New to /lit/. Is IJ worth picking up? Ive seen some very strong

>>8813340
Read the first chapter, if you like it you'll very likely enjoy the whole book. If you think it's pretentious and silly then pass.

>>8813340
no, it's junk.

>>8813345
I agree A friend of mine got it for me as a gift. I'm not finished with it rn bc I'm lazy but I like it. I do think it has gotten progressively better as I've read it. I'm only 150 pages in.

>>8813340
>but no arguments as to why
welcome to /lit/

>>8813345
Solid plan
>>8813356
Thanks for that convincing argument.

IJ or don quixote first?

>>8813340
start with the greeks

>>8813360
>IJ or don quixote first?

Don Quixote.

Infinite Jest, even to the degree that it's a good book, is nothing compared to Don Quixote in terms of influence and historical reception.

>>8813360

Btw, I'm >>8813345
If you like the first chapter and choose to keep reading don't be discouraged by a couple of chapters near the start which seem ostensibly horrible (e.g. The Wardine chapter), it gets better and you get used to it

>>8813340
IJ is good. Pale King is better so it's a shame it wasn't finished. Wallace was a good voice for Gen X and millennials. He gets the ennui of modern living pretty well. He's really good at capturing what it's like to be alive. Not the existential idea of why we're alive just the feeling of being alive. IJ is quite readable it's just long.

Wallace was very self conscious and it shows in this work. He was very concerned with not coming off as pretentious but couldn't help showing everyone what a smarty pants he was anyway. It's very clear he wanted very much to be a Pynchon or Gaddis figure.

Sometimes IJ tries too hard, but largely its a pretty unforgettable book.

>>8813340
youre gonna want to start with the greeks desu

>>8813360

don quixote.

if you need your sprawling door stopper fix, you may as well go with the more influential one and see where people have gone from there.

things IJ has going for it: occasional flashes of brilliance, a comprehensive and emotionally charged portrayal of anxiety/depression/mania, humor, an extended allegory of Literature as Tennis which honestly is one of the main draws of the text for me, and a killer setting. rewards rereads.

things against IJ: overextends. way too reliant on hypertext gimmicks. the errata is hit and miss; when you check the end notes and its like a serial number for a VCR or something you start to get real tired. the ending isn't an ending. people have mentioned the shit chapters. DFW goes full purple in places, not to create something beautiful, but to flaunt his supposed superintelligence.

>>8813396
What do you reckon are the other ostensibly horrible chapters near the beginning?

Real question: Had DFW not offed himself, could he have ever had a chance at the Nobel Prize for Lit? I mean shoot the Pale King was a pullitzer finalist and it wasn't even 33% done.

>>8813340

things i don't enjoy:

a) most of the self-conscious, ironic, lengthy "experimental" books from the 60's and 70's or authors like Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Gass.

b) books that are lengthy at the cost of cohesion and clarity

c) literature that focuses on ideas, rather than human beings

however, i love Infinite Jest. it's readable and sad in a way that books labeled "experimental" usually aren't.

I hated the first chapter and wasn't too fond of many of the stuff at ETA. The best stuff is Gately, Poor Tony, and Yrstruly.

>>8813375
This

>>8813847
Erdedy waiting for weed was pretty garrulous and comes to mind quickly.

I haven't read IJ for a couple years but I also remember the first yrstruly chapter being fairly agonizing.

Do you disagree Anon?

>>8814575
Totally disagree. Found the Eredy chapter painfully well conceived. Overall, some wonderful ideas but lacking in thrust due to digression. Putting together the content of IJ the film is fascinating / a bit horrifying: The mother as murderer apologising over and over for the separation (murder) stage of infant development.

>>8814030
>literature that focuses on ideas, rather than human beings
MFAaggot pls go

>>8814595
>Found the Eredy chapter painfully well conceived. Overall, some wonderful ideas but lacking in thrust due to digression.

I don't overly disagree with this, but from my perspective the digression ended up substantiating more of the chapter than the "well conceived" ideal of the chapter.

As to the content of the eponymous film that's not what I was referring to when I mentioned yrstruly, I was talking about Poor Tony Kraus' junkie friend, who goes/went by the moniker 'yrstruly'

>>8814030
I slightly disagree about your appraisal of Barth's lack of attention to humanism.

How can you read The Sot-Weed Factor by Barth and not care about Eben, yes much of the novels dramatic swells are at his expense, but the over arching motiff is of Eben losing his (non-carnal) innocence. When he realizes that he is a "morsel for the wide worlds lions" or lays himself crying at Burlingame's feet swooning because he's finally found a/his friend again I was affected.

I won't lay out similar arguments for Jacob in the End of the Road but I do feel that Barth doesn't forget about the human condition, and elucidates it beautifully at times

stop putting the book on a pedestal. it's not choosing colleges or careers.

>>8814575
>Erdedy waiting for weed was pretty garrulous and comes to mind quickly.
I enjoyed that part quite a bit, it dragged on a little too much but it definitely captured the feeling of waiting anxiously for substances

I couldnt find IJ at my local library so i picked up one of Wallace's short story books titled "Oblivion"...

If IJ's writing is anything like Oblivions, i'm gonna say it's not my thing. His writing drags on and he tries too hard to come off as this objective intellectual. It was just a drag to read

>>8813345
I read the first chapter and felt like it was trying to be both humorous and thought-provoking while succeeding at neither

Second chapter was more enjoyable but it didn't make me interested in continuing

>>8815072

yeah, i think that erdedy waiting for weed is the chapter that draws people in.

>>8813340
It is one of the most dense and well thought-through books I've ever read. Although DFW argued for being post-postmodernism (New Sincerity), IJ is very postmodern, at least in my sense of the word. There are a few subjects he's focusing on, the most apparent are depression, entertainment and addiction, but he goes deeper than that. He mocks and portrays a lot of subjects in a postmodern way.

There are a lot of subplots and tons of meaning behind basically every single scene. Even if the book is 1000+ pages a lot of the story is not actually told anywhere in the book, instead it's mostly just hinted at. At your first read-through you will most likely miss a lot of the story.

It's great for a re-read, some say, me included, that it's purposely made for a re-read. DFW made it as a sort of infinite entertainment, which speaks even more for how good he is at implementing ideas into his novels.

I'd say go for it, most people don't make it through, but it's an incredibly rewarding book.

>>8813340
>'I do things like get in taxi's and say 'The library, step on it'.'
You don't 'not' read a book with a line like that, anon.