Is Infinite Jest just a shitty postmodern ripoff of Ulysses?
>>7639253
No, but you're just a shitty postmodern ripoff of an intellectual.
>>7639253
haha i love that scene where mario is in the wheelchair talking in ebonics while hal smokes a doobie and accidentally passes it to him
uhhh.... not at all.
it's more like a self righteous didactic parable without the common sense to keep the parable lean, exploring every tiny detail - and ironically finding its only merits in those digressions
but no. not ulysses at all. 'postmodern' is a dubious label too, especially considering its rigid moral compass.
>>7639261
really actually hurt my feelings desu
>>7639265
dude
weed
lmao
>>7639271
nice banal platitude
>>7639253
It's a shitty NEW SINCERE (TM) ripoff of Gravity's Rainbow.
>>7639303
also not like Gravity's Rainbow whatsoever
>>7639308
yea, gravity's rainbow actually had insane insights into free will, protestant foundations of america, and the relationship of language to text, meanwhile infinite jest was like "lol ppl watch tv and thats dumb also drugs"
>>7639313
>thinking these are ACTUAL thoughts and not memes
>think others are the stupid ones
Son, I've got bad news for you.
>>7639303
dfw is better than pynchon, if anything it's an improvement.
that said it's still pretty shit.
>>7639339
>implying people don't think in memes
like i said, a special kind of stupid
>>7639361
>implying you're a person
>>7639368
i am water
>>7639394
>Pynchon is better because he has range as a novelist
yeah what's that one pynchon novel where the main character(s) finds themselves in the middle of a conspiracy that may or may not exist? the one with the large amount of characters? and the references to obscure pop culture?
>>7639394
>pynchon
>literature
>>7639413
nice deflection. very ironic to avoid discussion
all of pynchon's most acclaimed works have what i mentioned, the only range he ever displays is how much research he did when it came to the prose in m&d and how basic he can be in inherent vice and bleeding edge
>>7639428
>Reading for plot
Stay pleb there desu
>>7639403
thats literally only Lot 49
of his 4 conspiracy books 3 exist w/out question
he wrote 4 (5 if you count a short story collection) books not about conspiracies
a good try though
>>7639428
Alright alright. You've sure got a point but the diversity is in what you've typed out.
What other author can switch between 70s California, Post WWII, Colonial America etc etc as well? And the research and characters are his strong points. Pynchon is able to take a huge pile of little things about the era and make you feel like you're living it.
David's a great author and just as funny but in all three of the novels you have the same ideas of being trapped, whether it's in your relationships, school or job, the same Wittgensteinish inability to communicate. His short stories show brilliant range from little pieces Incantations to more novelistic stories like Westward the Path of Empire etc.
>>7639440
>implying there's anything else in pynchon's works
dude weed lmao
he fell in a toilet XD randumz
>he fell for the pynchon meme
>calls others pleb
>>7639440
>not reading
could've swore i mentioned his prose not having any variety outside of the three books i mentioned. and what i mentioned prior, only one of those had bearing on plot. nice desu meme senpai
>>7639442
...and inherent vice, and V. and GR until its finally discovered that they weren't just chasing a ghost
>>7639446
>What other author can switch between 70s California, Post WWII, Colonial America etc etc as well?
fair point, he's definitely diverse in that aspect but his themes and general structures are all too similar. i'm not defending dfw but /lit/ likes to act like pynchon has crazy amounts of differences in each of his works and there really isn't too much. also westward is probably one of the worst things i've ever read
>>7639452
>he doesn't like weed
go back to smoking david's cock lmao
just remember your straight edge idols were all junkies who couldn't take it before they started preaching or admitting hypocrites shortly after
>>7639460
so /lit/ is basically degenerates
>>7639462
>discussing literature on 4chan
yep
>>7639455
I liked it, but it did seem like it had the whole Wallace family kitchen sink thrown in. The characters were well done though the main was too much of an Ur-Hal.
"Ronald," his car and his dad stole the story though.
>>7639452
>>7639460
Not everything is about your idiotic addiction. And DUDE DOWN THE TOLIET PRUSSIAN PUSSY FOR THE WIN XD is even worse than LOL HE TURNED INTO A BUG MAN in the tight contest for worst /lit/ meme.
>>7639460
DUDE
WEED
LMAO
>>7639462
>degenerates
psychonauts baby
sorry your dumb conservative /pol/-ass can't tell a good time from a bad one or get the intellectual nuance of pynchon
but hey, at least you have your memes to fall back on right? books are for brainwashed leftists anyway!!
>>7639485
>at least you have your memes to fall back on right?
>fell for the pynchon meme
>posts pepe
>>7639253
If you're going to make the claim that one hulking work of literature "ripped off" another that was written 90 years earlier, can you please fucking cite some sort of evidence. It makes discussion so much easier.
Also that cover screams YAF.
>>7639490
i've been reading pynchon since before 4chan existed kiddo
i got my WASTE tattoo back in the days of actual mail communication
and pepe aint no joke
>>7639485
i don't know which of you are worse but giving someone shit for posting a meme while posting a meme makes you hard to take seriously
>>7639503
superior YA cover coming through
>>7639505
>weed
>tattoos
>pepe
get it together anon
>>7639509
>look at all the le random/edgy things I'm reading about!
>>7639505
Great so instead of being a 17year old edgelord frogposter you're an oldfag edgelord frogposter.
>>7639527
yeah man, purses and canada and america and tennis and hats and drugs and microwaves sure are edgy
Fucking love how people try to interpret David Foster Wallflower
>smart, hyper intellectual, bred and raised for academic success
>fails at STEM, writes complex lit instead
>not only wants to impress old white men and hot poetess at universities, but wants tell a story to the masses
>gets acclaim and fame + swims in student pussy
>depressed and bogged down in his third novel, which by extrapolation would be 3000 pages plus
>kills himself at age at which HCB was still a filthy unrecognized and unloved drunkard
tl:dr white middle class college kid couldn't deal with life, despite writing a generation defining novel and recognition.
I think DFW is definitely canon, but I just want to kick his autistic ass every time I see/read an interview or his biography
>>7639563
kind of an ignorant view of depression, don't you think? i don't know why he killed himself and he could have definitely written something greater, turned his life around at some point, etc., but that's not really how generous severe depression is
>>7639563
>I think DFW is definitely canon
gees i think he's better than pynchon but i wouldn't go that far
>>7639584
Churchill was fucking depressed and won a fucking war. Yes depression is a diseases like polio, but also polio didn't keep Roosevelt from winning same fucking war.
I think its a fad to say " ow your affliction is terrible, you have no power over your life."
>>7639584
People have agency. Sometimes mood disorders manifest in a desire to commit murder; had DFW done this, his condition wouldn't have been severe enough to validate an insanity plea. There were ways around it; in a meaningful sense, he failed to do the right thing.
>>7639466
If that's all you got out of Gravity's Rainbow you should probably stick to Dr. Seuss. He might be more your speed.
>>7639614
I think it has more to do with how depression was treated than muh willpower. Anti-depressants didn't come around till the 50s and they're still kindof a crapshoot. They used to use opiods and amphetamines before that which is worse in some ways but anti-depressants, especially the shittier early ones like what DFW was on tend to either work with massive side effects or be completely worthless.
>>7639563
DFW is about as "period piece" as it gets. He only describes white people ages 18-38 who have smoked weed and got sad or something before, and who thought the 90s were good for fiction. He really had nothing to say other than aphorisms like "TV isn't good ya know..."
I know Harold Bloom is mocked for saying it, but it's true: he couldn't think. I would say he couldn't write either, since he writes in a style that's so filler and unnecessary and entirely just to pretend he's in line with the avant garde writers of the 80s and 90s, and lifts entire chapters of style from Kafka and DeLillo. He couldn't write.
He's not canon, in fact I think he'll be forgotten entirely by 2030.
>>7639671
Do you think he'd even be talked about now if he hadn't offed himself?
>>7639671
When we become the next generation of people who use their lit degrees to make more people with lit degrees we'll make sure he's remembered.
>>7639678
He was already talked about and considered one of the most successful contemporary writers of the time before he killed himself. It's not like a John Kennedy Toole situation where he was unknown and unpublished before he offed himself.
>>7639688
But early death augments the renown of an popular artist permanently. Kurt Cobain is the classic example. Yeah, even before he died he was hugely popular, but his suicide automatically elevated him to mythical status. There's a good chance if he were alive today making mediocre solo albums he'd be viewed more as a burned out star just trying to replicate the success of his past.
>>7639711
>suicide
You underestimate Nirvana's popularity and how much they changed music.
>>7639711
Dallas, TX
>>7639358
Pynchon is a better writer, by far.
>>7639722
what?
>>7639711
This was a guy who was treated like a celebrity for being an author of literary fiction in a time period when no one gave a shit about "serious" fiction anymore. Even if he hadn't died, as long as he was alive and putting stuff out that was at least consistent with his most well known work, he'd still be talked about. Also you have to remember that he only died 8 years ago so it's not like we're talking about him decades later when he could've been forgotten.
I think it's stupid to argue about whether to argue if it's good or not, unless you've actually written something better.
>>7639744
YouTube-tier argument. Get out.
>>7639744
Yeah, if this isn't a troll is just silliness.
>something better
Well I've written some works of fiction. Who's to say they're not better than DFW's works? You? Have you written anything better than what I've written? Who's to say?
...ad infinitum
>>7639466
The worst /lit/ meme is Pynchon.
>>7639773
Tao Lint
Mira Gonorrhea
Laurie Penniless
Etc.
>>7639358
You are still memeing this same goddamn thing. I've been following you. I know your tricks. It will never catch on, you insufferable piece of shit
HEY HEY HEY, I SEE THE MEMING IS ALIVE AND WELL!
BUT WE'VE ALL VOTED, ALL OF US, RIGHT?
http://strawpoll.me/6667477/r
>>7639452
>DFW is better than Pynchon because Pynchon is too random
>wheelchair assassins
>feral hamsters
>non-metaphorical political puppet shows
>>7639455
>westward is probably one of the worst things i've ever read
it's not even close to the worse piece in curious. fuck, the titular story itself is almost offensively bad.
>>7639563
>>fails at STEM, writes complex lit instead
He didn't fail at it, he was actually quite good. He said something like he felt as if he was only using 50 or 90 percent of his mind/soul/what-have-you doing philosophy or mathematics, but literature used him up completely, consumed him.
>>7639253
>Is Infinite Jest just a shitty postmodern ripoff of Tristram Shandy?
>>7640032
Doesn't work, f.am; Tristram Shandy was postmodern way ahead of its time
So does IJ have anything to do with Hamlet at all, besides the reference of the novel's title?
>>7640168
The Incandenza's family drama sort of mirrors to ETA (The King who dies, The King's brother who takes over, the King's wife who marries the King's brother, the King's ghost who still wanders the castle, etc...)
>>7640168
Yes. IJ is ostensibly a novel about communication and DFW links Hamlet to IJ consistently as a way of illustrating how literature not only communicates with its audience, but with itself. It's hardly a coincidence that the first two words of Hamlet are "Who's there?" and the first two words of IJ are "I am". The anon above me mentioned a lot of the parallels with 'plot' between the two texts as well.
>>7640408
Hamlet also dealed with the theme of stunted communication but it handled it in a different way. Nobody meaningfully communicates even once in Hamlet. Hamlet won't talk to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he can't address the problems he has with Claudius to his mother or anyone else for that matter. He just bottles it up and becomes a fucked up little shithead.
Claudius mirrors this too I would say but I'd need to read the book again to explore it more.
>>7639383
underrated
Just read Underworld.
Delillo > Pynchon > DFW
It's not even similar at all. You stupid fucking faggot.
Can you really "rip-off" something that's as influencial as Ulysses? I mean, isn't a rip-off something that is passed as original and good in spite of something else, which is impossible to do if you're mimicking the most wanked novel of the 20th century?
WELL GUYS
After years of being here I'm about to actually read the meme book for the very first time.
Wish me luck!
>>7639277
nice redundancy
>>7641176
good luck senpai
>>7639563
>HCB
Who?
>>7641176
I'm like 50ish pages in after 2days. It's enjoyable so far
>>7641242
im guessing charles bukowski.
>>7641275
Yeah, I figured as much after thinking about the filthy drunkard part but I've never seen anyone call him that before.
Infinite Jest makes me cringe. It's so pandering to the '70s and '80s postwar lit it's embarrassing. It isn't a ripoff of Ulysses; that, my boys, would be Under the Volcano, which is an equally cringeworthy and pandering "Am I /lit/" novel of its times.
I'm guessing the guy who is posting WALLACE> PYNCHON went to a US university with a <50% acceptance rate and doesn't even crack the top 100 US colleges by any stretch.
>>7641287
Yeah me neither, I guess the 4 extra keystrokes (if you count "shift") were too much for that guy to just type "Bukowski"
>>7639265
That's not the scene the picture is showing.
>>7641329
yeah, that scene never happens you goddamn dweeb
>>7641329
ebic b8 get trolled Fampai
and also infinite jest is v nice so is gravitys rainbow but they are really nothing alike
>>7641302
I was wondering why I've never heard of Under the Volcano until some guy posted here sucking Lowry's dick.
It does sound like a drunken limey's "Notice me, senpai." love letter to Joyce. Even if it did come out 6 years after Joyce's death.
>>7641352
Every Barnes & Noble I've been to in the last 5-10 years has had a giant cover of Under the Volcano on the wall.
Only undergrads who can't grasp the complexity of Pynchon dislike Pynchon.
>>7641406
I fully recognize that Pynchon is complex. That doesn't mean I have to like him. You come off as a tryhard when you blame other people for disliking something with essentially saying "its 2deep4u".
probably more of a take off of the Recognitions
>>7639563
Bukowski died a filthy unloved drunkard though
>>7639253
> implying Ulysses is not a shitty modernist ripoff of the Odyssey
>>7641651
>implying anyone would have even understood Ulysses if Joyce hadn't explained it with his schema.
