Post comfiest summer reads:

Before any serious discussion of Infinite Jest can commence, it's important to establish a few things. When we talk about David Foster Wallace, we’re talking about a genius of the highest calibur. A man whose I.Q. could not be measured. Even the most prestigious I.Q. tests cap out at around 200. Beyond that, they get imprecise. So when we talk about Wallace, we really don’t know whether we’re dealing with a man with an I.Q. of 200 or 300 or what. When it comes to Wallace-tier geniuses, everything goes out the window. You see, Wallace could have entered any field he wanted. He was a real-life Will Hunting. He could’ve been a doctor or a lawyer, or both, if he wanted. He could’ve been a pioneer in physics. He could’ve been a codebreaker for the NSA. But no. He decided to be a writer. He decided to devote his life to aesthetic beauty and to illuminating for us the way to live. That was the beauty and the tragedy of his life. In one way, it’s a blessing to have been born in Wallace’s time, to be able to hear his voice in interviews, to hear him delivering his famous commencement speech, which is already transforming people both intellectually and spiritually. On the other hand, I will surely die before we know even half of the secrets buried within the labyrinth of Infinite Jest. That I consider a curse.

It’s been eighteen years since Infinite Jest was published and scholars have only begun to come to terms with its full implications. This is what you must understand. Wallace reverse-engineered not only the novel, but all of Western literature as well as language itself. Packed within Infinite Jest is Hamlet, The Brothers Karamazov, Gravity’s Rainbow, Ulysses, and everything else. Hell, it even serves as an overview of human history, from dawn to today. It's about 85% a history of Western philosophy as well. It’s a book you could spend a lifetime studying. A lifetime spent in bliss, no doubt. Indeed, it would be more worthwhile to spend one’s life reading and rereading Infinite Jest than to achieve being “well-read” in the traditional sense.

Of course we don't understand everything about the book yet. He knew things about life that we won’t discover for decades. Our job is merely to get on the road. In the decades to come, we may, if we’re lucky, discover scientific applications for the new paradigms of thought Wallace gave us. We may have to throw out science altogether. We simply don’t know yet. For now, we have to be content with our vanguard roles. We are the ones who will break the ground and loosen the soil for the Wallace’s future interpreters. This is not only our pleasure, but our duty.

knausgaard's "my struggle" - despite it's setting.

i have been keeping them on my bedside table all summer so I can read them when I'm too tired to read anything else/to break up more difficult books.

>>9080677
Infinite Meme!!! lel xDDD
kys

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>>9080684
>IQ meme

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>>9080790
>dat fucking picture

>>9080684
>A lifetime spent in bliss, no doubt.
I think I've lost it

>>9080790
Jesus fucking Christ