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Transistor Rhythm posted:It's really, really, really funny. Like laugh-out-loud on public transportation against your hard ingrained urban stonefaced train mode funny. also funny: image of goon with "hard ingrained urban stoneface" on public transit loudly laughing while holding a copy of Infinite Jest
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Mar 16, 2015 21:42
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Earwicker posted:also funny: image of goon with "hard ingrained urban stoneface" on public transit loudly laughing while holding a copy of Infinite Jest You can ride with me any time, but I use a kindle these days.
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Mar 16, 2015 21:52
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There's been maybe one funny bit in the first quarter. I agree with the cool people who say it's bloated, it reads like someone tried to write GRavity's Rainbow without understanding why Gravity's Rainbow is good. Also I'm reading it on Kindle and 140 people highlighted that bit that was like "you will become way less concerned with what people think of you when you realise how little they do" and I'm embarrassed that that line made it into a supposedly high brow novel.
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Mar 16, 2015 21:54
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And tbh, I love Vonnegut, but he isn't as funny as he thinks he is. I've only laughed at one of his jokes (when in Slaughterhouse-Five the champagne loses carbonation and he says "So it goes.") in any of the works I've read of him. Still, he's a fantastic writer
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Mar 16, 2015 22:03
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Vonnegut is sort of like Salinger in that I think he's best read when you're relatively young.
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Mar 16, 2015 22:06
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Vonnegut is sort of like Salinger in that I think he's best read when you're relatively young. I don't read Salinger for his themes, I read it for the prose
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Mar 16, 2015 22:11
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CestMoi posted:Also I'm reading it on Kindle and 140 people highlighted that bit that was like "you will become way less concerned with what people think of you when you realise how little they do" and I'm embarrassed that that line made it into a supposedly high brow novel. One of the themes of the novel is the power of belief in cliche
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Mar 16, 2015 22:13
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Vonnegut is sort of like Salinger in that I think he's best read when you're relatively young. This 100% I read most of his books when I was like 14-16 and they were something amazing to me. I'm actually afraid to read one of his that I haven't, thinking I won't like it nearly as much as back then
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Mar 16, 2015 22:26
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CestMoi posted:There's been maybe one funny bit in the first quarter. I agree with the cool people who say it's bloated, it reads like someone tried to write GRavity's Rainbow without understanding why Gravity's Rainbow is good. Also I'm reading it on Kindle and 140 people highlighted that bit that was like "you will become way less concerned with what people think of you when you realise how little they do" and I'm embarrassed that that line made it into a supposedly high brow novel. I'm not finished with it either, but it definitely feels like Wallace trying to write Wallace's Gravity's Rainbow. Not the least because of the direct homages (the Brocken spectre and the obsession with cinematic male gaze/females on-screen come to mind first, I noticed more while reading that I can't think of now). It's also nowhere near as funny as Gravity's Rainbow. That said, I really like the Gately sections. Marathe/Steeply just drag like crazy and are a vehicle for cultural analysis instead of any narrative and the sections go on forever. And I'm someone who loves most of Wallace's short- and non-fiction and am generous to his style, I can't imagine trying to get through IJ if you weren't already won over by him elsewhere.
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Mar 16, 2015 22:27
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Antwan3K posted:This 100% I read most of his books when I was like 14-16 and they were something amazing to me. I'm actually afraid to read one of his that I haven't, thinking I won't like it nearly as much as back then I never read Vonnegut until my mid-20s and it was still great I think what appeals to young readers about Vonnegut is different though, I can imagine its a much different experience reading it when you're a teen
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Mar 16, 2015 22:27
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Pretend I transcribed every time DFW tried to write "in dialect" in Infinite Jest.
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Mar 16, 2015 22:45
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Dave Eggers posted:We’re interested in epic writerly ambition. We’re fascinated with what can be made by a person with enough time and focus and caffeine and, in Wallace’s case, chewing tobacco. If we are drawn to Infinite Jest, we’re also drawn to the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Songs, for which Stephin Merritt wrote that many songs, all of them about love, in about two years. And we’re drawn to the 10,000 paintings of folk artist Howard Finster. Or the work of Sufjan Stevens, who is on a mission to create an album about each state in the union. He’s currently at State No 2, but if he finishes that, it will approach what Wallace did with the book in your hands. lmao
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Mar 16, 2015 22:53
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Tree Goat posted:Pretend I transcribed every time DFW tried to write "in dialect" in Infinite Jest. Pretend I pasted DFW's astonishingly stupid essay on language politics here
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Mar 16, 2015 23:01
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Also every time he writes a section or digression about some technical matter in that condescending "aww shucks, don't worry about all of the gory details, but here's how it is" tone and yet manages to get key details astoundingly wrong.
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Mar 16, 2015 23:03
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Tree Goat posted:Pretend I transcribed every time DFW tried to write "in dialect" in Infinite Jest. Oh god this is so bad
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Mar 16, 2015 23:03
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Mel Mudkiper posted:One of the themes of the novel is the power of belief in cliche That doesn't make it not a stupid line to put in your novel.
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Mar 16, 2015 23:04
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I've only read far enough into Infinite Jest to regret my Kindle purchase, so, like, two or three chapters? On the other hand his "Supposedly Fun Thing" essay on pleasure cruises is brilliant.
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Mar 16, 2015 23:09
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I've read E Unibus Plurum and a thing he wrote about David Lynch and they seemed pretty good! My problem is that E Unibus Plurum shows that he's clearly concerned with this idea of everything being completely consumed by irony + how we progress beyond postmodernism and then he went and wrote 1000 pages of the worst things about post modernism with no new ideas.
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Mar 16, 2015 23:15
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But infinite jest isn't postmodern. At the core, it's the opposite..It's about being a real, living, feeling individual
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Mar 16, 2015 23:18
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blue squares posted:But infinite jest isn't postmodern. At the core, it's the opposite..It's about being a real, living, feeling individual what the gently caress does this mean
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Mar 16, 2015 23:23
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blue squares posted:But infinite jest isn't postmodern. At the core, it's the opposite..It's about being a real, living, feeling individual but there's no such thing?
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Mar 16, 2015 23:24
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Mel Mudkiper posted:what the gently caress does this mean It means being sincere and self reflective. Which postmodern lit says is impossible. Postmodernism says we're all just cogs in the machine and lack true agency blue squares fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Mar 17, 2015 |
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Mar 16, 2015 23:58
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blue squares posted:It means being sincere and self reflective. Which postmodern lit says is impossible. Postmodernism says we're all just cogs in the machine and lack true agency Self-reflexivity is a distinctly postmodern trait and also sincerity and lack of agency are not mutual exclusive concepts. 
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Mar 17, 2015 00:12
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Postmodernism doesn't deny agency, it denies the idea that you really know what you're doing at any given time, or that you ever actually act in your own best interests. You have reasons for acting but the reasons you think are your reasons for acting are wholly independent of your actual reasons for acting. Infinite Jest absolutely seems to treat its characters as victims of their own agency.
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Mar 17, 2015 00:12
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blue squares posted:But infinite jest isn't postmodern. At the core, it's the opposite..It's about being a real, living, feeling individual  blue squares posted:It means being sincere and self reflective. Which postmodern lit says is impossible. Postmodernism says we're all just cogs in the machine and lack true agency Go read The Things They Carried, no need to report back Nitevision fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Mar 17, 2015 |
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Mar 17, 2015 00:13
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ALso if you're writing sincere characters because you want to break free of irony, that in itself is really ironic.
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Mar 17, 2015 00:16
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blue squares posted:But infinite jest isn't postmodern. At the core, it's the opposite..It's about being a real, living, feeling individual Infinite Jest is supposed to be the book that kicked off post-postmodernism, the literary epoch we live in It is sometimes called "the new sincerity" and it is a big deal in Russian poetry Smoking Crow fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Mar 17, 2015 |
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Mar 17, 2015 00:24
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quote:Or the work of Sufjan Stevens, who is on a mission to create an album about each state in the union. He’s currently at State No 2, but if he finishes that, it will approach what Wallace did with the book in your hands.
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Mar 17, 2015 00:34
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Antwan3K posted:This 100% I read most of his books when I was like 14-16 and they were something amazing to me. I'm actually afraid to read one of his that I haven't, thinking I won't like it nearly as much as back then
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Mar 17, 2015 04:02
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I don't think most of the authors we now think of as postmodern actually believed in or wanted to promote the kind of caricature of postmodernism that most of us now associate with it.
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Mar 17, 2015 04:51
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Except John Barth
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Mar 17, 2015 15:07
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I don't think post-modernism was ever really meant to be a conscious style per se but was rather a critical consensus of the themes in that generation.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:11
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post-modern work is simply any work created or observed after the defeat of empiricism and objectivity, it has nothing to do with the author's intentions. we are still in the period and will remain in it until the term is officially concluded by the defeat of linear time
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Mar 17, 2015 17:16
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Tree Goat posted:lmao Omg
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Mar 17, 2015 21:52
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69 Love Songs is good.
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Mar 17, 2015 22:44
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Say what you will about Infinite Jest, but Brief Interviews With Hideous Men contains some seriously excellent short stories. Brief Interview #20, one of the last stories in the book, is the highlight. Also, the fact that Eggers latches on to Magnetic Fields and Sufjan Stevens as the pinnacle of grand musical achievement in the 21st century is really bloody sad. Why not go write for Pitchfork or something.
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Mar 17, 2015 22:58
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Can someone explain the appeal of The Great Gatsby to me? For a book with so much praise piled on it, it seemed pretty basic, both as a story and as a critical view on the American Dream. Reading it just after 100 Years of Solitude (and through a somewhat high fever) probably didn't help.
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Mar 18, 2015 12:00
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Fat Samurai posted:Can someone explain the appeal of The Great Gatsby to me? For a book with so much praise piled on it, it seemed pretty basic, both as a story and as a critical view on the American Dream. Reading it just after 100 Years of Solitude (and through a somewhat high fever) probably didn't help. Honestly I always thought Fitzgerald was a really bad writer and his fascination with the rich was tedious and without value Come at me nerds
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Mar 18, 2015 13:30
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Honestly I always thought Fitzgerald was a really bad writer and his fascination with the rich was tedious and without value Like it or not Great Gatsby was the defining literary work of its era. America is fascinated with the rich, then and now.
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Mar 18, 2015 13:35
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Like it or not Great Gatsby was the defining literary work of its era. America is fascinated with the rich, then and now. Well yeah it was the defining book of its era but it was a lovely vapid era
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Mar 18, 2015 13:55
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