I look forward to the day another book makes me feel like IJ - even with the mathematical flaws :)
What race is Hal?
Not sure, but his dad's got a microwave for a head.
Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)
71–80 of 127 posts
Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. It was really a revelation to me. Looking back now, it's clear that I started reading it as a status seeking thing. I thought my intellectual friends (and especially girlfriends) would think it was cool that I actually read the whole thing (which nobody else in our circle had actually managed yet). But then it turned out to really affect me deeply. I read it again about a decade later after all those games we…
> I thought my intellectual friends (and especially girlfriends) would think it was cool that I actually read the whole thing Interesting though, considering the popular meme among women, that men think reading IJ makes them look smart. https://reductress.com/post/why-im-waiting-for-the-right-man... https://www.reddit.com/r/davidfosterwallace/comments/evsylv/...
Realistically, I feel like most women (and men) have never even heard about IJ, even those who read books on a regular basis and would call themselves readers.
The only crowds I know of where IJ has truly become a mainstream piece of knowledge are /lit/, some specific subreddits, some specific twitter circles, a bunch of edgy hipsters, and HN. I bet there are more of those, ofc, but imo IJ absolutely isn’t something most people would recognize or be able to appreciate those memes about it that you shared (which I actually think are funny and hit the mark well).
Maybe I am just in the wrong circles irl, but I often enough get to hang out with people who read way more books than an average person (or me) does, and I am yet to encounter any who actually read IJ. And even those who are aware of it are relatively minor in numbers.
Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps my favorite deliberate error in arithmetic is from Winston Groom's Forrest Gump, during the protagonist's tour in Vietnam: > I am the machine gun ammo bearer, cause they figger I can carry a lot of shit on account of my size. Before we lef, a couple of other fellers axed if I would mind carryin some of their han grenades so’s they could carry more orations, an I agreed. It didn’t hurt me none. Also, Sergeant…
Eighty pounds is "about fifty pounds", especially considering that a water can worth carrying at all is often not full, and insofar as nothing else in the paragraph is given a specific weight so the precise number doesn't really matter.
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Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)
#74Has anyone actually read Infinite Jest in its entirety? I got about 50 pages in and I'm pretty sure I got the jist of it from that. The constant slog into minutia and clunky grammar made it very slow reading for me. There were some funny parts but overall the effort didn't feel worth it. I tore through Gravity's Rainbow (mentioned in another thread).
I enjoyed Infinite Jest. I think it's good book if you are someone who HAS to know all the details. The book itself criticizes this way of thinking, while letting you in the all the details you could want. (the footnotes especially) I get the sense that the writing style is a metaphor and part of it for sure. I also really like many of the subtle ideas the book presents. Though like many "post modern novels", it's no…
Yes the writing style is def a metaphor for the book's subject and why i feel like I already get it without having to read the whole thing. 1080 pages of that does feel like infinity.
Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)
#75I've seen a theory that the mistakes Pemulis makes are intentional, and signal that he isn't as smart as he thinks and that he doesn't really have everything in control. I'm not sure; clearly DFW had some math aptitude but these also could have been honest mistakes. Presumably it would have been harder for editors to check these things in the 90s. The probability error seems harder to explain and likely just a mistak…
No one of any level of math skill would mistake the the derivative of x^n as nx + x^n-1. There's no way DFW messed that up, but it's also a pretty bizarre mistake to have a character make if they're supposed to be making mistakes.
In terms of 'meeting the reader where they are,' you would want to telegraph the math mistakes pretty hard, or they would fly past everyone. Making them obvious and dumb is the only way they'll get attributed to the character, rather than the author.
Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)
#76Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)
#77Has anyone actually read Infinite Jest in its entirety? I got about 50 pages in and I'm pretty sure I got the jist of it from that. The constant slog into minutia and clunky grammar made it very slow reading for me. There were some funny parts but overall the effort didn't feel worth it. I tore through Gravity's Rainbow (mentioned in another thread).
Yeah definitely, multiple times. But I feel you! The first time I read it it took me months to make it past the first couple hundred pages. But once you get far enough in everything starts to gel and it gets really fun.
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Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)
#78Has anyone actually read Infinite Jest in its entirety? I got about 50 pages in and I'm pretty sure I got the jist of it from that. The constant slog into minutia and clunky grammar made it very slow reading for me. There were some funny parts but overall the effort didn't feel worth it. I tore through Gravity's Rainbow (mentioned in another thread).
Yes I have and I think I'm the only person not lying about that fact.
Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)
#79Has anyone actually read Infinite Jest in its entirety? I got about 50 pages in and I'm pretty sure I got the jist of it from that. The constant slog into minutia and clunky grammar made it very slow reading for me. There were some funny parts but overall the effort didn't feel worth it. I tore through Gravity's Rainbow (mentioned in another thread).
I had a very easy/boring job and where during last few month I spent most of my time reading infinite jest after finishing the days work. I really loved it but I probably won't read it again anytime soon, there's a pretty substantial upfront time investment you have to make before it starts getting enjoyable to read.
Though once you lock in with the world and flow of infinite jest it gets pretty amazing, I wish I had more people to talk to about it without coming off as a pretentious jackass. Also it's far more enjoyable to read it as an ebook where you can jump instantly from the text to footnotes and look up unfamiliar words. Reading the physical copy seems torturous to me.
Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)
#80Has anyone actually read Infinite Jest in its entirety? I got about 50 pages in and I'm pretty sure I got the jist of it from that. The constant slog into minutia and clunky grammar made it very slow reading for me. There were some funny parts but overall the effort didn't feel worth it. I tore through Gravity's Rainbow (mentioned in another thread).
I had a very easy/boring job and where during last few month I spent most of my time reading infinite jest after finishing the days work. I really loved it but I probably won't read it again anytime soon, there's a pretty substantial upfront time investment you have to make before it starts getting enjoyable to read. Though once you lock in with the world and flow of infinite jest it gets pretty amazing, I wish I had…
What race is Hal?