Let's be frank with each other, /lit/.

>>7547643
le no discernible talent face

Yeah I thought this book was severely overrated.

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>>7547643
2"/10

Where you're wrong:
>This book is not very good.
>It is entirely too long
>The problem of "the Entertainment" thoroughly lacks any compelling feature.
>The characters are bland.
>Wallace's prose isn't engaging enough to generate interest.
>Wallace was a pretty good writer
>this book is a dud
>his short stories

Where you're right:
>the digressions it lapses into for dozens of pages are neither interesting nor engaging
>His real genius comes out in his nonfiction
>Hemingway is actually a shit novelist, and his real brilliance is in his short stories

>>7547643
>Hemingway is actually a shit novelist, and his real brilliance is in his short stories

>Hemmingway
>good in any way

absolutely disgusting.

>>7547643
>not very good
>too long
>neither interesting nor engaging
>lacks features
>bland
>boring
>isn't engaging
>dud

Aside from maybe describing its length, you've repeated the same thing over and over again in your post.

Perhaps you're the one with no discernible talent, OP.

Oh golly gee, yet another "Infinite Jest is overrated and bad" thread! What originality and fun!

>>7547688
And here comes the man with the dubs, not starting his own awesome and intellectual threads, but shitposting nonetheless.

>tfw you piece together that Avril buggered Orin when he was just a kid and he's been making copies with a Master of the entertainment and sending them to her lays
>tfw you piece together the story about Joelle being disfigured Molly spouts was just the same bullshit she tried to hit Don with before he got her to give up the sarcasm and totally horseshit
>tfw you figure out Mario is a concavity baby
>tfw you can't figure out the weird metaphor having to do with there being irradiated quebecois without skulls and Don having a really thick skull
>tfw James' filmography is the key to the whole book
>tfw John Wayne was an ice cold motherfucker from clearing the tracks so many times without even losing his legs

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>>7547643
>people who couldn't even finish it

Funny how people who aren't capable of reading it cover to cover always have the most negative opinions.

>>7547698
Joelle not being disfigured is just a meme bro

>>7547698
>tfw you figure out Mario is a concavity baby

what about the avril-ct incest baby meme?

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the book was great other than the ebonics chapter. Are there really retards on this board that are willing to defend wardine be cry?

>>7547729
i've never been able to defend it in the context of the book itself, it's really out of place and only serves to introduce Roy Tony iirc. it just seems like a ridiculous + masturbatory callback to his Authority + American Usage essay

>>7547698
I was pretty sure Orin had the master of Infinite Jest V, the killtape, and 6 was in Himself's skull and the only way of stopping the mass dissemination (given Orin's capture), which was the emergency Hal and Gately were trying to stop

>>7547643
I finished it recently. I would rate it 'very good' but not first class Pynchon tier. There's just a lot of loose threads that don't really come together at all. I have the distinct feeling that I would need to reread the novel to catch the important details integral to solving the plot, which is just crazy given its length and how rarely those important details occur (although many are in the first chapter).

So many characters had a great start and promise but were never developed (orin, erdedy, bruce green, kate gompert, joelle [and daddy], pemulus). It's like the book needs a sequel just to be satisfying. DFW had the habit of only alluding to the most interesting events instead of actually depicting them, instead spending almost the entire book 'catching you up' on the details of the world and setting, only for the book to end with almost nothing happening.

The ETA and Ennet House scenes were all very good but the geopolitical spy story and Entertainment plot line brought it down (I got so sick of the interchange between the spies in the desert). Several passages stand out as brilliant in their own right (eschaton, J.O. Incandenza's youth, Hal-Orin phone calls, Gately-Joelle interface). I wish he had just kept developing his good characters instead of adding more and more dead end side plots.

As far as technical detail and scope, I feel like DFW knew just a little more about each of his subjects than I did, just enough to be persuasive about them. When you catch his errors (revolvers don't have safeties) you realize that he's only a couple steps ahead, not miles ahead a la Pynchon. The book's main strength was its humor, largely coming through the repetition of the unique futuristic elements (waste catapults) and the inventive use of weird vocabulary (kertwang, personal map, crew). And I think it's underrated just how horrific some parts of the novel are, due to all the humor interspersed throughout.

>>7547772
>I have the distinct feeling that I would need to reread the novel to catch the important details integral to solving the plot

What gave that away?

>>7547723
Yeah Mario is CT's son. CT's mother was a dwarf and I believe had other problems.

>>7547670
meme harder, maybe /lit/ will finally accept you into its esteemed corps as a junior member

>>7547729
Is the chapter really such a detriment?

It's just one chapter. You can skip it when you re-read since it's not really tied to the rest of the book.

But I think if you generate a meaning for it within yourself -- even if DFW was being a shithead when he wrote it -- then it's a worthy addition to Infinite Jest as a whole.

Did it mean anything to you?

To me, it had two meanings:

1) It made me wonder if there are people living in modern America who really are that illiterate. And if so, how have we, as a society, failed them? Did we even fail them? Did we owe them something? Is it okay for them to be so illiterate? Who are we to judge?

2) The book isn't 'easy.' It's not 'simple.' I'm not saying anyone who reads it should stroke their ego-dick. But the book requires some thought to appreciate beyond, 'Oh look, some words arranged into a story.'
The Wardine chapter is a rude awakening early in the book. It reminds the reader that they're getting into something. The chapter isn't total gibberish (it's close, but not quite) -- there's some manner of human abuse taking place. It's not poetry, and it's nowhere near the well-executed stream-of-consciousness seen in Failkner's 'The Sound and the Fury,' but it's still a worthy part of Infinite Jest. Pietsch had DFW cut, what, 400 pages from the first manuscript? Clearly Pietsch and DFW wanted Wardine to stay. Trying to find meaning in the chapter, even if that meaning has nothing to do with DFW's intentions, still makes it worth including.

Blah, blah, blah.

>faggots trying to piece together the ending
you realize he left it open-ended to get people obsessed with fan theories deliberately right
like Steeply's dad or the Notkin explanation of the entertainment
the book was meant to be a failed "entertainment" which the reader eventually breaks away from, but struggles to reject

>>7547772
Prepare to be blown away:
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend#fnref:o

>>7547795
I agree with your first point my man and I can attest that there are. I've put in hours at homeless shelters, soup kitchens, the type of place a Wardine figure would be. People like that exist. More than you'd think.

>>7547801
God damn, not him but this is pretty good and probably the least reaching I've seen with most plot points.

>>7547698

>tfw you piece together the story about Joelle being disfigured Molly spouts was just the same bullshit she tried to hit Don with before he got her to give up the sarcasm and totally horseshit

its actually a meme that she isnt, she certainly is disfigured or else the story literally does not make sense. trust me ive had this argument mayn times and youre especially a fucking idiot for making this association between hte scenes

>tfw John Wayne was an ice cold motherfucker from clearing the tracks so many times without even losing his legs

this isnt true, in fact it would seem you made this up entirely

>>7547780
I mean, if I had read closely and taken notes then I could probably decipher the plot without rereading. I just think it's a slight knock against the novel that it has to be read twice if one is reading casually (since for the most part it is written casually).

>>7547643
Are you kidding me?

His short stories are shit. Only two or three are good and even then they have major flaws.

>>7547698
>tfw you figure out Mario is a concavity baby
ummm... never confirmed but supposedly possible considering CT and Avril were Quebecois who lived on the rim of it but even then it could just be in-breeding

>tfw James' filmography is the key to the whole book
somewhat true, but you being so dumb makes me want to test your interpretation

>tfw you can't figure out the weird metaphor having to do with there being irradiated quebecois without skulls and Don having a really thick skull

Don is the hero. he can resist temptation. he's hercules of the story. its pretty simple.

>>7547824
Most novels told out of chronological order deserve a reread, even if you take notes. Hell, any novel that you somewhat enjoy deserves a reread.

>>7547826
I thought I was one of the only ones who thought this. The Jeopardy one was actually pretty great but most of the others slip my mind.

>>7547813
DFW's quote at the top of the page bothers me, saying that the book has failed if the reader fails to abstract any of plot threads into a finale. Whether or not the book is 'successful' is entirely dependent on the reader getting anything meaningful out of the experience, the entire concept of Identification he spends a lot of time on in the AA chapters can work directly against his quote.

>>7547831
i like the majority of the girl with curious hair. the endign sucks. its actually really deep but i get the feeling most people dont get it.

oblivion has some really nice shorts in it though. incarnations of burned children is one of my favorites.
also brief interviews is essentially a short story collection and in a way i would consider that his best book as a whole

>>7547831
That one was eh.

Forever Overhead was good but the ending is shit. The two others are Good Old Neon and The Depressed Person, but they also are flawed.

>>7547843
>its actually really deep

Please stop, it really wasnt

>>7547853
>not believing in the basics of freud
liberal brainwashing

>>7547857
I said stop not continue you illiterate fuck

>>7547860
youre mad because you're dumb right?
you thought it was just trying to be edgy right?
well guess what tardo, you didnt get it.

>>7547824
Jesus f you missed the point buddy

>>7547710
>>7547820
>>7547830
>>7547853
samefag tryhard troll
get sincere, you ironist

>>7547860
Where'd all these angry shit heads come from?

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>>7547868
ayy lmao

>>7547869
sounds like you need me to xplain it for you in layman's but im not gonna waste my time.
its just a very animalistic story.
if youve ever done lsd and had a bad trip it might help.
its just a very raw disgusting story.
its good though, its about human nature.
i could write an essay but ffuck you.

>>7547864
Go ahead and waste your time making an argument since its your burden

Otherwise youre just shouting conclusions like a child

>>7547868
im literally 2 of those people posts 20, and 30 so youre wrong.

>>7547866
Ok, feel free to enlighten me as to why reading a book twice is some essential point of IJ that DFW is trying to make, instead of just shitposting

>>7547873
>taking screenshots of 4chan to prove internet arguments
wow you really have a lot of time on your hands
does mommy still make dinner?

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>>7547874
Who do you think you're fooling?

>>7547884
i read it once very thoroughly. its just a very dense experience, meant to be refelcted on. i guess if you speed-read you should proably read it twice.

>>7547888
youre probably an uptight and boring person.
it wasnt written for you.
he wrote for a specific audience really.

>>7547885
You're incredibly embarrassing right now. You could have just made a joke out of it instead

>>7547885
>screenshotting on an iPhone is hard

>>7547844
>That one was eh.

Not asking in a douchey way, but would you care to clarify more than "eh"? I think everything DFW has ever written is flawed and could have been greatly improved upon, including the Jeopardy story (how funny is it that I can't recall its name? Expressionless Little Animals? something like that), but I still think its above the par for most of the fiction he wrote.

>>7547884
Well, usually a novel that starts at the last point chronologically implies that the reader should give it another go, or at least another skim at that to pick up on the finer points. Especially a dense novel like IJ. Even re-reading JOI's cinematography after finishing the book is a good idea.

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Mario was my favourite character by far
I loved all his scenes
what a fuckin' great guy
I wish I had a Mario in my life

>>7547888
take a look at yourself and you'll see more of sick-puppy than you realize.
this is the point of the story essentially, that we're all so jaded to how gross we really are.

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>>7547909
>you will never be snuggled up about to fall asleep when Mario calls your name several times

>>7547909
One of my favorite lines from the book is when Mario was filming LaMont Chu.
"This is going well!"

>>7547899
>>7547890
That's fine. I'm just saying it's inelegant to have to read something this long twice, compared to say the perfection and economy of GR (where you feel like you've taken a bullet by the end). A ton of IJ is stylistic exercises and humor so reading the entire thing again to rehash the plot is a seriously inefficient exercise.

>>7547899
I just didnt care what was happening and I saw the very one sided male characters coming a mile away.

You had a meek woman being told what to do by these stereotypical businessmen from the 60's.

That's it, everything you would expect is there and that's it. It was just placed on a gameshow and you had this constant back and forth about sincerity and image that doesnt go anywhere. So many of his stories and others I read in literary magazines cant figure out how to present a philosophical problem.

Compare this one to the depressed person. The intricate-back-pedaling-self-generating-wheredoesthisBeginorEnd cyle is there as well, on a different subject, but its there and is done far better I think.

>>7547909
"Hey!"
"..."
"Hey Anon!"
"..."
"Hey Anon!"
"What is booboo?"
"Are you awake Anon?"
"I am now, Booboo"
*snuggle Mario*

>>7547919
>liking GR more than IJ
they're basically the same book but IJ is more modern/relevant.

>>7547884
Not him, but, chronologically, the last event appears first in the book.

When I finished IJ the first thing I did was flip back to chapter one.

I thought this was the point?

>>7547926
>You had a meek woman being told what to do by these stereotypical businessmen from the 60's.

That was kind of the point. Hell, I feel like it's probably DFW's least "philosophical" story and instead tries to just capitalize on commercialism and entertainment itself more than anything. None of the characters feel human in the story (major flaw since it tries to get you to sympathize with the main character's family issues).

>>7547919
Like I said, if you don't think its worth another read, give it a skim. If you don't think its even worth a skim over some of the finer points, then you shouldn't be in an IJ discussion thread.

>>7547801
Thanks for the link. I think I got some of those, like that it was Orin mailing the Entertainment and that the AFR got it from him and started the conflict described in Chp1. But I feel stupid for never having considered why JOI made the Entertainment. And I had no idea he made DMZ. They both struck me more as weapons of mass destruction (JOI being a mad scientist type guy) than as lovingly-conceived antidotes.

I guess I tend to miss basic plot elements if they happen to be supernatural. Like I didn't get that JOI's wraith had possessed ETA and Stice (in addition to Gately), and I didn't get that the mold had seriously messed up Hal (although it seems obvious now since the story is laboriously repeated TWICE). I just figured Hal was messed up by the experience of finding his father, but the explanation the page gives about the reversal from communicating to feeling is so elegant.

I still feel that Avril is really unexplained, i.e.what is her connection to the separatists, did she really bugger Orin as a child? It would have been cool to get her childhood flashbacks as we did JOI.

>>7547772
>thinking pynchon and wallace are "ahead"
i dont think youve ever met a truly creative person . theyre basically savants (especially anti-social ones)

>>7547976
he didnt make the dmz, the writer doesnt really get that. The dmz is just a parallel (its the the thing that causes Hal to finally fully develop), which in a way is what the entertainment was intended to do but failed.
the irony is that hal's development actually leaves him worse off, almost as if he had watched the entertainment, thus the parallel.
its a meta joke about the book itself.

Avril and Orin, its definitely implied but its more like a rumor. its a freudian reference mostly. the whole book could be viewed as references to concepts. its about function more than anything else.

>>7547996
So then how do you explain how Hal ingested the DMZ if it wasn't JOI's wraith giving it to him?

And why do you say Hal is worse off afterward? I half agree. Post-DMZ Hal seems to display the non-functioning obsessive compulsiveness of the other addicts when they approach their bottom. I don't think it's a coincidence that Erdedy's introduction comes up so quickly after Chp.1. But along the lines of the writer of those spoilers, the DMZ allowed Hal to escape the trap he speculates upon in his TV essay and other thoughts, the trap of the postmodern attitude of continuous entertainment (infinite jest) with no feeling behind it. Not giving yourself over to anything (religion, the state, ideals) in order to live an authentic life (devoted to tennis, in this case?)

NEEDS! NEEDS! NEEDS!
Let out your inner infant, Kevin!

>>7548044
yes, the ghost put the dmz on the toothbrush but he didnt make it, he just took it from Pemulis' spot. Thats about all the ghost could do, move objects and take notice from nearly-still people.

Hal can no longer communicate after taking the DMZ, he's no longer a programmed robot but he finds his new found "self" is locked away from people who are still "there".
I would argue that Hal's development turned him INTO the hero of non-action he writes about in that essay. He's now controlled by bureaucratic forces beyond himself and has no say over his own will. He and Gately have this in common at the end of the "story".
the joke is that by getting past the problem only reveals how prominent the problem is, our lives are defined by tthat problem.
Hal no longer needs to be a tennis star, he just wants to live but the pressure still exists and its not like can do anything else now.

>>7547670
>>Hemmingway

>>7547643
~200 pages in right now
so far its a romp
goes well with mild career dysphoria and even milder stimulants

>>7547675

god damn you are a genius
i mean, i real literary master

how did you find all those words and put two and two together?

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>>7547643
>this book is a dud

>>7547729
I skip it everytime.

But it always seemed like a product of his encounter with ebonics as a teacher, in that Consider the Lobster collection.

>>7548076
yes, the corrected spelling.

Oh. Hemingway is a shit novelist. Ok.

>>7547801
Oh shit, subsidized time ended. I completely missed that. Also the stuff about Orin mailing the entertainment is fantastic.

>>7547643
Found the woman