2023 will finally be the year

[Anonymous No.21455421]

I'm reading this big boy next year. Anyone else?

[Anonymous No.21455426]

Same bro
Its been on my shelf for a year now
I'll start after I finish my current book

[Anonymous No.21455433]

same i am gonna read it on kindle. 2% in already

[Anonymous No.21455440]

I'm gonna be reading the Greeks. Gonna try and get through all of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

[Anonymous No.21455442]

I was off the board for a couple years and literally forgot this book existed

[Anonymous No.21455452]

>>21455421
Got it for Christmas. I have about a third of lolita left to read, but it is next on the list.

[Anonymous No.21455453]

>>21455442
Do you frequently just remember books exist?

[Anonymous No.21455459]

>>21455452
She gets married to anothet guy and he dies a lonely man, thirsting for another taste of his Lolita

[Anonymous No.21455463]

>>21455453
of course, i remember books near effortlessly. do you have amnesia?

[Anonymous No.21455491]

>>21455421
I'll join you faggots

[Anonymous No.21455493]

>>21455421
i ordered it yesterday, i wanted that edition but got this one instead since it cost a third of the price
hopefully i have it tomorrow in my hands

[Anonymous No.21455498]

>>21455421
it's been on my shelf since 2017 lol it's about time I read it

[Anonymous No.21455522]

>>21455491
Why are you black?

[Anonymous No.21455533]

>>21455433
how do the footnotes work with the kindle

[Anonymous No.21455550]

>>21455421
I might, even though I have a big enough backlog now and everything i've read about it sounds weird and stupid. I guess after spending enough time on this board you have no choice in getting memed into reading it and gravity's rainbow.

[Anonymous No.21455559]

We should do a readalong desu.

[Anonymous No.21455565]

>>21455559
this
someone organize it

[Anonymous No.21455595]

I read the first 200 pages and stopped because honestly I don’t really like reading. I like stories but reading is quite hard (though it often is actually the most satisfying way of consuming said story, atleast after the work is done). Does what I said make sense?

[Anonymous No.21455597]

>>21455559
Someone tries this every year. It never works. This year I remember it being The Pickwick Papers. The threads just disappeared after a while.

[Anonymous No.21455603]

>>21455595
Sure, but why are you on a literature board?

[Anonymous No.21455656]

>>21455595
An idiot is born every minute. That's why television and audiobooks exist. Don't be too hard on yourself.

[Monster Hunter Sales No.21455696]

>>21455421
could someone clarify to me if it's a meme book or not?
i don't like letting books unfinished, hence if i start it and halfway through i realise i fell for the joke i'm gonna be really mad

[Anonymous No.21455709]

>>21455696
See
>>21455656

[Anonymous No.21455716]

>>21455603
Because I still enjoy having read Shakespeare, Joyce, Nietzsche, etc. even though I must acknowledge that the actual act of reading is not my preferred method. Let me put it this way. If I saw a movie for say David Copperfield, I would have missed stuff that could only be found in the context of a book (something is always lost in translation). So therefore I still read as it yields the best results as far as gathering information and having an emotional response to said information. I don’t even mind reading if it’s in short bursts, and actually rather enjoy those. But multi hour sessions are just too much for me.
>>21455656
Everyone is an idiot or will soon prove to be by the mere fact of runaway ai so who cares it’s literally just relative. Atleast I’m intelligent enough to know where my weaknesses are

[Anonymous No.21455731]

>>21455716
You’re not an idiot you’re just really autistic

[Anonymous No.21455740]

>make a reading thread
>demoralizing non-readers arrive
what the fuck is their problem? it's not obligatory to post in every thread.

[Anonymous No.21455742]

>>21455731
I’ve been called autistic unironically by many unrelated people throughout my life (including child psychologist) so it’s possible

[Anonymous No.21456010]

>>21455696
It's a meme book

[Anonymous No.21456027]

>>21456010
>>21455696
Proof, literally the first page
>I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies. My posture is consciously congruent to the shape of my hard chair. This is a cold room in University Administration, wood-walled, Remington-hung, double-windowed against the November heat, insulated from Administrative sounds by the reception area outside, at which Uncle Charles, Mr. deLint and I were lately received.

>I am in here.

>Three faces have resolved into place above summer-weight sportcoats and half-Windsors across a polished pine conference table shiny with the spidered light of an Arizona noon. These are three Deans - of Admissions, Academic Affairs, Athletic Affairs. I do not know which face belongs to whom.

>I believe I appear neutral, maybe even pleasant, though I've been coached to err on the side of neutrality and not attempt what would feel to me like a pleasant expression or smile.

>I have committed to crossing my legs I hope carefully, ankle on knee, hands together in the lap of my slacks. My fingers are mated into a mirrored series of what manifests, to me, as the letter X.

[Anonymous No.21456028]

>>21455696
>>21456010
It was critically acclaimed before this place even existed. Meme books are shit like My diary desu.

[Anonymous No.21456036]

>>21456027
I think the first chapter is self explanatory but you do, man. Disney+ always needs suscribers.

[Anonymous No.21456046]

>>21456027
>I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies.
I like how he describes people as these basic objects, almost like mannequins, the same way a plastic artist would. It's a kind of Lynchian approach.

[Anonymous No.21456049]

>>21455421
it took me less that 3 weeks to read it. validate me please.

[Anonymous No.21456053]

>>21455421
I'm gonna spend 2023 poring over the patrician /lit/ favourite

[Anonymous No.21456317]

>>21455533
you just click on number and small window with footnote will open you dont need to turn pages

[Anonymous No.21456331]

its cool if you are close to similiar people ("smart but lazy" and total tv addicted potheads), its insightful about this kind of lifestyle

[Anonymous No.21456343]

>>21456028
>>21456036
>>21456046
>year of the depend adult undergarment
The guy was a crass idiot who couldn't write. Imagine reading over 1000 pages of this
>>21456027

[Anonymous No.21456347]

>>21455421
I’m thinking it might be the year. First I’ve got The Sot-Weed Factor then maybe Against the Day.

[Anonymous No.21456432]

Shit book. Fuck you.

[Anonymous No.21456516]

Nice to see so many anons giving IJ a go.
>>21456343
That is supposed to be crass, do you have any understanding of context?

[Anonymous No.21456523]

>>21456516
I dont care what it's supposed to be. It sucks.

[Anonymous No.21456534]

>>21456053
I was going to ask you why you planned to read pale fire in 2 years time then I remembered the date and quickly shut off an existential crisis I was about to feel

[Anonymous No.21456537]

>>21456523
>t. proud retard
that is great and all and it is great that you are not ashamed of your disability but you may not want to advertise it so loudly.

[Anonymous No.21456546]

>>21456537
What if it's just a really bad book?

[Anonymous No.21456566]

>>21456537
>>21456546
Exhibit b
>The varsity tennis coach looks at his own watch.
>'Assuming these board scores are accurate reflectors of true capacity in this case,' Academic Affairs says, his high voice serious and sotto, still looking at the file before him as if it were a plate of something bad, Til tell you right now my opinion is it wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be fair to the other applicants. Wouldn't be fair to the University community.' He looks at me. 'And it'd be especially unfair to Hal himself. Admitting a boy we see as simply an athletic asset would amount to just using that boy.
>We're under myriad scrutiny to make sure we're not using anybody. Your board results, son, indicate that we could be accused of using you.’ Uncle Charles is asking Coach White to ask the Dean of Athletic Affairs whether the weather over scores would be as heavy if I were, say, a revenue-raising football prodigy. The familiar panic at feeling misperceived is rising, and my chest bumps and thuds. I expend energy on remaining utterly silent in my chair, empty, my eyes two great pale zeros. People have promised to get me through this.
>Uncle C.T., though, has the pinched look of the cornered. His voice takes on an odd timbre when he's cornered, as if he were shouting as he receded. 'Hal's grades at E.T.A., which is I should stress an Academy, not simply a camp or factory, accredited by both the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the North American Sports Academy Association, it's focused on the total needs of the player and student, founded by a towering intellectual figure whom I hardly need name, here, and based by him on the rigorous Oxbridge Quadrivium-Trivium curricular model, a school fully staffed and equipped, by a fully certified staff, should show that my nephew here can cut just about any Pac 10 mustard that needs cutting, and that —’

>we're under myriad scrutiny
this is all very painful

[Anonymous No.21456570]

>>21455421
Read it last year. Hit the wall about 800 pages in (mostly because I’m a slow reader anyway and DFW is hard to digest) but I pushed through and really enjoyed it

[Anonymous No.21456571]

>>21456566
> I expend energy on remaining utterly silent in my chair, empty, my eyes two great pale zeros. People have promised to get me through this.

[Anonymous No.21456577]

>>21456317
Not the same experience if you aren’t flipping to the back of the book constantly and then exasperated when it’s just for a five word long end note

[Anonymous No.21456583]

>>21456577
Post some awesome pomo self-depricating ironical footnote kino please

I bet they're fucking hilarious

[Anonymous No.21456618]

>>21456546
Even if that were the case it is never a good idea to take the word of someone who lacks the ability to understand context. There are plenty of reason to dislike IJ but if you can not appreciate it you are probably a drone or stupid. I don't really like IJ but have read it 5 or 6 times, the level of empathy and sympathy he achieves, the narrative structure, and the breadth are all very impressive and few works manage to pull it off, but I think it fails as a novel because that narrative structure is overly complex for what he was trying to achieve despite how impressive it is. Freedom by Franzen does a wonderful job of showing this fault, but it also shows why Wallace went that route but he should have ditched plot all together as he did with TPK.
>>21456566
First chapter is very different from the rest, it is supposed to be somewhat painful to read, the narrator is not in a good state. But again, context, that is like 0.0002% of the novel.

[Anonymous No.21456637]

>>21456618
I can understand context. It's supposed to be crass, but I don't like crass juvenile shit, so I don't care for it. I've read many novels and stories and have yet to come across an author I liked who would think it HILARIOUS to set their story in the year of the depend adult undergarment. Clearly it's supposed to be funny, but it isn't.
>you must read it 5 or 6 times
I read Brief Interviews and a bunch of his interviews and dismissed everything this retard had to say on anything. I have never seen a single DFW quote or excerpt that I liked.
>first chapter is supposed to be painful to read
Show me the great parts that are beautiful and interesting. I've been flipping through it and it all looks painful to read. Because it's a bad book.

[Anonymous No.21456649]

Infinite summer this summer

[Anonymous No.21456664]

>>21456618
>>21456571
>>21456566
second chapter is already much better

>Once he'd decided to own marijuana
one more last time, he was committed to several courses of action. He had to modem in to the agency and say that there was an
emergency and that he was posting an e-note on a colleague's TP asking her to cover his calls for the rest of the week because he'd
be out of contact for several days due to this emergency. He had to put an audio message on his answering device saying that
starting that afternoon he was going to be unreachable for several days. He had to clean his bedroom, because once he had dope he
would not leave his bedroom except to go to the refrigerator and the bathroom, and even then the trips would be very quick. He
had to throw out all his beer and liquor, because if he drank alcohol and smoked dope at the same time he would get dizzy and ill,
and if he had alcohol in the house he could not be relied on not to drink it once he started smoking dope. He'd had to do some
shopping. He'd had to lay in supplies. Now just one of the insect's antennae was protruding from the hole in the girder. It
protruded, but it did not move. He had had to buy soda, Oreos, bread, sandwich meat, mayonnaise, tomatoes, M&M's, Almost
Home cookies, ice cream, a Pepperidge Farm frozen chocolate cake, and four cans of canned chocolate frosting to be eaten with a
large spoon. He'd had to log an order to rent film cartridges from the Inter-Lace entertainment outlet. He'd had to buy antacids for
the discomfort that eating all he would eat would cause him late at night. He'd had to buy a new bong, because each time he
finished what simply had to be his last bulk-quantity of marijuana he decided that that was it, he was through, he didn't even like it
anymore, this was it, no more hiding, no more imposing on his colleagues and putting different messages on his answering device
and moving his car away from his condominium and closing his windows and curtains and blinds and living in quick vectors
between his bedroom's InterLace teleputer's films and his refrigerator and his toilet, and he would take the bong he'd used and
throw it away wrapped in several plastic shopping bags. His refrigerator made its own ice in little cloudy crescent blocks and he
loved it, when he had dope in his home he always drank a great deal of cold soda and ice water. His tongue almost swelled at just
the thought. He looked at the phone and the clock. He looked at the windows but not at the foliage and blacktop driveway beyond
the windows. He had already vacuumed his Venetian blinds and curtains, everything was ready to be shut down.

[Anonymous No.21456685]

>>21456637
>but I don't like crass juvenile shit
It is only juvenile if you ignore the context.
>I've been flipping through it and it all looks painful to read.
lol, you never even read it but have already condemned it. I am in the midst of moving over to a new computer and lack a copy of IJ beyond the physical at the moment, but someone will probably post some excerpts.
>>21456664
The contrast here is very important to the novel. Many readers miss the subtle and slow evolution of the narrator despite his giving a massive hint with that transition from the first to second chapter. The first two chapters are the two extremes of the narrator. Also good to take notice of the overall trend in the endnotes and how that evolves along with the narrator, remember that the narrator is the one providing those endnotes.

[Anonymous No.21456688]

>>21456664
Ya this is better. No horrible self-conscious pomo descriptive "I am conspicuously conformed to the posture of my chair, beside me are 3 bodies" crap. He's describing something he clearly has experienced in a realistic way, but it still isn't funny.
>It's not supposed to be
I think with this type of material he's trying to be funny.

I've thrown bongs away like that too lol

If this is the best of IJ it's pretty crappy

[Anonymous No.21456706]

>>21456688
>I think with this type of material he's trying to be funny.
Not at all, he is setting up the narrative structure. See the second response in >>21456685
>If this is the best of IJ it's pretty crappy
Who said it was the best.

[Anonymous No.21456707]

>>21456685
I've condemned it based on what I know of the authors mind. Some of his interviews and essays are so juvenile. The book I read by him was, in the same vein, juvenile and crass. I don't need to read over 1000 pages of strained, self-consciously "artistic", wanna-be clever, ironic, turgid, over-engineered, unfunny, uninteresting, feigned-profound, etc etc etc crap
>but all the meta elements are good
Doubt

[Anonymous No.21456717]

>>21456706
Well its the excerpt he posted. I'd love to see some more quotes after the John Green tier crap I posted
>not at all
Yes at all. The line about eating the frosting with a spoon is meant to be funny. The whole descriptive scene is meant to be comical.

[Anonymous No.21456730]

>>21456027
Wow what a wordsmith. Not! Ill skip this dribble

[Anonymous No.21456734]

>>21456707
It is not meta.
>wanna-be clever, ironic...
Yeah, you really are not good with context and even worse with subtext. The man gave up irony after his first novel/short story collection, he realized it worked against his goals.
>>21456717
>The line about eating the frosting with a spoon is meant to be funny. The whole descriptive scene is meant to be comical.
No, it really is not. It is a fairly painful chapter showing someone at the end of their psychic rope. Again, context.

[Anonymous No.21456751]

>>21456734
>the man gave up irony
Then why does he describe something like sitting in a room on a chair like this?
>I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies. My posture is consciously congruent to the shape of my hard chair.
What does "giving up on irony" mean?
>no, it really is not
Yes, it really is. You are illiterate.
>it is a fairly painful chapter showing someone at the end of their psychic rope
Fine, but he's also trying to be funny. If you can't see that you can't read.

[Anonymous No.21456783]

>>21456751
>Then why does he describe something like sitting in a room on a chair like this?
As I said, the first two chapters are setup for the narrative structure and represent the narrator at the extremes, one literal and voiceless, the other fixated on the minutiae and empathy.
>What does "giving up on irony" mean?
He ceased employing the literary device of irony in his work.
>Yes, it really is. You are illiterate.
Nah, I actually have read the book and have the full context.
>Fine, but he's also trying to be funny. If you can't see that you can't read.
So his showing how completely out of control and unmanageable the character's life has become is funny? Are you capable of empathy?

[Anonymous No.21456789]

>>21456751
sentences in prologue are unnatural because narrator is autist with social anxiety in stressful situation

[Anonymous No.21456798]

>>21456783
>So his showing how completely out of control and unmanageable the character's life has become is funny?
Well I don't think it works but yes it's attempted to be funny
>out of control and unmanageable
Yet it's IRONICALLY being described rapidly through the device of listing all the very careful planning he's undertaking in order to binge on weed

ITS REALLY SIMILAR TO THIS SCENE WHICH IS ALSO INTENDED TO BE FUNNY DESPITE DEPICTING SOMEONE WHOSE LIFE IS MISERABLE - the fact that you think this must be contradictory says a lot
https://youtu.be/7zXQPNNMtLo

[Anonymous No.21456804]

>>21456798
>yes, I do lack the capability for empathy

[Anonymous No.21456812]

>>21456804
>the mind of the dfw reader

[Anonymous No.21456825]

>you find this funny???
>you must be incapable of empathy
This is also actually a great book. And he didn't even need to describe everything all stupid in every single sentence.

[Anonymous No.21456848]

>>21456812
>the mind of a moron who thinks hes smart
You admit to lacking context and you claim to understand context but view the excerpts as full context, and you think you understand a book you have never read better than someone who has read it. How can you not be embarrassed by that?
>>21456825
>every single sentence
But you have not read every single sentence, not even 1% of them.

[Anonymous No.21456849]

>>21456789
>It's poorly written but - get this - its SUPPOSED to be poorly written! It's heckin so good
Don't care. This guy is Rupi Kauer for men

[Anonymous No.21456859]

>>21456848
I understand that it's bad. You apparently don't. Therefore, I understand Infinite Jest better than you do
>but you haven't read it
I won't read it because it's bad. I know its bad because I've read other things by DFW and they were all bad, and I've seen parts of IJ and all of them were bad.

[Anonymous No.21456869]

>>21456848
Just show me some good writing by the guy. I could do so with any author or book I like in 3 seconds.

[Anonymous No.21456870]

>>21456859
lol. Thanks for furthering my point.

[Anonymous No.21456907]

>>21456869
Like I said, I am in the midst of switching to a new computer, backup and copying shit over and all that, only reason I am humoring you. Maybe when I am done but you seem more interested in being right. All I can offer at this moment is the first chapter of TPK which happens to be in my browsers notes.

§1

Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the A.M. heat: shattercane, lamb’s-quarter, cutgrass, sawbrier, nutgrass, jimsonweed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtail, muscadine, spinecabbage, goldenrod, creeping charlie, butter-print, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads gently nodding in a morning breeze like a mother’s soft hand on your cheek. An arrow of starlings fired from the windbreak’s thatch. The glitter of dew that stays where it is and steams all day. A sunflower, four more, one bowed, and horses in the distance standing rigid and still as toys. All nodding. Electric sounds of insects at their business. Ale-colored sunshine and pale sky and whorls of cirrus so high they cast no shadow. Insects all business all the time. Quartz and chert and schist and chondrite iron scabs in granite. Very old land. Look around you. The horizon trembling, shapeless. We are all of us brothers.

Some crows come overhead then, three or four, not a murder, on the wing, silent with intent, corn-bound for the pasture’s wire beyond which one horse smells at the other’s behind, the lead horse’s tail obligingly lifted. Your shoes’ brand incised in the dew. An alfalfa breeze. Socks’ burrs. Dry scratching inside a culvert. Rusted wire and tilted posts more a symbol of restraint than a fence per se. NO HUNTING. The shush of the interstate off past the windbreak. The pasture’s crows tanding at angles, turning up patties to get at the worms underneath, the shapes of the worms incised in the overturned dung and baked by the sun all day until hardened, there to stay, tiny vacant lines in rows and inset curls that do not close because head never quite touches tail. Read these.

[Anonymous No.21456917]

Incel whining aside, are you guys ready for the IJ read-along in 2023?

[Anonymous No.21456938]

>>21456917
If you guys do it I will join in and offer some gentle nudges if/when need be to help anons, probably just raise the occasional question and let you all go where you go with it. Will almost certainly avoid discussion or the like, people ultimately need to find their own way, not mine.

[Anonymous No.21456949]

>>21456907
I do not think this is very good, especially the line
>Some crows come overhead then, three or four, not a murder
But I appreciate that you did post something

[Anonymous No.21456979]

I am annoyed just by the existence of that book, it really sounds like a pain in the ass, most of you just consider it a chore

[Anonymous No.21456992]

>>21456917
Again I say
someone organize this
Im too lazy to

[Anonymous No.21457015]

are there any books i should read before reading infinite jest?
obviously there are literary connections to shakespeare's hamlet, but are there other works i should familiarise myself with beforehand?
i would love to begin reading post-modernism but i've never felt "ready" enough to approach it.
>>21455559
>>21456917
this board could use more threads like that, i hope it happens.

[Anonymous No.21457053]

>>21456917
>>21456992
I guess I can work on the schedule since you can not just break it up into 30 page sections since some of those endnotes will make those 30 pages 60 pages, so you sort of need someone who has read it to handle this. If someone starts the thread and gets interest going I will put in some time to work out a sane schedule.
>>21457015
No, nothing needed to read and Hamlet will not really help much unless you are an autist. IJ is self contained. I suppose reading some fractured narratives would not hurt if you have not read any, Speedboat by Adler would be good for this.

[Anonymous No.21457078]

>>21455421
Hmmm possibly. I do have it but I’m not sure if I’ll have time or make it a project this year. I finally started the Iliad, and am actually dedicating proper time to annotate and take notes. I’m a history student, so I thought I could study the classics in my free time.

[Anonymous No.21457105]

At age 17 in 2014 I bought this because everyone on /lit/ was saying it was the greatest thing ever. Tried to read it twice and each time I stopped around the part where it goes into the intricacies of air ducts or whatever, just lost interest. Filtered?

[Anonymous No.21457130]

>>21457105
>intricacies of air ducts
It just laying out the land, explaining the tunnel system under ETA and how various people use it, not even a long bit by any means. Not really enough to go off of to say if you were filtered, you may just prefer simpler more direct literature or be a plot fag. It is not meant to be easy and most everyone will have points they have to push through, many have to put it down for awhile but end up loving it after they resume/finish it.

What sort of stuff do you normally read?

[Anonymous No.21457186]

>>21457130
im reading it now at 33. at 17 I would have had no idea what the fuck anyone in the book was

[Anonymous No.21457194]

>>21457186
>33 in 2022
>was 17 in 2014
wtf

[Anonymous No.21457204]

>>21457194
>most literate anon on lit

[Anonymous No.21457209]

>>21457204
t. Vampire

[Anonymous No.21457223]

>>21457209
What :(

[Anonymous No.21457414]

>>21457223
nta but he’s calling you old

[Anonymous No.21457432]

>>21457414
I am old :(

[Anonymous No.21457438]

>>21457414
I'm not. Just a cheeky joke about a creature who's always the same age. I misunderstood the context.

[Anonymous No.21457600]

>>21456618
Just to clarify, are you saying Freedom by Franzen is an example of a failure of a novel by having too complicated of a narrative structure? Because I thought Freedom was quite effective and the narrative structure wasn't difficult at all. Just trying to clarify since so few people ever talk about Franzen here.

[Anonymous No.21457659]

>>21457600
No, I am saying that it shows why DFW went the way he did despite its issues. Freedom makes it all to easy to write things off as someone else's problem and it had to pick a side (politicaly speaking) to tell the story from which means it is even more likely to get written off. DFW's way of working around these things required a more complex structure which kills the more direct sympathetic/empathetic connection, understanding is more academic than emotional.

[Anonymous No.21457706]

ill finish it with you, anons. stopped because i got a job but now im unemployed again

[Anonymous No.21457724]

>>21455491
>>21455493
Have to post picrel, but sending energy to all my prospective Infinite Jest scholars

[Anonymous No.21457837]

>>21457659
So you're saying essentially that what DFW was more interested in, getting us to understand the modern era we love, just fundamentally couldn't be done in the structure of a novel. Which I understand was a big part of his frustration with the Pale King, getting it to all work together. That's really interesting. I really struggle reading DFW's fiction but maybe I shouldn't treat them as short stories or novels but more like a code that I'm trying to decipher to give me greater insight.

Do you have any broader thoughts on Franzen btw? Do you think his career in general can be thought of as a guy trying to convey the DFW style stuff but ultimately deciding to stay within the confines of the novel structure as well as focus more on the family as a vehicle for conveying these emotions?

[Anonymous No.21458256]

>>21457837
IJ is well within the bounds of a novel and the form was taken to far greater extremes long before he was even born. Why it fails as a novel for me is that the massive scope combined with his goals means he has to give the same details for each of those 100+ characters, while this gave him an elegant and simple means to give surprising depth to even minor characters it also means at times it feels like you are reading a massive list of examples with analysis. It leaves me feeling as though I am reading literary criticism instead of a novel.

The only structural issue that I am aware he had with TPK is that he had more which he wanted to add to the novel but could not figure out a way to incorporate them
without fucking up the structure which is insanely complex. I never heard of him having issues with staying within the confines of the form, but perhaps you know of something which I do not?

Freedom is the only Franzen I have read so far but from what I know he is on his own thing, there is just overlap with DFW. I may change my mind after I read more of him, Freedom is not the best to judge this from since it is pretty much his take on Infinite Jest and an homage to his dead friend.

[Anonymous No.21458273]

>>21456049
ADHD? Autism? You hyper focused right?

[Anonymous No.21458865]

>>21455491
fucking kek are you retarded lmao

[Anonymous No.21458967]

>>21455421
already gave it a start but have only gotten a hundred so pages in. So 2023 will be the year that I properly finish it

[Anonymous No.21458986]

Good luck to everybody. Try giving it until 200-250 pages in if you feel like quitting at first. Don't look for a neat ending and you will find it an enjoyable experience.

[Anonymous No.21459103]

>>21458986
thanks chad

[Anonymous No.21459236]

>>21455421
>>21455491
>>21455493
>>21455559
>>21455565
>>21457015
I got IJ for Christmas but I have to read The Man Without Qualities and Journey To The End Of The Night first. Could we start the readalong in mid february? I would help drum up some publicity until then. We could advertise the readalong with a set date to begin reading, that way other anons might be swayed to order the book and participate.

[Anonymous No.21459484]

is this actually a good book or is it just some bullshit parroted on this website. I've never heard of it anywhere else on the planet and it's a huge commitment to read.

[Anonymous No.21459736]

>>21459484
Booktubers suggest it too. Not sure if that is a good thing or bad thing. I already own it, so I am going to give it a try anyway. I know the chapter titles are related to years that have been bought out by major companies. Year of the Adult Undergarment, for example. That sounds funny. I bought the book after finding that out. I have become pretty jaded with literary canon and want something very different. This book should be unique at least.

[Anonymous No.21459740]

>>21459236
Great idea anon. I won't be ready to read until around then anyway, so I am game.