51–60 of 86 posts
Well that's just like your opinion man. Infinite Jest is a masterpiece imo. My favorite book of all time and oddly prescient in many ways. For instance, I'm aware of at least one startup developing the vid-chat masks Wallace wrote up with a straight face. See also snapchat filters.
I haven't read IJ, but the review made it sound like a sober variation on the "Illuminatus Trilogy".
here's a hack for reading infinite jest: use two bookmarks - one in the main story and one in the endnotes. here's another hack that is tougher: read it in less than a week. you simply cannot appreciate the book if you do not have all of the different plots and characters fresh in your head (BTW I make the same recommendation for all long classics eg war and peace). about the merit of the book: it is one of the few b…
It’s worthwhile comparing the criticism to other works such as James Joyce’s Ulyssess. Take this quote from a review in the NYT: Few intuitive, sensitive visionaries may understand and comprehend "Ulysses," James Joyce's new and mammoth volume, without going through a course of training or instruction, but the average intelligent reader will glean little or nothing from it- even from careful perusal, one might proper…
Presumably it works well because it really is extremely time consuming to read those books. The only question is how hard it is to fake having read them (how many details do you have to remember, how many details do other readers remember so that they question you about them).
Thinking about it, perhaps a degree in literature is actually an attempt to fake read all those supposedly important works (you may often only read summaries and learn to bullshit about literature).
Use the story title! It's in the guidelines!
Articles like this, it seems to turn out, are part of Dale Peck's schtick, as you'll quickly learn from a Wikipedia page that seems to think these kinds of takedowns are the most notable thing about him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Peck
I'm always there for a good takedown, and while I like DFW's writing I think Infinite Jest is a rich, slow-moving, and inexplicably unharried target. But I do think it's kind of funny that Peck opens by saying that Infinite Jest is a book without much of a plot, in which not much happens other than a 700 page conversation, and then spends 2 gigantic paragraphs trying to explain all the details of the plot. Which, it turns out later, he actually enjoys, once the puzzle pieces fall into place and reveal the book's underlying simplicity. OK then.
The bit in Infinite Jest written in (attempted) African American vernacular is truly awful, though. Peck is clearly right about that.
They totally missed the mark on this one: "What’s meant to distinguish Infinite Jest (the book) from various artefacts that precede it is the conflation of entertainment with drug addiction, and this notion is, I think, fundamentally flawed." It's now pretty clear entertainment can be neurologically addictive, as evidenced by the social media companies and their abilities to predict improved engagement. On top of tha…
Also I'm quite sure the idea of conflating entertainment with drug addiction precedes IJ, it can be traced back at least as far as the idea that religion is the opiate of the masses.
> As usual these days, Fritz was back at the computer room, staring at data. He had that ask-me-if-I-give-a-shit look Doc had noted before in the newcomers to the groovy world of addictive behavior.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Was it a great book? No. But there is about a 50 page section in the middle that makes the whole damn thing worth it. Could you not read just the good part?
Any suggestions for “the good part” in Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time? Just kidding ;-)
The title of this piece is "Well, duh". The sentence from which this submission's title is taken is If nothing else, the success of Infinite Jest is proof that the Great American Hype Machine can still work wonders, in terms of sales. ; the submission's title doesn't get the full intent of that sentence. Use the story title! It's in the guidelines! Articles like this, it seems to turn out, are part of Dale Peck's sch…
The title of this piece is "Well, duh". The sentence from which this submission's title is taken is If nothing else, the success of Infinite Jest is proof that the Great American Hype Machine can still work wonders, in terms of sales. ; the submission's title doesn't get the full intent of that sentence. Use the story title! It's in the guidelines! Articles like this, it seems to turn out, are part of Dale Peck's sch…
Since the submitter was attempting to use representative language from the article, I figure they thought the original title was baity and were trying to follow the guidelines by changing it.