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/lit/ - Literature

File: 28 KB, 300x464, infinitejest.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Anonymous Thu May 16 08:23:52 2013 No.3764221 [Reply] [Original]

So, what IS infinite jest?

>>	Anonymous Thu May 16 08:32:52 2013 No.3764228 what Yorick was a man of.

>>	Anonymous Thu May 16 08:38:52 2013 No.3764236 It's a little story about tennis, silly.

>>	Anonymous Thu May 16 08:56:52 2013 No.3764261 an entertainment

Anonymous Thu May 16 09:01:52 2013 No.3764270

Jest fails to inject much horror into its main plot device, an evil videotape so entertaining that it turns people catatonic. The reason it doesn’t work (besides being a shameless rip-off of Monty Python’s “Funniest Joke in the World” sketch) is because Wallace gives a description of the movie – a hideous woman dressed a mother figure, standing over a camera and “explaining in very simple childlike language… that Death is always female, and that the female is always maternal… that the woman who kills you is always your next life’s mother.”

>>	Anonymous Thu May 16 09:02:52 2013 No.3764274 >>3764228 Lol.

>>	Anonymous Thu May 16 09:03:52 2013 No.3764275 a really poorly conceived academic course in postmodern literature cleverly disguised as a novel

Anonymous Thu May 16 22:44:52 2013 No.3766528

>>3764221
A good book that, despite what many people here may tell you, is worth the read. That is, if you have the time - it's damn long. If you do decide to read it, be sure to stick around 'til (I think) the 200 page mark, that's when things get a bit more coherent and the plots meet.

Anonymous Thu May 16 23:05:52 2013 No.3766598

I just started reading it. Seems good so far. Very engaging, and solid prose, if a bit excessively showy and clever. Not that I mind the (post)modernist thing, but sometimes it feels more forced than others. All the same, nothing which describes giant roaches as emerging from "Hobbesian sewers" can be all that bad. That's pretty funny.

>>	Anonymous Thu May 16 23:09:52 2013 No.3766613 The jest is in your hands while you're reading.

>>	Anonymous Fri May 17 02:06:52 2013 No.3767091 >>3766598 When people regard something as "forced" what do they actually mean by that?

Anonymous Fri May 17 02:18:52 2013 No.3767121
File: 48 KB, 1280x720, 1362168805689.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Slightly unrelated but I read this book last week and now I'm falling into his dictionary-word-studded long-sentenced grammar-defiling neologism making and word-hyphening run-on sentence third person style and I can't fucking stop because I don't have enough discipline or wherewithal as a writer, I mean, I'm a beginner writer anyways. How the fuck do I get DFW's voice out of my head? It's like he's squatting in there dropping a big potent loaf on everything I write and it fucking stinks man.

Are there any authors I could read who will maybe cancel this out? Kind of like how if you invert a sound-wave and project it on itself it will cancel out?
pls respond

>>	Croaker !!xx4lDI2TW+N Fri May 17 02:23:52 2013 No.3767132 Infinite Jest is, at its roots, a novel about America's spiritual crisis.

>>	Anonymous Fri May 17 10:00:52 2013 No.3767782 >>3767121 proust. in no time your writing will be filled with long, sincere and introspective sentences that will cancel out what i assume (haven't read it) is a more ironic tone.

>>	Anonymous Fri May 17 10:05:52 2013 No.3767793 Puritan, reactionary garbage

>>	Anonymous Fri May 17 10:08:52 2013 No.3767798 >>3767121 any good author should do.

>>	Anonymous Fri May 17 10:11:52 2013 No.3767807 more like infinite pest

>>	Anonymous Fri May 17 13:20:52 2013 No.3768183 >>3767793 >Drugs R Bad: The Book

>>	NV Fri May 17 19:24:52 2013 No.3769048 >>3766528 >>3766528 be sure to stick around 'til (I think) the 200 page mark Yep, up until that point the book reads like nonsense. After that though, holy shit.

>>	RomanianRichard Fri May 17 19:26:52 2013 No.3769056 >>3767132 That is a simple and sweet as anyone can ever describe it. Kudos sir.

>>	Anonymous Fri May 17 19:42:52 2013 No.3769088 Do I suffer any from reading this book in digital form? It doesn't appear to have footnotes on my Kindle

>>	RomanianRichard Fri May 17 19:47:52 2013 No.3769101 >>3769088 Yes, insanely so. A substantial portion of the plot is within the footnotes.

Anonymous Fri May 17 19:47:52 2013 No.3769102

>>3769088
A lot of the things described in the footnotes are gradually revealed throughout the text anyway, through brief dialogue, allusions, references and so on, so it isn't that detrimental. I found it so annoying to flip back and forth through the huge book that I ignored them until I'd finished and then skimmed through them.

>>	Anonymous Fri May 17 19:52:53 2013 No.3769111 >>3767782 The point of "Infinite Jest" was to move past irony and be completely sincere. Somebody missed the point.

>>	Anonymous Fri May 17 19:55:52 2013 No.3769120 >>3764221 The book itself is the infinite jest. After reading it you have to live with the fact that you wasted all of that time.

Anonymous Fri May 17 19:55:52 2013 No.3769121

>>3769088
Strange. My Kindle version has footnotes. I've read the both my physical copy of the novel and also my Kindle copy. I use the physical copy for academic papers, but the Kindle copy is, I find, more forgiving with the footnotes because I can just click each one and it takes me right to it (no need for all that page flipping).

>>	Anonymous Fri May 17 19:57:53 2013 No.3769125 >>3767091 Clumsy.

>>	Anonymous Fri May 17 20:00:53 2013 No.3769129 A mind altering comedy about the pursuit of happiness in America.

>>	Anonymous Fri May 17 20:08:52 2013 No.3769147 tennis, drugs, and suicide

>>	Anonymous Sat May 18 13:51:53 2013 No.3770773 bump

>>	Anonymous Sat May 18 13:57:54 2013 No.3770795 An overwrought and pretentious book read by trendy college liberals.

>>	Anonymous Sat May 18 14:15:53 2013 No.3770858 >>3769111 Stop ascribing some deep and profound meaning to it. It's being sincere by being ironic? What a load of shit.

>>	Brian Castro !!tB1kv0pHPVj Sat May 18 14:17:53 2013 No.3770862 >>3764221 Boring.

>>	Anonymous Sat May 18 14:19:53 2013 No.3770866 File: 242 KB, 1500x1000, whysogreen.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>3766598 >solid prose >DFW we cant all sign with an x

Anonymous Sat May 18 14:19:53 2013 No.3770870

>>3770858
The main character is described as unfeeling and robotic, though he communicates brilliantly. At the end of the book, he takes psychedelics and his position is flipped -- he can't communicate with anyone, but he feels passion again. That's supposed to be an allegory to how it's cool to be unfeeling, cold, ironic and flippant in modern society, and that by going back to openly feeling things again, we lose the ability to communicate with others on a deep level. Or something.

Either way, I liked the book a lot, and I would strongly recommend getting a physical copy. Footnotes are mandatory reading imo.

>>	Anonymous Sat May 18 14:20:53 2013 No.3770874 >>3767121 Bolano, Carver, Calvino, Borges... Prosey-prose is only good in certain situations. Nabokov, DFW, Pynchon, Joyce, etc get a pass because they know these situations and write solely about them.

>>	Anonymous Sat May 18 14:21:53 2013 No.3770876 File: 39 KB, 565x657, IJ.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>3770795

>>	Anonymous Sat May 18 15:53:53 2013 No.3771172 bump

>>	Anonymous Sat May 18 15:55:53 2013 No.3771177 Infinite Jest is a book that very few people on /lit/ have read, but which a great volume of people on /lit/ enjoy pretending they have read.

>>	Anonymous Sat May 18 15:57:54 2013 No.3771182 >>3764221 Its to /lit/ what boku no pico is to /a/, the troll response to any request or discussion.

>>	Anonymous Sat May 18 15:59:53 2013 No.3771187 >>3771177 >Infinite Jest is a book that very few people on /lit/ have read yeah, because we have more sense than to bother with it

Anonymous Sun May 19 03:26:43 2013 No.3772859

>>3766598
>And in that state of nature, no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
> - Hobbes

Might shed some light on Hobbesian

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