/lit/ - Literature

>>12210691
The 450 pages you've read are already good pseud

>>12210695
S-sorry patrician

>>12210691
redpill on infinite jest:

skip every scene with marathe and steeply. they're not funny or insightful and they don't do anything interesting. they just stand there the entire time. nothing happens with them, at all. even through the very end. Waste of time

>>12210691
Why does it seem like IJ is the only bad book of its length that pseuds on /lit/ feel obligated to finish? Is it masochism?

>>12210851
don't do this.

>>12210878
>only bad book of its length
it's a great book and people feel obliged to finish because it's common knowledge that pgs 600-700 or 700-800 are most people's favourite

>>12210901
why not skip marathe/steeply? 1 year after reading, recalling these parts still leaves me sour & dry. they are a platform for DFW's most limp & colorless takes.

also, the last 400 pages were great

skip entirely and read don delillo instead mabby

>>12210901
>it's a great book

>>12210964
it's a fantastic book. a great book. a good book, even.

I'm about 270 pages in and it feels as though nothing has actually happened yet. Should I stick with it?

>>12210990
Well you're apparently a brainlet with tons of time to waste so why not, you won't be doing anything better with your time.

>>12210964
a
fucking
FROGPOSTER

>>12210990
>something has to happen
the first 300 pages aren't even boring! appreciate the prose and little scenes!
but yeah things start to kinda come together plotwise after 300, 350

>>12211032
Yeah I have been enjoying it, was just wondering if the plot actually picks up at all.

>>12211032
>appreciate the prose
>look mom I have a thesaurus

>>12210695
>>12210901
How many cats do you own?

>>12210927
I feel like the only person that didn't mind the Marathe and Steeply chapters
They weren't my favorite but Marathe seemed like an interesting enough character that I never got the impression that the chapters were a complete slog like everybody always says

>>12211085
steeply is physically repulsive and not very smart. marathe is a pompous sniveling old man, his "wife" is physically repulsive. what little behavioral character we see out of them is unsympathetic and aside from that they are disgusting.

every aspect of them is either mundane or disgusting. no aspect of them makes me want to spend time observing them

>>12211118
they aren't even nice to each other, they are just disinterested and mildly annoyed

just like i am when i read about them

. o O ( wow dfw was a genius )

>>12211071
low-iq frogposter

>>12211150
>I-I'm not a tasteless fag longing for pseud-cred
>y-you just dun undesten

>>12210691
it sucks dick the whole way through, its for total pseuds

>>12210691
it gets good around 650/700

>>12211118
>They're ugly so they're bad characters
That's a pretty vapid point of view
Marathe's background on the Wheelchair Assassins and why he cared so much about Quebec interested me enough to get through those parts without hating them. I'd say anybody willing to mutilate themselves to the point of severe disability in a weird ritual for their cause is interesting enough to listen to for a while.

>>12211518
no, it's not.

you'll remember that the meat of this exposition is in footnote 39, struck's essay.

it is in fact true that the Marathe and Steeply parts are especially boring and unnecessary, but for dummies who can't decipher the surrounding themes (like those that don't understand the reason/placement of the Wardine scene), they make a pretty clear rundown of the general conflicts that apply

>>12210691
it's kind of funny but fake deep and overly sincere
OG postmodernists or even sci-fi/cyberpunk genre fiction do this shit so much better

>>12210691
>falling for 90's pop culture memes

>>12211857
What's the wardine significance?

>>12210964
the contrarian-pseud army already here

>>12212293
because wardine be cry

>>12212293
basically, black people's voices, with identical, and more severe pains (compared to the Bruce Green/Mildred Bonk stories it's paired with) fade into the background of societ. Notice no other black voices appear after this aside from Roy Tony's (Wardine's abuser). When Clenette (clean-it), the narrator of the Wardine chapter eventually returns its in a very minor background role as a member of the cleaning staff at Ennett, exemplifying that blacks unfortunately do not have the luxury of attending fancy recovery houses like Ennet House but instead have to work there, as cleaners for the people getting clean etc

>>12212376
this is also why her speech is so exagerated, to exagerate this difference

>>12210691

The Broom of the System is unironically a better novel.

ive been on /lit/ since 2010 and i still havent read infinite jest and i never will fags

>>12211171
Stupid greentexting frog-poster.

>>12211071
man shut the fuck up you insufferable faggot

>>12210691
Its the same anon, i read it but if youre not an autist like me stop

>>12210966
>>12211013
>>12211150
>>12212313
>>12213176
>>12213328
>n-no it's g-good
>n-no u're a p-pseud

>>12213342
>caring what english professors and/or majors think
gross

>>12210691
It's not, read Shakespeare instead

>>12211857
>Muh blind faith is not that bad and consumer nihilism +substance abuse

These shallow ideas drawn out to over a 1000 pages is ij

>>12213342
Who are you quoting?

>>12210691
I read Pale King instead.
About a third of that was good, but most of the good stuff was a hundred-page novella stuck in the middle of the book.
Someone needed to give his editor a weedwhacker.

>>12213342
this is painful and i hope it isnt true

what a victim of society

I gave up after about 200 pages since every single chapter was
>Here character *insert wacky name*
>this character is sure messed up in the head
>and he/she does drugs!!!!

>>12212376
>>12212383
great posts, the meaning had gone over my head

>>12210691
Yeah in wholly agree, actually,. In 500 pages I remember a handful of decent passages, like when the dad looses his knees, the shit about spooky commercials and virtual communication, and some descriptions of rehab - the rest was absolute wank I would expect out of the average anon's journal. Waste of time meme.

>>12212354
based