/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13616819]

What does /lit/ think of DFW's Infinite Jest. It's currently my favourite book. I find it to be incredibly engaging, funny and emotionally potent. There's a lot of unnecessary mental flexing on the part of the author but it also gives credit to the reader for diligence by introducing additional richness with self referential jokes and oblique exposition. Don G is my favourite character.

[Anonymous No.13616886]

>>13616819
Read The Pale King. It's even better. Leonard Stecyk is a great character.

[Anonymous No.13616955]

This book gets shit on ALL THE TIME on here. Can someone unironically explain to me why this is so hated? What's even up with "the meme trilogy" anyways?

[Anonymous No.13617026]

>>13616955
>why this is so hated
Sour grapes

[Anonymous No.13617056]

>>13616955
It's too popular and people don't finish it

[Anonymous No.13617064]

>>13616955
Hated? That surprises me, what are the usual criticisms? I don't find much at fault with it in objective terms inasmuch as they exist.

[Anonymous No.13617066]

>>13616955
>Can someone unironically explain to me why this is so hated?
Many of the people who hate it are the invaders that talk about politics and religion and not literature.

>What's even up with "the meme trilogy" anyways?
https://4chanlit.fandom.com/wiki/Meme_Trilogy

[Anonymous No.13617128]

>>13616819
I'm not really convinced that DFW self-referencing his own abstruseness validates every bit of excessive abstruseness, but at least he constantly rewards you if you embrace it and commit

Gately's without a doubt the deepest character, most of the book's good stuff orbits him

[Anonymous No.13617175]

>>13617066
Checked, and thank you. So many people just come here to shitpost rather than actual discussion. I apologize for you having to spoon feed me, but I'll read through the wiki so I'm not so retarded in the future.
>>13617064
I just see people post shit like "You actually read that book? Embarrassing" and shit like that. They give the impression that the book is pretentious and worthless or something.

I really want to read this book, but I feel like if I just start without doing proper due diligence all of the harder to grasp concepts will be lost on me and I would just be better off reading more foundational texts to help me reach a higher level of understanding before I approach it. Are there works that I should read before this? Like do I actually have to "start with the greeks" and all that and read a shitload of stuff before I can even touch this thing, or would it still be worthwhile to read for a pleb like me?

[Anonymous No.13617195]

>>13617175
Read what you want to read. If you merely payed attention in high school english class you should have a good enough ability to read books literarily. Then continue to read more and more and eventually return to the books you either really despised or really loved years later and see the difference in impact (for better or worse) they will have on you with your gained experience as a human and a reader.

[Anonymous No.13617209]

>>13617195
Oh also I forgot to add that with some authors (e.g., Pynchon and Joyce) you should read their works in chronological order. You'll appreciate Ulysses a lot more if you've read Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man beforehand in the same way that you'll appreciate Gravity's Rainbow a lot more if you've read The Crying of Lot 49 and V. beforehand. Infinite Jest was DFW's first big novel and if you have a wiki at hand to help you understand the references and enough patience to allow him to flex his genius a little/a lot, it'll be a very rewarding read, especially for a 21st century reader.

[Anonymous No.13617219]

>>13617175
Just try it out, you don't have to commit if you really don't want to. I read pretty quickly and IJ took me 5 weeks of daily reading so it's a long haul

I wouldn't say you need even a well-rounded literary background to 'get it', the book is influenced by American postmodernists but is still pretty solidly its own thing.

Just make sure you have a dictionary on hand

[Anonymous No.13617228]

>>13617209
Now, if you didn't pay attention in high school english class and don't know how to critically read a book, I'd suggest picking up some Shakespeare plays because they have simple plots, beautiful language, and powerful themes (Folger editions, of course, and preferably Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear because they are his best), reading it once for the plot and then rereading while the plot is still fresh in your mind, and, on the reread, after every scene, pondering for 5-10 minutes the questions "Why did Shakespeare have the characters say what they say and do what they do? What bigger point in the bigger picture was he trying to make with what happened in this scene? How does this scene impact the others and how is it impacted by them, and what was Shakespeare's purpose for including it?" This will help you begin to start reading books critically and literarily. After this you can begin picking up some other authors and trying to read their books critically. Try to discuss the themes on /lit/ to see how well you're doing and ignore all shitposters. Eventually you'll get to the point where you don't have to consciously focus on the critical part of reading and it will come naturally to you. Hope this helps.

[Anonymous No.13617298]

For me, the only thing required to get a worthwhile anything from IJ was commitment. It's light hearted at the surface level and there are enough interesting characters and silly jokes to tide you over if the language and plot are twisting a bit too much.

Personally, I've read it twice and I enjoyed both perusals equally but in much different ways.

One of the major themes of the book is understanding entertainment. I've interpreted a lot of the intricate, sometimes excrutiating detail etc as one way of DFW making the reader think about why the text is entertaining; he explains just about everything but the joke.

Equally, he introduces a lot of 'irrelevant' information which has to be parsed from the 'relevant' stuff.

[Anonymous No.13617300]

>>13617219
>>13617228
Thank you, this most definitely helps a lot. I took AP English in High School, so it's probably a bit of the Dunning-Kruger effect. I will probably still revisit the bard though, I've missed him. Also, reading them in a analytical light will definitely help me as a reader.
I would like to discuss the themes and elements of books on here but unfortunately I've found most people are disappointingly brief with their discussions, and that's disregarding the shitposts. I would love to start a book club/circle that I could actually dig my teeth into, but most normies and my friends act revolted at the idea of reading a book, let alone discussing it in detail.

[Anonymous No.13617325]

its my favorite novel of all time. It's hilarious, interesting story, and great social commentary that accurately describes what ended up being the modern world.

Brilliant. Worth every hour spent reading it.

[Anonymous No.13617383]

>>13617300
I would be interested in that. I wish there were some way I could give you a way to contact me that wouldn't risk putting my information on here.

[Anonymous No.13617396]

>>13617300
>mfw the books in the pic aren't the same

[Anonymous No.13617444]

>>13616955
because it is mediocre and universally known and notorious while not really ever exceeding high-tier middlebrow

it will be forgotten in 20 years

[Anonymous No.13617456]

>>13617444
What keeps it from greatness in your opinion?

[Anonymous No.13617479]

>>13617444
mmmmm polysyllables. This is not an answer. only a conflicting statement.

[Anonymous No.13617484]

>>13617298
>he explains just about everything but the joke

yup, to me the brilliance is in the vivid, away-from-book mental framework you have to construct to find the real overarching unifying messages. Entertainment, substance addiction, depression etc. are all splayed in excruciating detail but their connections are all implicit and more and more nuanced as the book unfolds.

At least that's what I take away, I'll read it again in a few years probably

[Anonymous No.13617558]

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[Anonymous No.13617587]

>>13617558
>Q
>A
>Q
>A
>Q
>A
>Q
>A
>Q
>A
>Q
>A

[Anonymous No.13617667]

>>13616819
I love it, it's my favorite book too. I've read it twice and will be reading it again soon.
It's honestly the most enjoyable reading experience I've ever had.

[Anonymous No.13618108]

>something something professor parents something something Harold Bloom
Do people on this board even read? Harold Bloom is a brainlet anyway. He has some of the most arbitrary standards of merit.