Alright /lit/, I am aware that there is some sort of meme opinion about this book, I don't know what that opinion or stereotype is, but I just finished it and thought it was incredible. What should I read in order to more fully appreciate it on my second read-through? I've heard Brothers Karamazov and Hamlet both are related to IJ somehow. Others?
read it again
>>7790462
I really really want to but at the same time just the thought of picking it up again makes me tired
>>7790491
it's a book that literally demands you re-read it
It's double the jest, double the fun
>>7790682
then you read it again and again, until you die; it'll be an infinite jest
The meme opinion is to hate it. Infinite Jest is excellent and most of the people on this board are in its target demographic. So naturally there's going to be cynical pushback.
>>7790457
Hamlet
develop an alcohol or drug addiction and go through an support group
>>7790826
lol
>tfw did this before reading ij the first time
>>7790816
kudos for being such a meme scholar
>>7790816
It's a shame that it's suddenly cool to hate this book. It's literally the most helpful book ever written. People keep saying that ancient Greek philosophers hold all the answers, but they don't speak for our time. DFW understands the problems we face, such as consumerism and this horrible cynicism we call irony. He knew that only through sincerety can we be free of these problems, but no one listened and he couldn't handle the insincerety of the world...
>>7791574
I find it funny you say that because I found the book completely unhelpful because of the Greeks. Also they do speak for our time, you just need to understand them to a reasonable level and actually want to try to implement their ideas since they are philosophers of doing.
A VCR manuel could have been useful once, it doesn't make it great literature. Having read it immediately after White Noise I was struck at once, both by how similar they were in style and how much more skilled Delillo was as a writer. Infinite Jest wasn't bad, it was just good and way longer than it needed to be. At some point you understand what he's trying to do and his clumsy attempts at world-building seem pointless.
Perhaps it's just because I'm in now way the person this book is written for. The kind of philosophical background I have made the book trivial for self-help, and I'm not the sort of white, upper-middle class and over-educated person that he seems to be writing to.
