Anyone else find Big Daves excessive use of footnotes sort of annoying at times?
Don't read them
>>7717749
This whole thing about IJ being chock full of footnotes is absolute bullshit and is a lie perpetuated by /lit/ trolls. Just flip through the book and you'll see that it has no more footnotes than an average university textbook.
>>7717789
I haven't read ij
Ive read supposedly fun thing and currently reading consider the lobster
>>7717749
When I was in the Army Rangers in Afghanistan we didnt have footnotes. Or books. Just our SAW rifles and a survival knife.
But we didnt complain. If we did our Battalion Commander would just tell us to read Dr. Suess or Goosebumps like a titty baby. Now suck it up and quit crying like a little bitch.
>>7717755
>he doesn't read footnotes
>>7717789
IJ isn't a university textbook though... It's a novel, and employing over two-hundred pages of footnotes in a novel as a stylistic device is extremely unusual. That's not lie perpetuated by /lit/, that's a fact that's acknowledged by every major commentator on Infinite Jest.
Personally I think that while the idea's cute and fulfills the book's thematic intent, most of the footnotes disrupt the flow of passages and the narrative, and the information they contain is often totally superfluous.
>>7717823
bet his has his mom cut his steak for him and takes the crust of off bread.
>>7717794
The last essay in Consider the Lobster, Host, looks like schizophrenic scribblings the way it's formatted. I think a lot of it could have been put in the main text. It's pretty good otherwise though.
>>7717851
A.non understands the authors intent better than the author.
>>7717851
>most of the footnotes disrupt the flow of passages and the narrative
that was literally what he was trying to do the whole fucking book you little blockhead.
>>7717865
I guess thats what he tried to do his whole life because thats the case in every one of his writings
>>7717865
>it's not shit because it's supposed to be shit!
This argument has never worked, anon. Never. It has failed every single time somebody tried to support it, and it just failed again. Now run along and listen to Kanye West
>>7717891
Listen to anon you guys, he knows what he is talking about because of how emphatically he is saying it.
>>7717925
Yeah, but just as long as you critique his tone, you don't need an argument, right?
>>7717938
My argument is that is how DFW wrote the book, so: authorial intent. You can skip the footnotes or use the book to eat spaghetti, but since the author wrote it, I am going to side with the author on this one.
>>7717962
Nobody is arguing that DFW didn't have an intent in including footnotes, what is being disputed is whether his method of realizing his intent was particularly interesting or successful.
The simple fact that DFW wanted his book to be read in a certain way doesn't magically make it immune from criticism. Many people find the footnotes irritating and think they're excessive. "But they're supposed to be irritating and excessive," you say, "The irritating and excessive footnotes are a representation of a grander idea about being overwhelmed with data in a modern information-obsessed society. They disrupt the flow of the narrative in order to provide a portrayal of the mind firing on all circuits as it bounces from one topic or character detail or subplot to the next." Okay, fine. I'm sure there were many justifications for including them. But at a certain point the justifications stop mattering because the book stops operating as art and becomes masturbation. It becomes more concerned with its own abstract social and philosophical role than the craft of literature and narrative. The audience is neglected for too long and we become bored. Some members of the audience like being bored, but others find themselves wondering about another author they could reading, one who's more attentive to their needs and interests.
>>7717823
Please no
Not again
Has this been posted yet?
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/consider-the-pothead-i-smoked-weed-out-of-infinite-jest
>>7718066
thank you for your prompt and detailed response. I dont guess it really matters. There are at least five DFW threads at any given time...if footnotes break your mind, then yeah, he failed as a writer, and you have much more entertaining ways to spend your time. You can play CandyCrush on your phone or play Pokemon. I just dont think they are that hard, and I am not trying to sound 'patrician' or any of that ./lit/tard elitist bullshit. I guess i dont care if you dont like the book. Have a good night, take care.
>>7718108
obvious satire
still pretty funny, though
>>7718108
>I give the Infinite Jest bowl a 9.5/10. I would've given it a 10/10 if it was a book I actually read and enjoyed, and an 11/10 if the book wasn't written by a white dude.
>>7717865
I don't really understand this though
In interviews and in a lot of his writing DFW complained about how people aren't able to sit down and immersively concentrate etc
So you concentrate on his book but then he deliberately breaks this?
Why?
>>7718383
to test your attention span
>>7718398
By fracturing my flow of attention?
It's been years and you fucking goons are still confusing footnotes with endnotes
>>7718418
I'll footnote your endnote faggot bitch
>>7718398
Bullshit. Just about every story he ever wrote does this; the narrative never stays focused and tight, it always bounces around and takes on twenty different ideas and just sort of floats into an ending. He didn't write the footnotes to "test" anybody's attention, he wrote them as a natural consequence of his own attitude toward literature and thought.
If anybody had attention problems, it was the television addict who never finished a novel.
It makes me feel intelligent, like I'm reading an academic paper, like father wanted me to.
We haven't spoken in close to a decade.
So no.
>>7718441
I'm sorry to hear that anon. My dad died last year and we were in a similar situation and I mourn the fact that I never swallowed my pride and tried to reach out with out my ego, resentment and sadness getting in the way.
Unless your dad is so completely unreasonable and a prick still, then I hope your learn from my mistake.
>>7717749
Sometimes he gets really pedantic with them and it feels like he throws em in to just get you uncomfortable and lose your pace, I'd think the majority of them can be insightful and are... palatable? But at certain points, it just feels like he's abusing a gimmick.
The footnotes are generally important, or interesting, though and you miss out on some juicy bits if you ignore all of them, so please read them religiously!
>I'll use a bunch of footnotes, that's a good gimmick
>>7717749
B-b-b-but tennis a-and the back and forth a-a-a-and double consiousness
>>7717851
>employing over two-hundred pages of footnotes
Fuck off. It is 100 pages of end notes.
>>7718066
That's on you I think. I thought a lot of the footnotes, especially the longer ones, stood on their own and told interesting stories/details.
>I give the Infinite Jest bowl a 9.5/10. I would've given it a 10/10 if it was a book I actually read and enjoyed, and an 11/10 if the book wasn't written by a white dude.
kek
