|
It's long. I think my paperback copy is ~1100 pages including endnotes? A good read if you like tennis or drugs. Have you finished it or did you give up on the entertainment midway through?
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2023 19:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 18:16 |
|
|
Up there on the shortlist of personal favorite books. I just posted this in the Gravity's Rainbow thread, but I vastly prefer Infinite Jest to GR. The "Lead us not into penn station" quote still pops into my head from time to time
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2023 06:11
|
|
|
I finished it, it's worth it. Once you figure out its deal it really sucks you in.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2023 12:46
|
|
|
(smuggest voice possible) Yeah, it really changes your whole worldview. Like, I'm a completely different person after reading it
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2023 20:46
|
|
|
It was really funny and I enjoyed spending the week or two living in the book. Was it trying to say that our entertainment is literally killing us or something?
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2023 23:57
|
|
|
oh its over that's how you're gonna end it? ok, i guess. Well i'll go read something else now.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2023 16:04
|
|
|
Good book imo. I’ve read it twice so this time round I’m just listening to Infinite Cast instead. So glad there’s only one terrible embarrassing AAVE section and it’s really early on so you can get it out of the way and focus on the cool poo poo Wardine be cry
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2023 10:06
|
|
|
 but seriously, i finished it and i enjoyed it, but i don't think it makes me better than anyone else. it is annoying that this has become THE pretentious book for Book Bros. it is not even close to the most pretentious book i have read. like, read a book because you enjoy it. it's not a competition friends.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2023 10:21
|
|
|
The vignettes of people were interesting. That guy who locks himself away for a few days to smoke insane amounts of weed gives me mad anxiety. I thought I didn't like it after I finished it but I get fonder of it as time goes by. Probably because it took so long to read.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2023 13:59
|
|
|
Escobarbarian posted:Good book imo. I’ve read it twice so this time round I’m just listening to Infinite Cast instead. So glad there’s only one terrible embarrassing AAVE section and it’s really early on so you can get it out of the way and focus on the cool poo poo it's definitely the books nadir.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2023 03:13
|
|
|
Arrhythmia posted:it's definitely the books nadir. Yup, I always recommend people to skip it. Allegedly there were 400-600 pages edited out of the book, so imagine their quality compared to that.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2023 20:22
|
|
|
I read it a long time ago and don't remember most of it, but I do remember liking it, I guess maybe I should read it again but it's so long. Then again I recently finished reading the entire Baroque Trilogy which is probably like 4000 pages total but that took me like two years. As far as pretentiousness, I feel like some of Cormac McCarthy's stuff is just as if not more pretentious, but I love that poo poo too so I don't really have a leg to stand on either way.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2023 20:38
|
|
|
I remember liking the descriptions of the dad's art films and realizing that the first scene was from one of those. The guy who mailed the tape initially was the brother, right?
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2023 22:47
|
|
|
MK-Ultramarathon posted:I read it a long time ago and don't remember most of it, but I do remember liking it, I guess maybe I should read it again but it's so long. Then again I recently finished reading the entire Baroque Trilogy which is probably like 4000 pages total but that took me like two years. Pretentious to me means reaching stylistically beyond the subtext of your work, hence why purple prose with zero contextual reason for it is laughable, but whether you like them or not, Infinite Jest and McCarthy's books clearly have tons of thought put not only into their structure but in what they're trying to communicate. They're not pretentious, just labeled so by proxy because supposedly pretentious people like to read them or say they've read them. Pretentious is usually just a meaningless criticism the vast majority of the time, basically just synonymous with "I didn't like it." It's a loaded word that requires clarification in order to justify it, but people use it as willy-nilly as calling something poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2023 02:10
|
|
|
A Strange Aeon posted:I remember liking the descriptions of the dad's art films and realizing that the first scene was from one of those. What? No the first scene is Hal in about 2 years. He takes bad acid and gets ethel merman'd. For the last few chapters he's starting to crack, and everyone keeps mentioning why he's smiling and laughing so much despite him feeling like he's perfectly normal.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2023 02:15
|
|
|
Arrhythmia posted:What? No the first scene is Hal in about 2 years. He takes bad acid and gets ethel merman'd. For the last few chapters he's starting to crack, and everyone keeps mentioning why he's smiling and laughing so much despite him feeling like he's perfectly normal. There wasn't a film about a kid in an interview and being really weird? IDK, it has been a few years and it's a hard book to keep in brain RAM
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2023 03:30
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyZFxf3Uz-8
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2023 14:56
|
|
|
Arrhythmia posted:What? No the first scene is Hal in about 2 years. He takes bad acid and gets ethel merman'd. For the last few chapters he's starting to crack, and everyone keeps mentioning why he's smiling and laughing so much despite him feeling like he's perfectly normal. This is the read I've got on it as well. With the bonus idea that the book loops back around on itself, the first scene fits neatly onto the end of the book and so it's 'infinite'. Admittedly it's been a while since I read it and I think I got that interpretation off the internet in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2023 19:59
|
|
|
i read IJ with a gun pointed at my head so anyone who saw me reading it just acknowledged how smart i was and didn't call me pretentious or whatever. i think Wallace's short stories are better--the form forces him to reel it in a bit--but it's a pretty good book. people will talk about Underworld or Gravity's Rainbow when they talk about IJ, but Pynchon's V is lowkey the best of the crazy maximalist pomo novels.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2023 04:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 18:16 |
|
|
I don't disagree on Wallace's stories (and non-fiction too) being great, but reading Oblivion or Brief Histories just doesn't carry the same cultural weight as tackling IJ. His first novel, the Broom of the System, despite having a few good parts, I didn't find particularly memorable or edifying.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2023 12:10
|
|