Reading this right now, and yes its the first post modernist book I've read. I really don't understand the appeal of this style. I enjoyed the first few chapters (for lack of a better term), but now its just becoming random and incoherent.
I just read a chapter narrated by some illiterate (most likely southern?) reatard about her friend being raped by her step dad. Then there was a chapter about a guy marrying his high school sweetheart and moving into a trailer.
This all seems completely random all together. I'm just wondering; do we revisit any of these random side stories, such as the unnamed weed addict, medical attache, or the two stories I mentioned above? Does at least get tied together thematically, or am I wasting my time?
>>7658941
It comes together and you'll eventually realize what these things have to do with one another if you remember them long enough, but if you're looking for some sort of big payoff, it never happens.
you went into a thing having no foundation and now its like trying to do calculus with no basis in arithmetic, go figure
>>7658960
That's not even a remotely accurate analogy
This chart makes me hopefully cause I read Catch-22 near the end of high school and ate it the fuck up, so IJ should be right up my alley
>>7658954
>if you're looking for some sort of big payoff, it never happens.
like life
>>7658966
Not only is it inaccurate, it's hilarious to suggest their is prerequisite reading for fucking IJ.
>>7658954
>you'll eventually realize what these things have to do with one another
Ok. I'm fine with that. I'm not really expecting a big pay off
> but if you're looking for some sort of big payoff, it never happens.
>2 main characters have complete arcs and developments
>race against the clock to stop a doomsday weapon that ultimately goes off and strats WW3
>no payoff
okay
>>7658966
there's a visceral immediacy to the uninitiated experience of a work you can't suggest one wouldn't better understand (and thus necessarily appreciate) a Ulysses or a Guernica or a Pierrot Lunaire with some foundational context, and those are works people still balk at even though they're a century old now
>>7658976
If you're just starting out, I'd say The New York Trilogy is a good entry point. It's pretty short and relatively simple compared to a lot of other things in that chart but not quite as simplistic as Slaughterhouse Five.
Pale Fire can be kind of tedious because of the way it's narrated so I'd have to disagree with whoever made this chart about it being good for beginners.
>>7658987
All I said was that the comparison is bad. Which it is. I'm sure if I read some earlier post modern literature I would enjoy Infinite Jest more
>>7658976
That chart is a cringe inducing joke created by some /mu/ fag who wants to ""know"" literature
Categorizing things by "Postmodern" as if that's just a genre some books fall into is stupid to begin with
but the books used as examples are not even good examples of this supposed postmodern genre
>&l in las vegas
are you kidding me? wacky journalism is now postmodernist?
>valis
valis is theological scifi with just minor metafictional elements. much closer to memoir
and Infinite jest is much closer to the modernist tradition thematically and stylistically anyway, even DFW denies it is postmodern
>>7659000
Are you serious or just trying to fuck with me cause I seem new?
[spoierl]nice trips[/spoiler]
>>7658999
I disagree with this. Post modernism only becomes more grating as you read more of it.
Also, it should be mentioned that DFW didn't consider this work to be "particularly post modern", not that pomo really has much of a meaning.
>>7659000
>implying all works are not now grounded on a post-modern epistemology
riverrun m8
>>7659006
He's serious. And that chart is /mu/ as fuck. /mu/ is obsessed with categorizing shit like that, even though its not entirely appropriate for literature.
>>7659012
is the shit in that chart any good though? I don't particularly care about how it's categorized
>>7659012
It's infinitely more useful to categorize music meticulously. It doesn't feel right to do such things with /lit/.
>>7658976
>post modernist
>no Virginia Woolf
>>7658986
Yes on the first thing, but the way it's handled can't really be called "big" or a "payoff".
The second thing is a fan theory largely based on speculation. There's nothing in the book that actually tells you how it turned out.
>>7659018
Ok, it 'doesn't feel right' to you but can you elanorate so I can understand this position. The charts serve to articulate some semblance of a canon, rooted in base consumption, yes, but nonetheless serves a person as much as they put in to explore that body of work. One person will just consume the works, another will supplement it with literary theory, critique, lectures, notes but those ventures are independent of the function of the chart. Pomo isn't some sacred lamb nor is the articulation of a canon even of you disagree with its contents.
>>7659022
>There is an ending as far as I’m concerned. Certain kind of parallel lines are supposed to start converging in such a way that an “end” can be projected by the reader somewhere beyond the right frame. If no such convergence or projection occurred to you, then the book’s failed for you.
sorry the book failed for you
>>7659015
The top row is ok. The ends of the second one are good. I haven't read anything in the third row except for pale fire, which is good. Ditto for the fourth and fifth ones. The bottom row's ok too.
>>7659015
yeah, some pretty good books, but to throw them under the 'postmodern' umbrella as if it's saying anything is ridiculous
>>7659033
>[lol its just a chart bro, cool it, get out of your moms basement ha ha!]
>>7659034
I guarantee you the ending you're projecting isn't the one he was talking about. The book failed for everyone.
>>7658941
You'll find that it's not as difficult as one's lead to believe it is if you choose to finish it. I wish I hadn't.
>>7659048
very pomo to veil the primary sentiment in doublespeak ironyisms of getting out of yr mother's basement to, in this case, actually read the works i deem this an APT CONTRIBUTION
>>7659066
This. I regret every non academy part I read.
Essays are good though.
>>7659076
What is the failed concept?
It's very carefully structured and allusive but none of it's used to very great effect.
>>7658941
I'm currently reading this and I can't recall what you're talking about.
>>7659111
Ill try to be more specific.
There was a chapter narrated by a girl who is extremely illiterate and she gone and talk like this here. She talks about her friends girlfriend being raped by her step father and whipped with a coat hanger by her mother.
The following chapter is about some guy falling in love with a girl during middle school. In high school she becomes a punk and so he becomes a punk to impress her and they grow up and live in a trailer with some guy who breeds snakes
Its around page 40 or so
>>7659136
I found it. I'm at page 376 and I don't recall any of this being relevant later.
>>7659141
Well you still have around 700 pages to go, so we'll see i guess
>>7658941
Just fucking read it. Any high school graduate, or shit even student, can successfully read it. There are guides online if you are in need. But don't fucking complain after reading a few chapters that the character storylines haven't aligned yet. fuck bruhhhh
>>7659158
don't read it.
it's a turgid piece of shit.
L I T E R A L L Y
>>7659141
Those are introductions of minor characters who don't all have speaking parts. It ties into JOI's talk about figurants from much later on.
>>7659160
I read it, and can confirm that this post is 100% accurate.
>>7658941
THIS SHIT IS OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB TIER
GARBAGE
YOU MIGHT WANNA TRY A MILLION LITTLE
PIECES BY JAMES FREY BEFORE YOU
TACKLE DFW MAN THIS SHIT IS NEXT
LEVEL FUCKING BULLSHIT FOR THE
MASSES BY FAMES FRANCO
>>7659188
Nah brah, the middle one was me. Not that I can prove that to you or anything.
>>7659080
He was trying to do too much at once. It was an attempt at a unified thesis on entertainment, addiction, agency, and death while also trying to be entertaining and emotionally resonant enough to be mainstream, and attempting to tell a story that incorporated all of those aspects.
Managing to write a bestseller that's half a million words long and actually tries to do all of these things is impressive, but the lack of cohesiveness shows through.
The book is about the Oedipus complex but it doesn't really do much with it. I think his quote "..then the book has failed for you." is a lame attempt at deferring criticism. Strategic to say "the book has failed", as a smoke screen of modesty, then immediately retain the book's impeccable/objective (and thus "misunderstood") structure by adding that the failure was merely "for you."
IJ is a pastiche of post-structuralist theory, Wittgenstein, and scientific/logical positivism..and it is mostly a failure of application in my view.
I don't consider the criticism of a book not matching the depth or complexity of the philosophy it references to be valid in itself, but it is clearly relevant in the case of IJ.
I think the only way to justify the book's inconsistent and weak content and narrative is if it were meant to be a conceptual failure. Though, I see it as a real, if mediocre and ideologically-driven, attempt at depicting or diagnosing "good" and "bad" forms.
>>7659387
>I think his quote "..then the book has failed for you." is a lame attempt at deferring criticism. Strategic to say "the book has failed", as a smoke screen of modesty, then immediately retain the book's impeccable/objective (and thus "misunderstood") structure by adding that the failure was merely "for you."
So if someone doesn't understand a certain mathematical theory, then that theory has failed? That's not how it works; the theory failed for that particular person and not as a theory.
Same deal with literature. It doesn't always have to hold your hand throughout the plot.
>>7659481
Well, ideas and literature are definitely not reducible to mathematics, so your own theory has failed for you.
>>7659481
Are you equating a fiction novel to mathematical theory?
>>7659587
>fiction novel
Minus the redundancy.
>>7659905
It's mostly because they have herpes and now you've gone and contracted it too. Expect to come down with sores in about three days.
>>7659905
Ya, heaven forbid there is some real conversation in a thread.
