Thread 24799085

How many times have you tried to read Infinite Jest?

>>24799085 (OP)
I've never "tried to finish it", i just read it and finished it

>>24799085 (OP)
>A sincerely bad amr?

>>24799085 (OP)
It was the first book I read. Enjoyed it

Honestly, I stopped reading like a month ago, and havent even thought about picking it back up since once. I got like 40 pages in or so

>>24799232
Same. It's just modernist garbage.

I read it twice which makes me better than you.

>>24799085 (OP)
ITT midwits larp they've read IJ and understood it.

>>24799543
>i heckin hate modernism bros
>reads about some faggot and the ocean instead

>>24799085 (OP)
Once.
It was hard but I did it.

Read it once, spent maybe 6 months. Read it in English being a filthy ESL. Will read it again eventually.

>>24799931
What's not to understand? It's a difficult book because of the nonlinear linearity, density, and DFW purposefully testing your patience throughout, but it's overarching themes and narrative are clear.
Are you the type that asks unanswerable questions or minor trivia before declaring someone doesn't understand something?

>>24800012
>nonlinear linearity
Lol, nonlinear plot*

1.25
first time I read three hundred pages, the second a dozen. I should finish eventually.

i've read it 3 times in 15 years

First time the ebook version I had was bad and the footnotes weren't hyperlinked, just at the end. It was impossible. Second time I got a better copy and just straight up read it. I was traveling in Asia with no job or responsibilities and just getting high on the beach all the time, so I'm sure that helped. If I had to read it around work it would have likely been more of a challenge.

>>24800012
Sometimes structure is the content.
That's completely lost on the redpill generation.

>>24800012
>it's overarching themes and narrative are clear.
>Infinite Jest is about clarity.
Midwit.

>>24800065
If you're looking for someone to track The Entertainment from start to finish or explain what caused Hal's speech impediment, you're being pedantic.
If you think the average IJ reader can't give a decent summary of what happened and what the book was trying to communicate, you're probably just a smug piece of shit who fellates himself over reading big, scary books in the first place. It's a hard book but it's also not a hard book.

>>24800076
>IJ is about the plot.
Yeah that's why you're a midwit.

>>24800099
Nah, you're a pseud. You can't understand a 4chan post let alone a book. Fuck you.

>>24800104
Lol.

The first time I picked up Infinite Jest (I later realised that the multiple people who shilled it to me had never themselves read it) I got to about 150 pages from the end and some other stuff got in the way. I was nearly beaten down by this failure, but returned to the book a few months later, started from the beginning again and completed it this time with great pleasure. This all took place before /lit/ existed, thoughbeit. So maybe it was always a meme. I'd like to read it again some day.

>>24799085 (OP)
I unironically read it on the toilet over the course of a year and a half. It was OK.

>>24799085 (OP)
Once, it wasn't that hard. It's a good book but I wish people stopped memeing about it, it's impossible to have an honest conversation about the sincere (snort, new sincerty? puhleaaase) interpersonal relationships within the Incandeza family

>>24800218
Year I think is the typical time to read it.
It's hard and long.
Like my penis.

>>24799085 (OP)
Why would I read this lame ripoff of a Monty Python sketch?

>>24800321
It's based off Hamlet brainlet.

Once—I'm currently reading it. Around 350 pages in and taking it slow, reading other novels when I take breaks. It's a lot of fun, and I don't want to burn out on it because it's such a slow read.

Once or twice. I just can't get into it or bring myself to dedicate the hours to try. I like stories that aren't afraid of telling me what they're about.

>>24800361
>I like stories that tell me what's happening.
>I hate thinking.

>>24800365
>I like stories that tell me what's happening
Yeah...? The fundamental point of stories is to tell people what's happening. Sure, you can have a nice outlier where a storyteller adapts the art to serve some other purpose, just like I could use my car's engine to fry an egg. But that doesn't change the fundamental purpose of a car, which is to get you from point A to point B. Maybe the automobile chef is a genius for his flash of quirky insight, or maybe not, but I still prefer my food cooked on a stovetop and I prefer using my car to drive around.
More thinking has been spent on much simpler stories than ever will be on Infinite Jest. That isn't a knock on the book, I haven't read it so I can't judge it properly. It's just a simple fact. The normal and mundane has no less depth or mystery than the strange and the wonderful. I hope you can live long enough to recognize that one day.

>>24799085 (OP)

I'm having trouble going through the last third of The Magic Mountain. Will I have the same issue with this? Been thinking about getting it.

>>24800392
>I haven't read the book.

0

One. It's been a couple of years but I could probably resume where I left off. I remember most of it well enough. But, man, I absolutely despised flipping back and forth to the end notes. Hated it. Maybe if it was hardcover it would be less awful, since the book could lie open on my desk, but no, it's a soft floppy mess bending and buckling under its own weight.

lmao, no discernible talent guy? never.
i did read the one where he writes about a baby getting badly burned. really fucked up dude. no wonder he did a sui

>>24800438
>A guy that wrote a 1000 page maximalist masterpiece with footnotes who's plot models the Sierpinski gasket has no talent.
Let me guess, your IQ is higher too?

>>24800452
>who's
higher n' urs ranjeep

>>24800467
It's who's because who own the plot.
Instead of blaming ESL learn to read first.
Might I suggest the Cat in The Hat?

>>24800492
mate, the possessive of who is not who's. cut the arrogance

>>24800499
>who's
>whose
>don't be a pedant
>blames minorities anyway
Gately?

>>24800499
Also you're wrong britbong.
>Who’s is a contraction of who is or who has.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/whos-whose-difference-usage-pronouns

>>24800503
>>24800506
fuck's sake. no wonder the native english speakers hate us now. yeah I hate minorites, a little bit more every day.

>>24800523
>i hate minorities
That's nice dear.

>>24799085 (OP)
IJ being hard is a meme by people who gave up before page 100.
It’s genuinely easy to understand. Gravity’s Rainbow and Ulysses are difficult, Infinite Jest is not.
But that doesn’t mean that the book is bad, I prefer it to most other post-modern works of literature.

>>24800410
Yeah that's the point of the thread. I dropped it because it seemed pretty clear the author was using the story and the format as a vehicle for another purpose rather than merely telling a story. I prefer stories that are stories.

>>24799085 (OP)
One. I gave up around page 5. I enjoyed it.

One time. Never felt any need to read it again.

>>24799085 (OP)
I'm reading it right now for the first time, 500 pages in after ~3 months of sporadic reading. It has been enjoyable but I have other hobbies and didn't feel sucked in until around page 450 to now. I'm hoping to finish it in the next week or two now that I'm invested, and will probably reread it next year.

>>24800833
Don't rush through it.
Let it sit in your mind.

I asked my local library to stock it. It had to go to a decision maker, however their discussion was overwhelmingly positive. They stocked it, but I never borrowed.

>>24799085 (OP)
I read it once through. it was good but hard. the only part I really enjoyed was the "face in the floor" sequence bc his overwhelming prose style makes it quite a good jumpscare

>>24800012
>>24800076
The fact that you even think about 'understanding' books in these terms betrays, like, a fundamental illiteracy to anyone who's not a retarded child btw. It's nice that you're learning how to read or whatever but it's not gonna take until you stop watching so many youtube videos.

>>24801105
>It was good
>Out of its 500000 words I enjoyed one passage

>>24801105
Beautiful prose in that section. One of the most memorable parts in the entire damn novel and it's somewhat early, first 200 or 250 pages.

>>24801130
you've got me there. it was a cool experience but it's a bit of a drag and the tennis wargame shit didnt do anything for me. i suppose i mean the only section that stands out in my mind in a positive way
>>24801135
it made me remember why i like his short stories so much for sure

>>24800765
Why does you hate complexity?
I dislike philosophy fags but literature about plot is grating.

>>24801164
Another one from relatively early in the story that I loved was the end of the introductory segment for Madame Psychosis. It's the type of poetic SoC that always gets me. With the blue smoke and the gritty stuff under the tub's rim. Fuck me.

>>24799085 (OP)
I read a few pages, but never seriously started it. I decided to read his nonfiction book 'A supposedly fun thing I will never do again' first and I am flying through it despite the fact that I am writing a lot of stuff in response to these works. What I like most about it is that it inspires a lot of new thoughts within myself that I think are worth writing down. I usually never write notes during books. This appreciation for the book applies to the pieces that I believe are prescient (E Unibus Pluram) and ones I think are off (How David Lynch keeps his head(as a Lynch fan myself)).

>>24801433
for DFW imo:
short stories > commentary > nonfiction >> novel(s)

>>24801443
I almost think that after I finish this book, I should read his short stories before seriously trying IJ again.

>>24801457
And by 'this book', I mean ASFTINDA in case that wasn't clear.

>>24801457
Do, the Oblivion collection is excellent, although the first story is somewhat weaker I think

>>24799939
kek

>>24799096
how many times?

>>24801124
you type the way a teenage girl speaks

>>24801433
Same, I'm checking this one out first to see if I don't actually hate the author before hand. Since it's a controversial read I don't want to throw myself into something and then hate in it without actually having checked out more digestible stuff.
I hate his bits about tenis somehow, I mean I like reading it, but it's not like he has any point or is drilling at anything. It's funny but I feel weirded out.

>>24799085 (OP)
I refuse to read Infinite Jest out of pure spite because everyone on this board jerks it off religiously.

>>24801727
The transformation is through reading the book, ironically.
Too many people now days want information to tell them how to feel/react/think.
Wallace just submerges you in it if you can stand it long enough.
You can only be a cynical/ironic asshole for so long before you completely implode.

zero. i read broom of the system and that's enough

>>24801783
It's ok humanity isn't going to miss your lurid insights you would have gleamed from reading it.
Stick to Mein Kampf chud, the adults are talking.

>>24801787
>Too many people now days want information to tell them how to feel/react/think.
That from him is kind of a breath of fresh air but idk. It's funny that when I'm reading his essay on cruises it's like a meaningless sitcom, I saw one video on david foster wallace and they mentioned sitcoms too for some reason, makes all of it kind of faggy though. I fucking despise sitcoms. I don't really even have a point myself on him yet so I'm just mentioning this.

>>24801124
yeah bro, books are just like about vibes. if you use words to describe ideas communicated by a work made out of words, you totally fucking missed the point, bro. in fact, let's not talk about IJ and just stare off into space, and then you'll know we truly got it, bro.

I've dropped it twice now. I just do not give a shit about any of these characters and the humor wasn't landing for me.

>>24801823
Start to observe in your own life when you use entertainment/addiction/performance to escape emptiness/boredom.
We're doing it right now on 4chan. Talking about IJ and the harm of being insincere, on an addicting platform for our entertainment. Which itself is ironic.
It's everywhere. There's no escaping it. The world of Hal Incandeza/Don Gately isn't about character development or plot points. It's about the recognition of what it means to live in a flattened postmodern world that's suffocating us with meaning but no belonging.

Who are we and what's real at such a point? Or do we just become like Remy Marathe where serving our nation/values becomes just another form of addiction/performance?

>>24800013
Nonlinear linearity would actually be more accurate and the plot is actually linear other than the first chapter, you are conflating structure with plot. I guess you can say Marathe and Steeply make the plot non-linear but that would be pathetic.

>>24802476
It's starts in the future and ends in the past.
More of a parabola than linear.

>>24802476
Plot is not linear. There are tons of analepses.