/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23054245]

Why do you guys hate it and DFW so much?

[Anonymous No.23054246]

>>23054245
They're envious

[Anonymous No.23054284]

>>23054245
Mostly memes by non-readers and the filtered.

[Anonymous No.23054296]

[Anonymous No.23054302]

>>23054296
If a meme is good you only need to post it once.

[Anonymous No.23054319]

>>23054302
Criticism valid, but I will do what I want to amuse myself, because I like all of us have a limited amount of time on this earth, and honestly the last thing I care about is decorum when it comes to 4chan.

[Anonymous No.23054343]

>>23054319
Not about decorum, forced memes are completely in line with 4chan decorum, more about not wasting your limited time trying to force a meme. Atleast learn from the failure and rework it, evolve it.

[Anonymous No.23054347]

“We” don’t, there’s people who’ve read it and liked it and make interesting discussions/threads about it every once in a while. 4chan (or any specific board thereof) isn’t a monolith.

[Anonymous No.23054779]

>>23054245
It's mid

[Anonymous No.23054804]

>>23054779
Why?

[Anonymous No.23054894]

>>23054804
It's not. It's funny. It's a good book. You can read probably about 50 pages and get a good idea whether you like DFW's style, humor, etc.

[Anonymous No.23054966]

>>23054245
I don't hate him. He's insightful and erudite but I hate his writing style. It bores me to death. I don't mind his essays because I can take it in doses.

[Anonymous No.23055018]

>>23054245
I just bought this at Barnes and Noble today. Wish me luck guys.

[Anonymous No.23055049]

>>23055018
have fun

[Anonymous No.23055296]

Tennis is fucking gay

[Anonymous No.23055798]

>>23054804
Because there are better books

[Anonymous No.23056117]

He's such a cutie.

[Anonymous No.23056261]

>>23055296
Good thing it's not really about tennis then.
>>23055798
Name a better book written in 1996
>>23056117
True

[Anonymous No.23056755]

>>23054245
It's a good book. Dallas-Fort Worth gets a bad rap from some of the pseuds who like him.

>>23054296
I saved this but I have nowhere to post it because you post it yourself in every DFW/IJ thread.

>>23055018
Enjoy!

[Anonymous No.23056760]

>>23054245
I don't finish Infinite Jest

[Anonymous No.23056762]

I like it but it's an objectively redditesque book

[Anonymous No.23057355]

>>23056755
Most people who hold a dim view of Dallas-Fort Worth have been there and never read David Foster Wallace, whole lot of them grew up there.

[Anonymous No.23057482]

>>23054245
I don't hate it or DFW, but I get why people do. He clearly thought that he was a lot more intelligent and stable than he was, and he's an irritating author to read if you have any personal experience with narcissists. DFW was constantly trying to make connections between intelligent ideas and his own ideas that he thought were intelligent, and never really pulled it off. I also think that he was somewhat aware that he was a narcissist, but also thought that he was smart enough to beat it, which isn't a good approach and never ends well.
As for IJ, it's widely lauded by pseuds, which puts a bad taste in people's mouths, and is so densely written that it takes you a bit, or even a second read, to realize that it's just a collage masquerading as something profound. The prose is great, everything else is kind of what you take from it personally.
Good Old Neon is great though, and I like DFW's essays a lot.

[Anonymous No.23057537]

>>23057482
He was not about the "big ideas," dwelling on the simple problems every one deals with for 1100 pages is more his thing. You dense?

[Anonymous No.23058158]

>>23054245
I don't hate DFW, but Infinite Jest is mostly boring descriptions backstories of junkies, boys locker rooms, and banal observations.

[Anonymous No.23058160]

>>23058158
and what do all those things have in common?

[Anonymous No.23058213]

>>23058160
Oh, I know this one, it's annular fusion.

[Anonymous No.23058221]

>>23058213
I hope your memeing. Annular fusion ties in but more because it shares the same things in common not because it ties them together, same thing just applied to the inanimate.

[Anonymous No.23058284]

>>23054296
Is that a political compass?

[Anonymous No.23058304]

>>23056755
>Dallas-Fort Worth
I always think this. Denton represent

[Anonymous No.23058315]

>>23058304
When I lived in Texas I learned that "I am from the Dallas-Fort Worth area" was shorthand for "I am from Denton but don't want to admit I am from such a shithole." Even the El Paso fags looked down on people from Denton.

[Anonymous No.23058368]

>>23056261
You're lucky M&D came out in '97

[Anonymous No.23058375]

>>23054245
DFW was awesome. His novels sucked tho, that is why he killed himself.

[Anonymous No.23058386]

>>23058368
M&D is not that great, sure it is comfy and has its moments but it is completely dependent on GR and ATD (as well as the fourth as yet unpublished book) which it is the lesser of the the group and in context just the setup for the whole.
>>23058375
>get him a MacArthur Fellowship
>almost wins the Pulitzer
Yeah, they suck...

[Anonymous No.23059143]

Someone should make a Pynchon thread so I can ask my stupid question, don't feel like making a thread. Anyways, someone say something interesting about IJ.

[Anonymous No.23059149]

>>23059143
You'll know Brando when you watch him, and you'll have learned to fear him. Brando, Jim, Jesus, B-r-a-n-d-o.

[Anonymous No.23059150]

I like his prose

[Anonymous No.23059152]

>>23059149
One of my favorite parts and provides a very important bit of context, including the meaning of the title.
>>23059150
It is pretty good.

[Anonymous No.23059469]

>>23059150
as an ESL i'll say its the most american prose i've ever read.

[Anonymous No.23059520]

the book has loads of fun characters and plotlines, but completely shits the bed with the non-ending bullshit.
>HURR THATS THE POINT
fuck you.

Hal's autism problems being caused by eating mold is dumb. His ghost dad fixing that w/ more mold is even dumber. Hal should've watched the movie at the end, because it feels like nothing became of that, or half the characters involved with that plot specifically.

[Anonymous No.23060753]

>>23059520
lol. Hooked on phonics worked for him.

[Anonymous No.23061854]

>>23058160
There is no plot or point to it all

[Anonymous No.23061866]

>>23061854
>no plot
There is clearly a plot, it does not resolve in the way a plotfag would like but it is there and undeniable.
>no point
You were the infinite jest all along.

[Anonymous No.23061985]

I could've saved him.

[Anonymous No.23062807]

>>23059520
The mold and ghost-dad-drugging-him thing is just a theory, by some herb who gets a bunch of other things wrong.

[Anonymous No.23062852]

>>23062807
It is Aaron Schwartz's theory, one of the founders of reddit and fairly important person for quite a few things like RSS and markdown. Prime example why stemfags should stay out of literature.

[Anonymous No.23062875]

>>23061985
with some kind of time machine

[Anonymous No.23062951]

>>23062807
the non-ending is still frustrating either way. I like Hal, I like gately, and I wanna know wtf happened. Just feels pretentious to omit the climax and throw away fun characters like that. I read the book like 5 yrs ago and I'm still mad about it. Everyone talks up DFWs prose and themes and blah blah, but if I only gave a shit about that then I'd just stick to his essays instead.

[Anonymous No.23062981]

>>23062951
The climax is much earlier and there are two of them, Hal feeling his face at the eschaton and Gately reverting to old Gately with the Canadians.

Hal becomes a grim tennis playing machine like John Wayne, which means he fulfilled his father's prophecy and like John Wayne has ceased speaking. Remember what happens the one time John Wayne reportedly speaks? Same thing that happens to Hal at the start.

Gately is a bit more hazy, anything short of killing him does not really work unless you force a happily ever after ending on him and Wallace really was not that sort of writer. Gately either admits those things he confronts while he is made mute and finally gets the sort of sobriety he has pretended to have or he keeps those things to himself and relapses.

It is all there in the book.

[Anonymous No.23062991]

>>23062981
I mean the climax to those two meeting up and getting the film out of his father's skull, and idk if Hal really is a 'tennis machine' if he's giving up and going to college instead of playing professionally. Every story that long will have a bunch of climaxes to short arcs, and obv IJ is no different, but you can't tell me the film, the candanians, the us response, the giant baby zone, etc isn't all but omitted to infinitely jest the reader. I get why he trolls the reader, I just think it's fucking annoying and pretentious, especially with how much time it takes to read the damn thing.

[Anonymous No.23063001]

>>23062991
He doesn't troll the reader, everything serves a purpose and everything of any importance is tied up through theme which allows you to fill in the gap. Hal and Gately don't actually go dig up Himself.

[Anonymous No.23063003]

>>23062852
he was a redditor

[Anonymous No.23063049]

>>23063001
i didnt read 1000 pages just to fill in the damn gap you bastard. if he can write for hours about puppet show bullshit and how much poop a black man fills a toilet with, then he can certainly write a proper ending.