>Also, there’s the whole thing of treating teenagers as intellectually capable and genuinely funny people, which IJ did not invent but did master. Plus, YA novels on average are more likely to use footnotes than novels for adults.83 It’s actually pretty stunning how massively so many YA writers (I mean, me especially, but also other people) have ripped off ETA and Pemulis and Hal, how deeply DFW has shaped our understanding of what it means to be smart and talented and scared and 17.
>>Also, there’s the whole thing of treating teenagers as intellectually capable and genuinely funny people, which IJ did not invent but did master. Plus, YA novels on average are more likely to use footnotes than novels for adults.83 It’s actually pretty stunning how massively so many YA writers (I mean, me especially, but also other people) have ripped off ETA and Pemulis and Hal, how deeply DFW has shaped our understanding of what it means to be smart and talented and scared and 17.
It's over. IJ confirmed for YA fiction.
>I write novels for teenagers now—such books are colloquially called “Young Adult books” or just YA—and whenever I’ve had about two beers and find myself with other YA authors, I always start in on this soliloquy about how the contemporary young adult novel was not invented by J. D. Salinger or Judy Blume or Robert Cormier but by David Foster Wallace, whose ETA scenes more closely resemble what most YA writers are after. Like, for one thing, the best contemporary young adult fiction moves effortlessly between high and low culture in that way that only teenagers and David Foster Wallace can. I mean, my favorite books when I was eighteen were IJ and The Babysitters’ Club #43: Claudia’s Sad Goodbye.82 DFW proved that one way to bring readers to complex ideas is to utilize the sentence structures they hear every day; YA fiction has been trying to do this ever since.
Does it ever end, /lit/?
>John green
Aka I can't write a serious book to save my life so I'll be edgy on the internet instead, btw I write YA shit ironically guys I swear
Replying to a bait thread, but...
Does anyone who's actually been through the 900+ pages of IJ think that it can qualify as YA after trudging through the awful backstories for what seems like every single fucking main character in the book.
>>7643251
It's got to be YA because only teenagers have enough free time and adolescent hyperfocus to make it through the whole book.
I read Infinite Jest when I was 17.
>>7643251
YA is technically just a demographic, right?
Books like The Outsiders, The Giver, and classic fantasy such as LOTR, Narnia, and Wrinkle in Time are for the YA demographic, but I don't associate them as being in the same category as Twilight and Hunger Games even though they are.
>>7643262
Unless you have 2 jobs (lmao) you should have enough time to read at least a book a week.
Do we actually have anyone enjoying IJ who is not, in fact, a young adult?
>>7643362
Why is it unacceptable now to point out the problems with popular culture
>>7643274
YA is largely aimed at the 12-25 market. People who are over 20 generally consider themselves not YA but will still read stuff that is and then say its not. My own reading changed significantly in my late 20s and I cannot read some authors I used to consider excellent reads.
>ebonics chapter
>Lenz murdering animals
>eschaton
>JOI
>Mario touching the dude's hand
>Kate screaming needing ECT
YA where?
>>7643224
>between high and low culture
tired of seeing this as a badge of merit for anything. it's the shallowest part of what makes the things which do it good.
>>7643480
Yeah, this shit's lame. Like, most people who are into 'high culture' probably enjoy watching the simpsons or eating macdonalds every now and again. I guess the reason people like this is because they can point at it and say 'hey, DFW likes Die Hard and so do I therefore I'm just as smart as he is!', or some other bullshit like that.
>>7643206
>teenagers
>smart and intellectually capable of anything
Absolutely not. No fucking way. Not in North America
>>7643521
dae americans are stupid?!
>>7643505
you have no clue what you're talking about
you twat
look up "cultural omnivorousness"
>>7643206
>a YA writer finds some meaningful and substantial in his interpretation of a book that informs him that, yes, what I'm doing is not complete and utter trite, and I should be respected,-- I mean, look to IJ, that darling of the critics, it's basically YA anyway, right? Respect me.
He's pathetic.
>>7643362
A lot of people like it so they can't all be wrong.
I love this argument. Why are people so scared of saying they are superior to the masses? Are you afraid of being called edgy?
