Infinite Jest or Gravity's Rainbow?

[Anonymous No.4112683]

[Anonymous No.4112688]

The Egyptian.

[Anonymous No.4112930]

I prefer IJ. I think Wallace put more of himself into his art than Pynchon, who seems to treat it as just a bit of a lark.

[God's Genes !/Cnt5fI3XE No.4112933]

Hamlet.

[Anonymous No.4112939]

>>4112933
wow he completely eschewed the question and namedropped shakespeare instead so patrician so sophisticated

[Anonymous No.4112951]

>>4112933
I see you're competing for lamest trip ever. keep it up. you're doing a great job there

[Anonymous No.4112958]

>>4112951

[Anonymous No.4112984]

I like Pynchon's writing much more than DFW whom I find verbose as hell.

[Anonymous No.4113051]

>>4112984
Just because he uses big words doesn't mean he's verbose. In fact, his diction is extremely precise. I have a feeling you're basing your opinion largely or entirely on the opening chapter of Infinite Jest, which is actually written in the 3rd person subjective and is not representative of DFW's style at all. It's basically a parody of verbosity. DFW's syntax and usage is actually a lot tighter than Thomas Pynchon's, who pretty much just lets it hang loose. I agree that Pynchon has the keener eye for imagery and figurative language, I just don't think your characterisation of DFW's prose is on the mark. Read his (brilliant) essay "Authority and American Usage" if you want to know how he feels about verbosity.

[Anonymous No.4113076]

>>4113051
That article made me truly realise how much of a nerd/genius DFW is. It was way above my leven, I'm not even a native speaker, but I still enjoyed it

And I enjoyed Infinite Jest more. Gravity's Rainbow felt like a huge chore. A brilliant one, but still: a chore.

[Anonymous No.4113073]

>>4113051
That's what I fucking hate about him: making fun of pretentious writing by writing even more pretentiously, it's so pretentious you can't even be sure it's an actual parody. Not to mention that he supposedly hates postmodern satire/irony.

[Anonymous No.4113081]

>>4113073
Or maybe I kinda love him. Fucking ambivalence.

[Anonymous No.4113086]

>>4113076
>That article made me truly realise how much of a nerd/genius DFW is.

It may actually be the best thing he ever wrote. It's expansive, exhaustive, and just as sneaky as Garner's Modern American Usage

[Anonymous No.4113088]

>>4112683
>touching IJ
>ever

[Anonymous No.4113092]

>>4113086
There's a lot of joy in reading something the author is clearly so passionate and well-informed about. I felt like DFW was really "in his elemelent". I guess it's something like watching a great athlete doing the thing he can absolutely kick ass at.

Same goes for his pieces on tennis, to a lesser extent.

[Anonymous No.4113100]

>>4113092
Yeah, I also got the same impression from E Unibus Pluram. I certainly think reading his non-fiction helps you appreciate his fiction.

[Anonymous No.4114753]

>>4112683
The thing is, Gravity's Rainbow doesn't speak for people; it, like pretty much all of Pynchon's works, speaks for an era. It's completely ineligible for the status of Great American Novel, because it's not about Americans and because Pynchon most certainly does not invite you to care or acknowledge that it's written with an American voice. It's painfully human and wonderfully adventurous, but, in concept, it's ultimately like any other novel with an adventure plot, only that it's written with extreme, nearly insurmountable, precision and talent. And while I'd much sooner recommend GR to a friend than I would IJ, it's nonetheless IJ that I can't seem to get out of my head, and the few quotes that I underlined and dog-eared that I can't stop repeating in a very much either 'zuckungzuckung' or 'I bet you never did...' fashion. I guess I just don't appreciate the cruelty of Wallace's work, ultimately, even if I can recognize its technical superiority.

[Anonymous No.4114769]

>>4112683
>actually liking Infinite Drivel

[Anonymous No.4114797]

>>4114769
>actually posting on 4chan

[Simply the Best !9iKIL9Rvqw No.4114820]

>>4114797

>posting on 4chan in the actual world
>posting on 4chan in any possible world
>necessarily possibly on 4chan in the actual moment now

I kripky diggy

[Anonymous No.4114822]

>>4112930
Pynchon is laughing because it's the only thing that stops people as aware as him from falling into a deep state of paranoia and sadness. There are definite moments of anxiety, horror, and depression in GR. It's just mixed in with the blackest of black humour, on a level of Funny with good ole Franz Kafka.

[Anonymous No.4114941]

>>4114820
>I kripky diggy
>in the year 2013
>? Why pls why can't no

[Anonymous No.4114991]

>>4112683
Can someone who loves Infinite Jest tell me what other books they love? This seems like a pretentious sort of question, but I'm trying to decide if I should read it, it's a pretty big commitment to start it (life is short and I have other books in my backlog), so I want to know if people who have similar taste to me like it.

[Anonymous No.4115015]

>>4114991
Well, I made both this post: >>4115002, and this post: >>4114753, if that helps.

[Anonymous No.4115022]

>>4115015
Thanks. That definitely helps some.

[Anonymous No.4115217]

>>4112683
Anthony Fantano
Infinite Jest
Forever.

[Anonymous No.4115264]

They're both exceptionally good books. When I read Pynchon I feel like I'm experiencing the mind of genius. GR is rich in so many ways, on so many levels, and the writing is genuinely outstanding. I'd recommend it to anybody without reserve or qualification. Conversely, there is so much of DFW in IJ that I would still wholeheartedly recommend it to anybody but insist that they first familiarise themselves with the man and writing style. To understand DFW's background in tennis and of course his depression can only massively enhance the experience.

As for my favourite, I'll go with..... Infinite Jest.

[Anonymous No.4115289]

>>4113051
lolno. DFW is verbose as all hell which has nothing to do with his use of 'big' words. Granted, it's usually an entertaining verbosity, like that uncle who talks for hours but who has some interesting shit to say, but he does go on for ages, just yakkin' away the pages. Pynchon doesn't skimp on length in his books as well, but it isn't sort of stream-of-consciousness rambling. It's dense, in a sort of focused way. In a similarly sized sentence Pynchon packs more into it than DFW does. In other words DFW sez less than Pynchon in a typical sentence, despite being as long. Am I making sense?

[Anonymous No.4115570]

>>4114753
>the cruelty of Wallace's work

Elaborate? Cruel is the opposite of how I'd describe Wallace.

[Anonymous No.4115584]

Killing yourself or committing suicide? So many choices, so little time...

[Anonymous No.4115588]

>>4112688
5/5

[Anonymous No.4115608]

>>4115570
This article is written by a mostly terrible person, but all the necessary citations are arranged there in convenient unity, so:
http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/this-should-not-be-a-love-story-reading-dt-maxs-biography-of-david-foster-wallace/

All it really demonstrates is that Wallace has a mean streak, even if that's not what I wanted to say when I said his work was 'cruel'. IJ is cruel because that's half the point of it: you never get to see the characters meet, you never get to know what secrets are alluded to in so many of the scenes, and you're hardly given any form of closure; Eschaton is as close to a satisfying arc as you come. The name was chosen in connection with this fact; a joke is being played on you, the reader; you are being tormented with dissatisfaction; as - Wallace explains - was what was actually so addictive about the actual Infinite Jest of the novel (the film); Himself had called it 'the entertainment' in irony; it had just meant to be excruciatingly baffling, but then its legend spread and all people assumed that, because someone was obsessed by something, that something had to have an allure, rather than just the very, very convincing promise of an allure (which is indeed all it had); it is a nearly purely cerebral work, and the point of it is to leave you feeling anguished and to instill in you a downright existential dissatisfaction. So it's cruel.

[Anonymous No.4115611]

>>4115570
The lack of resolution in IJ.

[Anonymous No.4115630]

>>4115608
the plot may not have been fully resolved but i felt that he fully got his message across (indeed the lack of resolution being part of the message) and provided enough emotional stimulation that i felt satisfactorily rewarded for my time and effort. it's about the journey more than the destination, to borrow a cliché.

re. the biographical stuff, i'm not really bothered. seems to me that dt max was reduced to sensationalising a bunch of fairly innocuous misdemeanours because wallace's life didn't contain enough real drama to sell a book.

[Anonymous No.4115636]

>>4114991
Some favourites of mine besides Wallace: Sterne, Melville, Joyce, Woolf, Pessoa, Lowry, Mishima, Pynchon, Carver, DeLillo...

[Anonymous No.4115645]

>>4115630
yeah i'm not really bothered by it, either, but it's worth noting that wallace had a genuinely epicaricatic spirit, and that that might have influenced some of his writing; he genuinely wrote once that he regarded his audience with 'a kind of hatred'. perhaps sometimes his works' intentions included the audience's simple, meaningless, not even educational, suffering? so i think about that.

[OP IS A KIKE No.4115679]

>>4112683
>reading infinite shit

[Anonymous No.4115769]

>>4114753
>it's not about Americans

do u even Berkshires?

[Anonymous No.4115784]

>>4112688
I don't get why Pynchon gets so much respect from emulating 18th/19th century novel styles in M&D and AtD but not many people seem to remember or perhaps appreciate the way Waltari emulates Ancient Egyptian narrative structure, style and tradition.

[Anonymous No.4115786]

>>4115784
Waltari isn't Pynchon.

[Anonymous No.4115791]

>>4115608
>because someone was obsessed by something, that something had to have an allure, rather than just the very, very convincing promise of an allure (which is indeed all it had)

Neat, GR had this too

[Anonymous No.4115793]

>>4115786
Pynchon emulates ye old timey texts (of time with a lot of material to emulate) -> Best novel of 90s
Waltari does the same for a period with very little material from -> Is mostly forgotten for some reason

[Anonymous No.4115797]

>>4115793
Well, he isn't English for one...

[Anonymous No.4115802]

>>4115797
The Egyptian was the most sold foreign book in US from 1949 to 1983

It has probably sold more copies than IF or Gravity's Rainbow. And for a reason.

[Anonymous No.4115807]

>>4115793
That's like saying Dan Brown is equal to Umberto Eco because they wrote books about similar things. Pynchon is light years ahead of Waltari as a writer.

[Anonymous No.4115811]

>>4115807
> Pynchon is light years ahead of Waltari as a writer.
Could you explain this position? Why is Pynchon ahead of him?

[Anonymous No.4115816]

>>4115811

[Anonymous No.4115828]

>>4115816
Surely you would be able to tell why Pynchon is better than Waltari?

[Anonymous No.4115847]

The one that won the Pulitzer P-...oh wait.

[Anonymous No.4115856]

>>4115847
2lewd4me

[Anonymous No.4115857]

>>4115828
Because Waltari is a damn, dirty, no-good Finn.

[Anonymous No.4115906]

>>4115857
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIB4PO4YS7o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4KMsVe_eJU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ziYB_73u2E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfmAeijj5cM

[Anonymous No.4117976]

>>4115906
>this

[Anonymous No.4119190]

>>4113088
>has touched IJ, and gives negative review
>hasn't touched IJ, so he should shut the fuck up
either way, your logic is corrupt

[Anonymous No.4119650]

>>4119190
>kek
get back to gaia online feg

[Anonymous No.4121033]

>>4115679
>>4114769
>>4113088

[Anonymous No.4121039]

>>4121033
IF YOU SMELL-EL-EL-EL-EL-EL-EL

[Anonymous No.4121057]

>>4112683
>reading infintieshit