Are you going to read Infinite Jest for its 20th anniversary on February 1st?
And what was your favorite scene? I liked whenever Orin and Hal were on the phone
>>7571356
More like The Infinite Jew
Link to this porno?
Those two girls probably never got past the 30th page, I'd bet my left nut that they never finished it.
>>7571356
How can you expect us to read it if those two in the picture can't?
>>7571373
https://twitter.com/nfinitejestfest
They didn't
>>7571373
They made a twitter account called Infinite Jest Fest
It took them over a month to get to page 100 in 2014 and were on hiatus until March 2015 with one girl sounding like she quit and no messages since so the odds aren't in their favour
>>7571389
Is it really that hard to read?
>>7571394
Of course not. It's not easy, but it's not that hard.
They're just fucking stupid.
>>7571394
not in a way that its dense but its really tedious, especially having to flip to the back of the book and read a ten page endnote or something
>>7571400
To learn about the message the author is trying to convey.
Do you think Moby-Dick would be hailed as one of if not the greatest book of all time if people just didn't read it because of all the tedious descriptive chapters?
>>7571400
Its a good book, its just that the scenes aren't really condensed into just the important stuff and that DFW will ramble on until everything is said. The good chapters go bad fast but others that you might not care about as much might take forever to get through.
>>7571400
>Why do people read it
Goodness, the Reddit in here...For the record, it's the least tedious of the meme trilogy
>>7571413
It is a legit question, a long and tedious book without any assets is not worth being read.
>>7571413
I found it the most tedious of them. GR and Ulysses both happened quickly
>>7571413
If you read gravity's rainbow without thinking to much it is fantastic
>>7571415
My legitimate answer would be read some of his shorter stuff. His style is consistent, and it's something of DFW's that I personally connect with so reading him isn't at all a chore. "Incarnations of Burned Children" is super short, and "Good Old Neon" is a more substantive short work. Read those two first, and if you want more move on to Infinite Jest.
>>7571429
That can happenif you just came over from reddit
>>7571433heh
>>7571356
I read it twice last year and am writing my dissertation on IJ, so I will be reading sections of it.
>>7571451
What's the thesis, anon?
>>7571474
"How to go to the library, and step on it: a Post-Zizekian Structuralism of Tennis Tournaments and Wheelchairs"
>>7571493
I'm damn intrigued. Perhaps this isn't an easy question to answer succinctly, but in what sense could IJ be considered *post* Zizekian (who seems more prominent now than ever)?
>>7571504
>he took that post seriously
>>7571356
I saw the interview movie on a 9h flight, closest I'll ever bother.
>>7571504
New sincerity 2bh family
>>7571356
One on the left is totally fuckable.
I really liked IJ. It was a pleasant read and has stuck with me. Dat heartwarming MI scene in the subway.
>>7571706
Why do men think we always want to hear this. Keep it to yourself
>>7571947
I bet you are too =^)
>>7571947
>implying that is you
>>7571415
Definitely try his shorter stuff first to get a taste of his style. He tends to give Asperger's level contemplation and description on the smallest details and ideas - you'll either love this or hate it. The structure is designed to make you work hard and pay attentionthe book is an attack on passive entertainment - the macguffin being a ringu-esque videotape with lethal entertainment value
>>7571493
>>7571947
Because here there are only other men
>>7571947
Why do women think we can only say things that they they themselves want to hear. This is an anonymous Burmanese cave-painting forum, we are free to think and say whatever, fuck off.
>>7571389
>Infinte Jest Fest followed John Green
But how nice that they got to take a lot of pictures of themself.
>>7571394
Not at all. It's just very, very long, and superlatively tedious at times. But Wallace manages to sprinkle it with enough humour and entertainment to make it bearable, and there are sparks of brilliance and profundity in there too. I finished it in some 40 days. I read a lot of other things while I was reading IJ too, to counteract Wallace fatigue. Mostly Gogol. I'd advise you have something short and great to intersperse.
>>7571504
You should look into the Sokal affair.
>>7571706
>Narcissism disguised poorly as quirkiness
>More interested in being perceived as being well-read than reading - poshlost, superficial, plebeian,
>Incapable of finishing the easiest and most accessible of the meme trilogy
Come on man.
>>7572072
You don't fuck her narcissism though.
>>7571947
Why do women think we ever want to hear their opinions?
>>7572075
One of the great questions of our time.
Yes, I am going to, actually.
>>7571356
I started it about two weeks ago but i'm only 200 pages in. I don't read a whole lot though.
>>7571413
not true
>>7571413
translation: IJ was the only one i was smart enough to finish end to end and now i'm gonna fervently defend it, lest i have to confront my own mediocrity
>>7572158
Ulysses is objectively the most tedious of the trilogy. Nobody today will understand all the references without looking them up.
>>7571504
try reading a fucking book or two. then you'd know when you're being made a laughing stock.
>>7571425
Pleb Choice: Good Old Neon
Entry Level Patrician Choice: The Depressed Person
Exit Level Patrician Choice: Octet
It was enjoyable to read though while Infinite Jest went on and on when you wanted it to move forward
>>7571947
y-you too
>>7572170
not that anon but read it alongside gifford's annotated. it is invaluable if you are serious about it.
>>7572195
The Depressed Person is much easier than Good Old Neon. Explain your ranking.
>>7572219
No.
>>7572195
Octet is: - enteraining, - textbook pomo trash
The Depressed Person is: - boring, - funny,
Good Old Neon is: - boring, - fraudulent
>>7572247
>is Brief Interview with Hideous Men worth getting?
Yes, if you like him better on the playful side. A couple of the titular interviews and Church not made with hands stand out. Tri-stan too, as stupid fun.
Mr Squishy and Another Pioneer are good if overlong stories from Oblivion. Philosophy & mirror... in it is what his Palahniuk impression would be.
>>7572247
Big Red Son
>>7572283
It absolutely is textbook metafiction. The triple-cream version - that tries to make up for the fact that it is less artful than everything that came before and will come after by cringing itself into candid wrapping. It's good for a laugh and that's about it. Not even its fault you're feeling threatened in your status as a reader (Lawd) for failing to see that.
>>7572247
I personally enjoyed BIwHM is better than IJ. Whereas IJ just due to length felt overwrought and disconnected from anything truly human, the shorter format of BIwHM lets him explore without as serious a commitment from the reader.
High points for me were:
Death Is Not the End - a brief attempt at pure maximalism. Literally nothing happens.
The Depressed Person - about as pleasant to read as Black Swan was to watch, but absolutely the most accurate rendering of depression I've read.
Signifying Nothing - An excellant wat.
>>7572341
>you continue to display your ignorance by repeating exactly what i told you is wrong without adding anything by way of evidence
>>7571992
>my chest bumps like shoes in a drying machine
>>7572399
You're hurt to see it dismissed as po-mo trash because you're not well-read enough to see that it brings nothing to the table. See: since your post was worthless, it can be worthless in either direction. Now if you want to expound on what makes DFW's nudge-nudge-can-you-feel-me any less vacuous than Vonnegut's metafiction or, indeed, any high-schooler's corresponding effort, you're welcome to do so.
>>7571400
http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-01-0059425.pdf
>>7572664
you seem to be under the impression that
1. metafiction is inherently garbage
2. that it's easy to do effectively
3. that dfw's in octet is in anyway similar to that of his predecessors
that you bring in the name vonnegut to argue however implicitly for the third point gives you away: you really only know writers mentioned frequently on /lit/, you probably haven't read much American metafiction from the late 1900s, and that corollary to these two you wrongly believe Vonnegut to be both associated with the movement and a poor writer. You're wrong on both counts, but that's another matter.
I'd like you to for once in your life open your eyes to a wider field than the blinders your cynicism allows and read a few things by a man named john barth. first i want you to read his short story Lost in the Funhouse, then read Octet again. Octet is a reaction to this kind of metafiction, not whatever straw man idea of it you have in your head when you mention Vonnegut. Lost in the Funhouse is metafiction for its own sake, an endless recursion of self-referentiality that is really impossible to escape—DFW seems to present the same thing in the Octet, but seems to be looking for a way out, at least. Barth acknowledges no such way out except either death or just giving up the whole thing. I'd also like you to read Barth's novel, The End of the Road, and again compare its metafictions to those of the Octet. the novel ends callously with the death of a principle character, and it is largely implied that this is the consequence of the protagonist self-consciously making a narrative out of his life—what his psychotherapist calls "mythotherapy." This metafiction is admittedly "softer" than the other two we're thinking about, less explicitly self-referential, but a character is seen losing her life for it all the same. Barth again rubs against what he feels to be a "dead end" quality to metafiction's endless recursion. DFW tries very admirably in the Octet to deny this, to insist that there is a "bottom," that there is a point at which irony gives way to the sincere. If you can't see the relevance of such a struggle to today's zeitgeist then I don't know what to tell you, other than start reading, faggot.
>>7571665
>>7571702
>>7572191
>>7572061
Two things: 1) I fell for that bait hard, regardless of how late at night it was. 2) I wouldn't put such wankery past some of the phd students I know.
german supremary when?
come on guys, I give you another five years to accept that Arno Schmidt is to replace the entire fucking Meme Trilogy
also IJ in English or German translation?
>>7573842
>IJ in English or German translation?
DFW himself said that he hated translations of IJ because a lot of the wordplay and subtleties in his prose weren't translatable. That said, if you don't already know English at a pretty high level you'd miss those things anyway, in which case it'd be better to read a translator in your own language who knows what they're talking about.
