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Okay, it's me here returning to this thread to say drat I just finished Infinite Jest. Whoever it was that informed me about Infinite Winter is a doll, although I finished a little bit ahead of schedule. Most of the questions that readers have seemed pretty drat obvious in their answers to me, like Joelle's visage and poo poo like that, stuff I don't want to spoil. But in return I have just as many other questions, so nobody's perfect. Probably, in summation, not as good a read as The Pale King. Sucks to say it, but the book was painfully self indulgent a lot of the time and I would describe about 60% of the book as a complete drag. Also there's the apparently common side effect of your writing resembling DFW's once you finish the book, and poo poo if that doesn't piss me off when I notice I just made a sentence last 100x longer than it should with a series of dumbass semicolons or whatever else. I hope this doesn't read like a poo poo blog post. I just wanted to contribute to the thread. I guess my biggest thing to say is that I loved the ending. What a way to end the book.
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Apr 6, 2016 06:13
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If I recall correctly, we are given conflicting and unreliable statements about Joelle's face. I think I prefer the interpretation that she is not disfigured, but I believe DFW made it ambiguous intentionally. But it's been several years since my last read. What did you conclude?
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Apr 6, 2016 13:57
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Big spoiler so I'll just black it all out. I feel she's almost definitely disfigured from a vat of acid. Although Molly Notkin's testimony is really really unreliable, Joelle herself describes Orin as an "acid dodger extraordinaire" and tells Steeply that she 'used to tell people that she was incredibly beautiful as a denial to her disfigurement.' That, added with Hal at one point calling her disfigured in his narration, and the fact that she doesn't view the film Infinite Jest as actually lethal for showing her face, as well as considering showing Don her unveiled face as well, means she must not actually be lethally beautiful.
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Apr 6, 2016 20:21
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Ah yes, that's all coming back to me now. I feel like I must have had some reason for going the other way, but I can't remember what that might have been. Maybe just a gut feeling that Joelle herself is very unreliable. Hal probably does have the clearest perspective on it, as you say. Hmm. Now it's bugging me and I'm going to have to read the whole drat thing over again. For like the 10th time.
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Apr 6, 2016 23:10
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Shamelessly stolen from Infinite Summer forums:quote:Endnote 134 on page 1025 says the emergency room physician taking care of her "had looked upon her unveiled face and had been deeply affected, and had taken a special interest . . . ." I think I must have latched onto the ER doc thing, but I hadn't made the Montesian connection. I may be even more convinced now. What a glorious puzzle of a book.
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Apr 6, 2016 23:24
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quiltyquilty posted:Also there's the apparently common side effect of your writing resembling DFW's once you finish the book, and poo poo if that doesn't piss me off when I notice I just made a sentence last 100x longer than it should with a series of dumbass semicolons or whatever else. god this is so true
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Apr 7, 2016 00:45
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mdemone posted:I think I must have latched onto the ER doc thing, but I hadn't made the Montesian connection. I may be even more convinced now.
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Apr 7, 2016 11:51
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We've got the wisdom of solomon.nachos posted:god this is so true I read some Nabokov and now everything I write's an anagram.
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Apr 7, 2016 11:53
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Joelle herself also claims, in conversation with Gately (who is insistently asking her why she wears the veil), that she's so beautiful she drives people out of their heads. I never did decide if she was or not. I prefer the idea that she's not, though; it makes her identification with the actually-disfigured more touching to me. And I love that Mario, who is, in addition to being the book's most comically disfigured person, the only person in the novel who's probably never had so much as a single bad thought about somebody else's appearance, is an obsessive fan of her Madame Psychosis radio show.
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Apr 7, 2016 20:23
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Okay, correction: worthwhile feminism. lmao Mescal posted:Just finished Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Wonderful. Not wonderful. Difficult, a slog with intermittent payoffs that don't necessarily make you feel better but provide a little relief and give you something to think about. In contrast with Girl w/ Curious Hair, my first DFW which I read most of recently, BIWHM feels like a novel rather than "here's some stories." It's a concept album about the problem of males. Gave me a lot to chew on as a male feminist who struggles with being human and sometimes hates men. The last piece in the book seemed to be saying "Yeah, this is all me, I'm a hideous man as well, and I hate being confronted with that fact." I'd like to read more about this book. It's a little hard to digest. Responses, reviews, etc. Any tips? I think a lot of people have a similar problem with how hard that book is to digest because it's one I don't see discussed a whole lot. I read the whole thing as like, bone dry feminist satire, and it forced me to confront a whole bunch of weird gender related poo poo I'd internalized as well. I think it's maybe the single most life changing book I've ever read and I could talk about it for hours. Kinda skittish about publicly writing a response to it as I had a deeply personal and profound reaction to it (I was going through withdrawal after a year on pain pills when I read it) and it broke my brain. I went like entirely off the drat deep end because there was so much stuff to process, it was like getting repeatedly hit in the face with rock hard truths I needed to hear. And then I went crazy and stayed crazy for a month and like everything in that book/infinite jest/Wallace in general saturated the real world. It is difficult to describe but I came out of the experience with a much stronger sense of self than I'd had before. My copy is all rainbow highlighter and totally filled with margin notes. I went through and tore all the post it notes out a while back because I didn't want anyone seeing just how hosed up I was while reading it. I haven't revisited the book in a long time because it's still pretty uncomfortable seeing my notes go further and further into insanity. A lot of what was in that book was so personally affecting that after a certain point it felt cruel and invasive. Nowadays it's hard to know how much of what I saw in that book was just my own crazy and how much of it was that I was just open enough to get the full intent. The Depressed Person was like having a conversation with the first person to ever be honest about what a little poo poo I was when I was still stuck in the mental health hell I had been in for fifteen years. A Church Not Built With Hands felt like a drat training program for developing brain superpowers (granted, I was pretty far off the reservation by the time I got to that bit). Sissee Nar and the one with the father on his deathbed gave me a lot to process about my weird codependent family. Adult World forced perspective about the relationship I was in at the time. It takes a special kind of narcissism to find yourself in every story in that book, but like I said, the whole thing felt like a conversation and a confessional in one. And I swear on anything you like, once I finished that book, I had processed and dealt with most of the major internal issues in my life. It kind of fixed me, in a lot of ways. Granted, by the time I was a quarter of the way through the book, I was hallucinating actual conversations with Wallace and couldn't talk to anyone for five minutes without dragging the conversation back to him. I was legit obsessed. It was like finding religion. Proof is in the pudding though. I was in year six of being a pointless lump. I barely got out of bed. Once I got through whatever that book started in my head, I came back to life in a way I didn't know would be possible for me. So uh, thanks Dave.
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May 7, 2016 16:07
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Look Under The Rock posted:lmao Hey, I did the same thing (to a less insane degree) with IJ, notes and all. The first time I read it, I was in full blown addiction. The second time I read it, I was trying to stay sober but failing, and the third time I read it was in a rehab facility where I got and stayed sober to this day. The book really plugged a lot of holes in my mental dam. Having such a clear, compassionate window into another addicts soul was exactly the medicine I needed to get right in the head before putting in the work to be sober.
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May 7, 2016 17:22
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I was living in a rehab when I read Infinite Jest having decided I was already going to kill myself, but I wanted to finish the book first. Finished it and decided I wanted to live but that only lasted about a week, then I had a complete break from reality and procured enough Xanax and Phenobarbital to overdose on, took somewhere around 40 2 mg xans + the barbs and stopped breathing, woke up 2 days later in a hospital. That's my DFW/rehab/depression story. I'm 21 months clean and sober now.
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May 8, 2016 01:26
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"I lost my mind while reading dfw" is actually a way more common thing than you'd think.
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May 8, 2016 02:29
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Almost a third of the way through IJ and it's totally samizdating me. I literally don't want to do anything else except read this book and see how everything unfolds, especially now things are at the very beginning of starting to maybe think about coming together This makes me feel like the biggest cliche in the whole world but discovering DFW was absolutely revelatory for me. I'd been trying to master the colloquial-but-still-literary writing style for years and he blew me away. Plus with IJ there are certain chapters that, as with many others, resonate with me so much. Everything in the Erdedy chapter, especially the whole thing about wanting to seem casual, is the most specifically relatable thing I've ever read.
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Jul 10, 2016 08:15
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IJ comes together at the beginning, from a certain point of view. Although you have to get through the middle and some parts of the end to make sense of what just happened. Then you have to read someone on an internet forum explain it to you again. If you're a little slow like I am.
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Jul 10, 2016 14:06
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Escobarbarian posted:Almost a third of the way through IJ and it's totally samizdating me. I literally don't want to do anything else except read this book and see how everything unfolds, especially now things are at the very beginning of starting to maybe think about coming together If you're already enjoying it that much then you're in for a treat. Let us know when you're done!
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Jul 10, 2016 20:35
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Escobarbarian posted:I'd been trying to master the colloquial-but-still-literary writing style for years and he blew me away. You will now find that you are generally unable not to write in this style.
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Jul 10, 2016 20:42
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mdemone posted:You will now find that you are generally unable not to write in this style. and but so
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Jul 10, 2016 21:01
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It was funny (not at all) that the secret terrorist avril incandenza, leader of the militant grammarians of MA would have looked at IJ like it was trash for all of dave's 'wardine be cry' moments
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Jul 10, 2016 21:08
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Thanks for all the comments. Just popped in to say I read the scene where the juniors play Eschaton and it may be the single best piece of fiction writing I've ever read. So gripping/intense while also being very wry and funny.
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Jul 11, 2016 01:31
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Escobarbarian posted:Thanks for all the comments. Just popped in to say I read the scene where the juniors play Eschaton and it may be the single best piece of fiction writing I've ever read. So gripping/intense while also being very wry and funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJpfK7l404I I made a bunch of gifs of this
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Jul 11, 2016 01:33
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Escobarbarian posted:Thanks for all the comments. Just popped in to say I read the scene where the juniors play Eschaton and it may be the single best piece of fiction writing I've ever read. So gripping/intense while also being very wry and funny. Every time somebody mentions the Eschaton scene, I have this urge to re-read it for that same reason. It's really a remarkable set piece in so many ways, not least of which is the fact that it's so effective at delivering DFW's theme of map vs. territory, without the reader even needing to be aware of that perspective at all.
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Jul 11, 2016 01:44
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     and  ima bout to eat a probie in the book barn but eh
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Jul 11, 2016 01:51
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Hah, I've never watched the video (I think out of trepidation that it would conflict with my headcanon) so those are new on me. Thanks! Loving how that actor played Pemulis throwing himself at the fence. If only his yachting cap could have bounced up and down off his head.
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Jul 11, 2016 02:26
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I love The Decemberists, this song in particular, and Michael Schur. No idea how I never saw this video before, but I love it.
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Jul 11, 2016 02:30
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Escobarbarian posted:I love The Decemberists, this song in particular, and Michael Schur. No idea how I never saw this video before, but I love it. It's a goodie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLSOzcEQjiE
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Jul 11, 2016 02:38
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mdemone posted:If only his yachting cap could have bounced up and down off his head. That whole line about the characters realising that the cartoon bouncing-hat thing was physically possible still makes me laugh to this day
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Jul 12, 2016 08:10
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One thing I find kinda funny and ironic is that I haven't watched a single film or episode of TV since I started reading this
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Jul 12, 2016 09:59
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Re-read Eschaton and it really is that phenomenal. But one thing I've forgotten since I haven't read the whole novel in several years: why is Steeply watching them? Edit: while I was digging around a bit to figure this out, I ran across the following link that rearranges all the major episodes chronologically. Very useful for those of us who have read it so many times that everything blends together. http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/images/theses/chronijfinal1.3.pdf mdemone fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Jul 12, 2016 |
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Jul 12, 2016 13:57
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I would guess Steeply is watching because he doesn't have permission to interview/approach the kids. I also assume this is a good vantage point since he probably can't enter any areas without someone faculty with him. Eschaton being a good time to see how the kids (specifically Hal) act when not around staff.
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Jul 12, 2016 21:03
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Slowed down reading a little bit but am almost halfway through (just finished the chapter with Mario's retelling of the formation of ONAN and Gately cleaning toilets) and I was wondering - do we ever get a more in-depth look at Avril? She's by far the most enigmatic and fascinating character to me so far, although I wouldn't mind if she stayed at arms length like she is now. Also, what is the deal with Mario's mental disabilities? He has hella film talent for someone supposedly 'slow'. Escobarbarian fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Jul 15, 2016 |
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Jul 15, 2016 15:58
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She's always pretty distant and is in general a narrative ace-in-the-hole for whatever weird poo poo happens in the plot.
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Jul 15, 2016 16:04
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So uh, recently read the section with Pemulis walking in on Avril and Wayne and just had the section with Orin and the hand model and man Orin and Avril really have just about the most Oedipal relationship ever that doesn't involve actual boning so far, huh
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Jul 22, 2016 22:19
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Escobarbarian posted:So uh, recently read the section with Pemulis walking in on Avril and Wayne and just had the section with Orin and the hand model and man Orin and Avril really have just about the most Oedipal relationship ever that doesn't involve actual boning so far, huh Aay-Yup. Apparently, the character really upset DFW's mom when she read the book, because of their similarities, especially the fixation on correct grammar (see his essay Tense Present for more on his mother's influence on his writing style).
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Jul 23, 2016 01:22
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That and Suicide as a Kind of Present he gave his mom a real hard time of it. According to the Maxx biography, he believed his maternal grandfather sexually abused her, engendering a defensive habit of over-analysis which he inherited. Which is why he dedicated IJ to him.
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Jul 23, 2016 09:40
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Mr. Squishy posted:That and Suicide as a Kind of Present he gave his mom a real hard time of it. According to the Maxx biography, he believed his maternal grandfather sexually abused her, engendering a defensive habit of over-analysis which he inherited. Which is why he dedicated IJ to him. I beg your pardon, you're saying that DFW dedicated IJ to his grandfather, specifically because he sexually abused his mother? Am I understanding that correctly?
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Jul 24, 2016 03:35
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You are understanding me correctly. It's like a spite dedication or an extremely oblique attempt to reach out to his mother.
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Jul 24, 2016 09:09
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Oh man, that's fascinating. I'm definitely gonna have to read this bio at some point. Gately defending Lenz from the Canadians is probably my favourite scene from the book other than Eschaton so far. Not sure I've ever really felt white-knuckle excitement from actual prose before.
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Jul 24, 2016 17:33
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Also worth noting that a bunch of the self-help books he was reading were published during a period when blaming moms for pretty much all emotional / psychic trauma was the "in" thing for pop psychoanalysis. I was actually pretty disappointed in the other DFW biography, because there's basically zero input from his family and those relationships seem to have had a massive influence on his writing. I can't really blame his mother for feeling weird about it - DFW's style makes it pretty hard to separate the author from the narrator sometimes, especially when there's a pretty fair amount of obviously autobiographical elements to his work.
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Jul 26, 2016 20:42
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The other biography? There are two?
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Jul 26, 2016 20:50
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