the middle starts to drag, but it'll pick back up. how incredible is that eschaton chapter though?

>>8017632

wew, lad

I had trouble with Eschaton, but loved the AA and Gately chapters

>>8017905
How could someone love Gately chapters? It's like DFW forces you to like that character for no reason. What's the point of several of his chapters were he does normal things without anything more to say about the character is beyond me, and made me angry because they keep interrupting the flow of the far superior ETA storyline.

>>8017632
OP you have to know that after Eschaton the book goes downhill. I sorta liked the book, but I think a good part of the side characters are useless and just a chore to read. They are all the same, they use drugs, they hurt themselves in a stupid way, are paranoid for something or have a problematich relationship with their parents. Pick two and you get how DFW does characters.

Sorry if it seems a rant, but after how good Ulysses and GR were, I thought the last part of the trilogy were at least on par and my expectations were high.

>>8018056
>It's like DFW forces you to like that character for no reason

You're supposed to like him because he's sincere, and he contrasts the other characters who are all ironic.

>>8018077
My problem is that alternating part were Gately does random things like driving a car for thirty pages when something really happened to someone in the school was not working for me.

>>8018077
does he write anything about irony in the book itself, or what?

>>8018095

The whole book is about how post-modern irony causes nothing but dead-end cynicism, and the only escape is through sincerety.

>>8018091
what was the point of the Gately driving around chapters

I am confused why that was not cut

Was it to give Gately some flaws as if his drug addiction was not enough?

OP here, I tried again and the part I had trouble with was fine, but then the very next page there's the part about the Statue of Liberty holding what the year's advertising... come the fuck on

>>8017905
I'm not saying I didn't have trouble with Eschaton, I did, or that I am having trouble with Gately chapters, cause mostly I'm not. There's a little long and boring, but that's the point, right? It's like being in AA/a halfway house, lots and lots and lots of boredom and time passing and eventually you find something

>>8018165
some of the humor is kind of autistic

like year of the depend adult undergarment but I don't think many people read Infinite jest for the comedic aspect

>>8018171
The subsidized time thing is cool, but the statue of liberty thing is just stupid

>>8018106
Also, the absolutely massive amount of footnotes were a commentary on the coming overload of information. I'm guessing there aren't too many bros here who read this novel pre-Google.

That fascinates me because we view some of this from such opposite sides of a historical divide.

How did you young lads find the footnotes?

>>8018316
this is just me but I wish he just wrote in the footnotes so I didn't have to flip back and fourth

some of the footnotes were useless like all the footnotes talking about the chemical compound of drugs and this just interrupted my focus

>>8018103
bee is the biggest bitch ever, who wrote one passable novel and rode it until it was dust
disclaimer: havent read any bee novels

>>8018323
>so I didn't have to flip back and fourth

You flip back and forth because it's supposed to resemble watching a game of tennis.

>>8018441
I got a good laugh out of this

>>8018077

>who is mario

>>8018323
That was the point of the footnotes. Before Google and, more generally, the Internet, doing something as simple as learning about the difference between bees and wasps was a few hours of searching in the library, reading, organizing information, etc.

The whole organization and constant miscellaneous information was Wallace's prediction for the future.

He has turned out to be somewhat correct, at least for me. I get very distracted now when researching things: Wiki holes are especially annoying.

>>8018056
if you want to read the true last part of the trilogy, read The Recognitions. all that disappointment you had in IJ will dissolve as you comfily forget it and replace it with Gaddis.

>>8018685
Thanks I'll do.