Okay, so I just read pic related on /lit/'s recommendation, but I'm a bit confused.
From the point onwards of Gately getting shot, nothing really develops in the book, it seems to fall off its wheels and get bogged down in trying to develop the character after the fact, and to me just sort of stagnated.
Am I missing something, or does it just have a bad ending?
That's the point... usually in trash media (entertainment, tv, etc.) a lot of stuff happens at the end where it all wraps up and its very exciting. Well, Infinite Jest is NOT trash entertainment, it's a literature book, and it was Wallace's intention to make it not like television and bad media at all. So in Infinite Jest, nothing much happens toward the end, and it's boring, which is where it departs from television, which is usually exciting and interesting. If you didnt get this, you didnt get the book, sorry. Read it again.
>>7786347
Use spoilers, retarded fuck.
>>7786393
>Infinite Jest is NOT trash entertainment
>>7786398
No.
>>7786347
Did you finish it?JOI's wraith explains why it's structured the way it is when he talks about figurants to Gately.
>>7786347
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 occured to you, then the book's failed for you.
>>7786347
Gately is died
>>7786347
you fell for the dfw meme
it's a shit book
>>7786398
>wahhhh i'm too lazy to read a shitty book that came out 20 years ago and because i'm the special one no one else is allowed to discuss things. the internet was made for ME
been a long time since i read it but heres my go
gately gets shot goes to the hospital JOI tells him hes gotta do some crazy shit HAL goes to the same hospital because he took the DMZ at the peak of his depersonalization JOI wants HAL and GATELY to dig up his head and get the Samizdat before the frenchies do but as recounted in the beginning of the book they fail and but so WW3/mass distribution of the entertainment becomes innevitable JOI finally reconnects with HAL ina tennis match in which he posesses Ortho Stice before WW3 breaks out as HAL is shipped off to the hospital post-breakdown and a fighter jet zips north to bomb canada
>>7786413
Fucking off tripfag
>>7786347
The first scene in the book is the ending. Read it again, and everything should be clearer for you.
>>7786845
I love you
>>7786347
https://m.youtube.com/verify_age?next=%2Fwatch%3Fitct%3DCCcQpDAYASITCIaoz6WDsMsCFRI9TgodqhoFC1IVd29ybGQgZmluYW5jaWFsIGdyb3Vw%26sts%3D16861%26v%3DB5yTdGwdARY&layout=tablet&client=mv-google
>>7786869
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B5yTdGwdARY
>>7786876
Don't join them guys, they are obviously a pyramid scheme.
>>7786429
joi sr.
Did anyone else notice that JOI's initials say JOY, as in the pursuit of JOY, as in happiness... Amerca?
>>7786347It has a pretty good ending, Joelle recognises Hal in the hospital after his DMZ trip and with gately and John Wayne, an AFR operative defecting, they go to dig up JOI and get the entertainment out of his head, but it's already been stolen by Orin who mailed it to the saudi dude Avril fucked as part of his oedipal shit
Ties things together nicely but left implicit
The ending is just past the last page
>>7786845
Why is the war between Canada. Why is there a war because of the entertainment. Wasn't Orin in the USA. Why would they fight Canada.
>>7786475
lol okay Dave. Even though he's later said that book can't fully be made sense of, an intentional fallacy. I have read the wikipedia page too :)
>>7786347
read Aaron Swartz's intepretation. The book did the same thing to me.
>>7786429
i skimmed that part cuz it was boring
the whole thing was just one of incandenza's movie. except some parts where he filmed Hal and hal messed up the scene
>>7786906
Bravo Wallace, Bravo.
>>7786475
>parallel lines
>ever converging
>>7789834
the lines start converging, noone said theyre still parallel
>>7790874
>Implying parallel lines ever deviate
>>>/basicgeometry/
>>7792497
converge
>>>/btfo/
>>7786413
>trips
>not a fag
>lolololololololol
>>7792497
> what is non-euclidean geometry?
Pemulis is best character
I'm about a third through this piece of shit and it's extremely boring so far. What is the big-fucking-deal?
>>7793356
The book creates a story from converging lines of plot that you won't realize until the end and won't even then realize it until you look up a guide. The book is worth it because it makes you a stronger reader and the elements in it are very very powerful. The actual plot I doubt 99% of people who read it got, if they did props to them for being much smarter than me.
>>7793356
Not much. Sure the different parts converge but who cares. They weren't interesting when you started reading them and realising how they are related doesn't make them anymore interesting.
I think the only reason that the parts are so removed at the start and why they do not happen in chronological order is to trick the reader into thinking they are reading something great because it required some level of effort. It's not even that hard to figure out, it's just a matter of memory. Something will happen and you will think 'oh that's this person from 400 pages ago'. And what does all of the artificial difficulty do? Nothing. It could have written a very, very similar book with the same sort of build up if it were in chronological order.
>>7793909
Yeah well you know that's just like your opinion man.
>>7793909
>artificial difficulty
Please stop judging books like video games, you're embarrassing yourself.
>>7787121
The AFR is a Canadian organization with grievances against ONAN including but not limited to the pollution of the concavity. The possession of the samizdat by the Canadians (legitimate or not) spurred a (pre?) Emptive strike by ONAN.
>>7794438
I have no idea what you are talking about.
>>7794438
Not that anon, but you'll find if you google the term "artificial difficulty" that it's pretty much exclusively used when talking about a specific video game phenomenon. That term to describe a book is vague at best, meaningless at worst.
When you boil down a narrative to its absolute most basic elements, you've got plot and you've got structure. To say that IJ would be "a very, very similar book" with a completely different structure is so off-base as to suggest you're somehow totally overlooking some fundamental aspect of experiencing art/literature/etc. It's like saying Pulp Fiction or Memento would be basically the same if they instead had linear narratives. When you miss half the point, you're missing the point.
Intentional fallacy notwithstanding, I can't imagine any respectable author dropping a hint to an earlier event or another character introduced 400 pages ago only for the sake of "artificial difficulty." If you're engaged with what you're reading when someone shows up at page 200, you'll remember it when that person shows up again on page 600, and your reward will be that the world of the narrative gets a little bigger and your experience of it goes a little deeper.
I think you'll have a more enjoyable experience with lit if you let go of the notion that just because something requires "some level of effort," it must be a trick to make you think you're reading something great. Then again, you imply that if certain narrative links were harder to figure out rather than "just a matter of memory," they would hold more value or something (?), so I don't even know what you're trying to say. The above should still apply though.
>>7786393
>it's bad on purpose
>joke's on you; i was only ACTING retarded
>>7786676
Use spoilers, retarded fuck.
>>7796173
that guy was only making a joke.
why do you hate fun?
