/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3129687]

I just finished this, It's over and I don't know what to do now, and I don't think I fully understand.

what did you guys think when you first finished it? Like immediately, first reaction-wise.

[Anonymous No.3129695]

>>3129687

blackguysayingimgladitsover.jpeg

[Anonymous No.3129705]

Finished it? I thought the book was so big that it warped space time, making time slow further the more you read resulting in no one ever finishing.

[Anonymous No.3129727]

>>3129695
>>3129705
no, but seriously

[Anonymous No.3129737]

>>3129727
I haven't read it fully but I imagine that I'd start reading it again and maybe check out some online IJ resources. /lit/ does not count.

Though I might give it a day or two to let it soak in.

[Anonymous No.3129739]

[Anonymous No.3129743]

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~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Repost this ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ if you are a beautiful strong post-modernist ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ who don’t need no discernible talent ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
╚══════════════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ══════════════╝

[Anonymous No.3129787]

>>3129705
I wonder how many hipster webcomic strips there are where the joke is just
>Infinite Jest is long and complex
This is like the fifth one I've seen.

[Anonymous No.3129790]

>>3129787
>write pretentious book
>someone calls it pretentious in webcomic form
>they're pretentious

we need to go deeper

[Anonymous No.3129792]

>>3129787
Why are they hipster webcomics? I would presume the hipster ones would be laughing at the people not reading infinite jest.

[Anonymous No.3129794]

>>3129687
that it is a good book. One does not have to imediatelly get everything, the important thing is that what you got from it is in some sense valuable. My first reaction was - oh my got, this is the loose thread of cultural evolution, this is where we are. I do not really have comprehensive formal literary education. I also did not find it that hard to read even though english is not my first language and i have read it in english. Compared to Heidegger it seems as The cat in the hat.

[Anonymous No.3129796]

>>3129705

>another female who thinks a webcomic will mask the fact that she can't into funny

[Anonymous No.3129797]

>>3129687

I had a slightly strange feeling when I finished it too. I think it's quite normal, especially if you read it casually and don't study it, as it were. It's important to go back and read the first section, 'Year of Glad.' Once I did that and pondered it a little bit the book stayed with me, and now months later I think about Infinite Jest all the time, which I guess is better than being immediately wowed and then forgetting about it. Good luck!

[Anonymous No.3129809]

>>3129737
>implying that picture on the wall is postmodern and not modern

[Anonymous No.3129815]

>>3129705
I have strong urge to check my privilege after seeing that

[Anonymous No.3129831]

>>3129705

>punchlines and humor are patriarchal ploys for control over our emotional states, I don't need any of that staining my beautiful webcomic

love this comic she laid the smack down on him

[Anonymous No.3129835]

I didn't really understand it. Read through some online stuff to try to parse through what happened. Probably not a good idea, since it would have been nice to discover some of this stuff myself. I'm in the middle of my 2nd (or 3rd, I honestly can't remember) read, and the story is actually incredibly straight forward. Just requires a re-read.

[Anonymous No.3129836]

>>3129815

>check my privilege

I'll never understand why people throw this around as a diminutive slur to one another. Not the people who say it ironically, the younger people who really mean it. You're basically saying "take time out to remind yourself that you're in a better social position than I am".

Is that meant to hit a nerve? How could I meet that with anything but amusement?

[Anonymous No.3129839]

>>3129836
>the younger people who really mean it.

Only a very tiny number of the 'tumblr feminist, transqueergender fat-positive, femme-presenting, sexual-assault-surviving spergers' use it sincerely.

You need to check your neurotypical privilege.

[Anonymous No.3130141]

>>3129835
ugh well in the 2 hours between my last post I totally read all about people's theories about what happened etc.

I just get a very strong impulse when I finish something to totally understand everything etc.

I'm gonna leave it alone for awhile and come back to it. I was definitely enjoying it all the way through and by the time I got to like page 900 (like everyone, I'm assuming) I started getting nervous how it was going to wrap up with so few pages left, and then the final scene was treated like every other scene in the whole book and it just felt so unfinished because of it

[Anonymous No.3130171]

I like DFW, but so many little things about his writing piss me off to no end.

>w/r/t

>and but so

>like

that thing he'll do where he'll be like
>"The cat was so vexed by the running water and incessant noise that it (the cat) hid under the armoire and did not come out until night.

A quote I just came up with, but he does that bullshit where he'll refer to the subject again right away as an aside like we don't know what he's fucking talking about.

I know I'm missing other shit...

[Anonymous No.3130209]

>>3130171
That's awful. Why does he do that? Is he trying to get a point across or what?

[Anonymous No.3130215]

>>3130171
w/r/t is so useful when taking lecture notes, though.

But I know what you mean. They are quite superfluous stylistic flourishes.

[Anonymous No.3130243]

That the two characters who kept saying "tete-a-tete" in that one chapter of the Pale King made me rage. He did bring up its use in the chapter (the one character was taught it) but still. I think the process went like this.

-DFW just used the phrase because he wanted too
-realized it comes off as irritating and pretentious but wanted to keep it anyway (classic example of the maximalist/pretentious/smarter-than-thou DFW battling the everyman DFW

[Anonymous No.3130275]

>>3129831

[Anonymous No.3130279]

>>3130141
the final scene is actually packed full of significance, it's just mostly subtextual.

[Anonymous No.3130284]

>>3130243
bear in mind that TPK had not been edited as rigorously as his other work.

[Anonymous No.3130322]

>>3129796
I thought it was funny.

[Anonymous No.3130327]

>>3130322
you're a chick, right?

[Anonymous No.3130333]

>>3130327
No. It wasn't the kind of joke that needed a punchline. The narrative basically went:
>This book is overly-complicated and pretentious
>I give up, fuck this

It uses absurdity and hyperbole to be funny. I suppose I find it funny because I have encountered books where there's a footnote every other sentence. I'd call it quotidian humour.

[Anonymous No.3130334]

>>3130333
Also, her face in the last panel.

[Anonymous No.3130340]

>>3130333
I get it, it just isn't funny. It's a very tired joke being presented in the least interesting way I can think of. Honestly, I don't know how to make a "dfw writes a lot" joke more boring than this. Look to the aforeposted pfsc comic or the classic Onion one about his girlfriend not wanting to read his 40-page breakup letter for ways to actually make this joke interesting.

[Anonymous No.3130342]

[VurtKonnegut No.3130338]

>>3130334
>>3130333
>>3130322
Only problem is, it's not very funny at all

[Anonymous No.3130339]

>>3130334
Oh, and apparently there really is a 17-page footnote. That sounds ridiculous.

[Anonymous No.3130343]

>>3130338
But you can't say I didn't find it funny.

[Anonymous No.3130369]

>>3130339
that footnote is one of the highlights of the book, actually. in fact it's about a million times funnier than that webcomic.

>making fun out of a trait that the author is exaggerating for comedic effect in the first place

le shiggy diggy

dfw is better at mocking himself than anyone else could ever be.

[Anonymous No.3130371]

>>3130343
We can say you have a shitty sense of humour, though.

[Anonymous No.3130374]

>>3130342

lolled