundred and something while describing how Gately's friend Fackelmann synthesized drugs in high school. Dunno how no one caught that. Other people have already spoken about the calc error and I have nothing to add. I can't speak on the french errors because I don't speak french. I'm sure there are other errors that I'm forgetting. Anyways I love David Foster Wallace more than any other human being on this earth, and if I catch a nigga shittalking him I'll kill they ass. I probably am a pseud, but there's no changing that. It is what it is. I am who I am. Moby-Dick is a great book though, I'll give you that much. Good night, OP. Sweet dreams.

>> No.23912492

dfw is the highest form of appeal-to-midwits pseudry
it's no wonder /lit/ froths at the mouth to defend him and suck him off. sorry OP, you're a little too advanced for this board

>> No.23912516
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23912516

>>23912492
fuck you faggot im gonna rape you

>> No.23912557

>>23909032
I just wanted to read a book, and this… this wasn’t that. Somehow, it became one of the most disturbing stories I’ve ever come across, yet by the end, I wasn’t even sure what I had just read. Being in the midst of a dark period of my life didn’t help. Maybe one day I’ll come back to it

>> No.23912578
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23912578

>>23912557
I read it for the first time after getting dumped by my gf (she had BPD n cited mental health issues as the reason she couldn't be in a relationship) and I fell in love with it and David Foster Wallace.

>> No.23913164

>>23912371
its ulysses dumbass

>> No.23913201
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23913201

>>23912310
Assassins de fauteuil roulant.
Wheel chair assassins.
First you hear the squeaks of their wheels. Then you wish you'd never been born.
I may have inflated my familiarity with French Canadian a bit. I'm un franco Ontarien... kinda sorta. I went to French school but now I'm an old man and never kept on speaking French since leaving school. My skills have atrophied like a roid user's testicles.

>> No.23913217
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23913217

>>23912333
Close lil bro bro. But French is a backwards language. The correct way would be 'Je ne me souvien pas'
"I do remember not". If you're an English speaker you'll have better luck imagining Yoda saying whatever it is you're trying to say and then translate his words word for word.

>> No.23913223

>>23911133
Never happened. How about actually reading the book next time?

>> No.23913345

>>23913223
This comment is such an infinite jest

>> No.23913503

>>23913201
>Assassins de fauteuil Roulants
he spells it rollents most of the time, but on purpose. There are a few times where he spells it correctly from Marathe's perspective. The book has a lot of circle references, blah blah blah infinity, fourier transforms, mandelbrot, annulation, the moon. That's all that is. Some sort of subconscious association thing with "the entertainment" as an idea.

>> No.23913695

>>23913503
>he spells it...
I didn't know. Hah I only listen to the audio versions on YouTube. By the way, it's become quite a pleasant part of my daily routine lately. In the mornings as I get ready for work I'll skip to a random point in the audiobook and let it play. Dave said he structured the book in the shape of a sierpinski gasket (pic rel) (whatever that means). And but then I kind of do know what he meant. Skipping to random sexions of the book is enjoyable because the book was never written linearly in the first place (nor in the second place). Definitely try listening to the 'Jest with a morning cup of coffee sometime.

>> No.23913763

>>23913695
>Dave said he structured the book in the shape of a sierpinski gasket (pic rel) (whatever that means). And but then I kind of do know what he meant.
he said it ended up being a lop-sided serpinksi gasket.
It's because of the the 3 narratives. Hal, Gately, and USOUS/Steeply's investigation into the Entertainment/Himself situation. The last one is a bit abstract and is sort of a meta-thing where the reader is putting it all together so it's not as clear as a chronology of events as the first 2
and comes off as a bit uneven i guess.

>> No.23913770

>>23913503
>>23913503
Yeah, he’s using free indirect discourse many times and pushing it to its limits, combined with the brainy and technical narrator, in a very entertaining way. What this means is at least sometimes (sometimes very obviously, other times less so), mistakes in spelling, grammar, word usage etc. apparently made by the narrator, are actually the narrator reflecting the level of speech and thought the character being portrayed has.

I’m not trying to fellate DFW too hard and wouldn’t portray him as omniscient, even for how much of a dork he was about various topics (especially over grammar and usage), it’s still likely in a book as long as this that at least some mistakes slipped past him and even the editor, but it’s clear that sometimes he’s employing malapropisms for comic effect and to suggest the characters’ lack of knowledge or wrong knowledge of certain things (almost like a form of dramatic irony, interestingly, baked right into the language-use itself, repeatedly throughout the book).

>> No.23913881

>>23910544
>>23910573
well he was counting on his book being read only by the English department

>> No.23913967
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23913967

>>23910544#
>>23910573#
>not getting the jest

>> No.23913974

This is why you need a tard wrangler