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I wish to read this but I'm on page 600 of my first pass of the book and worry it'll spoil it for me. At risk of marking myself a "lit-bro" I think the book is proving solidly prophetic.
Er, it kind of predicts the internet, but everything else?
Quebec separatism? Corporate sponsored calendar? All of North America under the same flag? Dumping toxic waste in/on Québec instead of Africa ?
none of things actually happened
I wish to read this but I'm on page 600 of my first pass of the book and worry it'll spoil it for me. At risk of marking myself a "lit-bro" I think the book is proving solidly prophetic.
I wish to read this but I'm on page 600 of my first pass of the book and worry it'll spoil it for me. At risk of marking myself a "lit-bro" I think the book is proving solidly prophetic.
Solidly prophetic? Er, it kind of predicts the internet, but everything else? Quebec separatism? Corporate sponsored calendar? All of North America under the same flag? Dumping toxic waste in/on Québec instead of Africa ? none of things actually happened
Two of these things were already on the go. Or kind of...
The Québec independence movement has been mainstream for a long while and is fairly successful despite attempts to scupper it, such as installing completely bilingual prime ministers etc. Maybe one day it will reach its ultimate goal.
The "sponsored calendar" is probably Wallace's parody of various dedicated years, days and months we have. We do have World Mental Health Day, Black History Month, Gay Pride Month, the International Year of Whatever. We had a "Year of Gaelic" in Scotland which I only heard about half way in. The difference being that these are not generally purely advertising initiatives, although many corporations have tried to hijack them.
I wish to read this but I'm on page 600 of my first pass of the book and worry it'll spoil it for me. At risk of marking myself a "lit-bro" I think the book is proving solidly prophetic.
So in general, I'd say there's maybe 1-2 spoilers, but nothing major. If you want truly 0 spoilage, I wouldn't read it, but if you can tolerate some very minor stuff, you're likely safe. If you're on page 600 though, there's no spoilers. Edit: and yes, DFW presaged a lot with this book! Especially around how entertainment has evolved and the negative impact it has. The 'doom scroll' feature is literally called 'infin…
It's pure coincidence too as I read TPK in January and knew I had to read more DFW fiction as soon as I could.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, maybe I made my claim unclear. So my claim is that the 3 vertices are the institutions (ETA, Ennet House, the Wheelchair Assassins), not plots. I agree that IJ is kind of plotless, and that to me is what the voids in the Sierpinski Gasket could represent, but this article was more about the two-ways-to-construct-the-triangle thing. But I like your vertices (family, education, and society). You're making me think…
I've tried three times to read it and got a few pages in before giving up on it. Would it make more sense to just dive into the middle and see what converges out then? What put me off it is it just kind of reads like a rambling stoner conversation.
I found Ulysses more engaging. I have a copy of Gravity's Rainbow which I will try to get into at some stage.
I wish to read this but I'm on page 600 of my first pass of the book and worry it'll spoil it for me. At risk of marking myself a "lit-bro" I think the book is proving solidly prophetic.
Solidly prophetic? Er, it kind of predicts the internet, but everything else? Quebec separatism? Corporate sponsored calendar? All of North America under the same flag? Dumping toxic waste in/on Québec instead of Africa ? none of things actually happened
The internet long precedes the publishing of Infinite Jest.
Apparently, Infinite Jest is a book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest
I wish to read this but I'm on page 600 of my first pass of the book and worry it'll spoil it for me. At risk of marking myself a "lit-bro" I think the book is proving solidly prophetic.
Solidly prophetic? Er, it kind of predicts the internet, but everything else? Quebec separatism? Corporate sponsored calendar? All of North America under the same flag? Dumping toxic waste in/on Québec instead of Africa ? none of things actually happened
A more solid prophecy would be InterLace and the teleputer (analogous to streaming and smartphones, respectively).
I do think the Entertainment is a solid prophecy of doom scroll / infinite scroll, which is now showing up in basically every application.
The videophony chapter is also especially prophetic when you consider the prevalence of things like filters. I actually noticed the other day on a Google Meet that there is a 'touch up my appearance' feature. Wild.
This one is a lark, but one funny thing, although very different from ONAN (Mexico + USA + Canada), is that we're kind of witnessing an 'ONAN' world cup (all the matches are in these exact three countries). Again, obviously different from ONAN in Infinite Jest, but I thought that was funny.
I'm not sure he predicted the internet, as you mentioned, as the internet was invented in the 60s. If you meant the world wide web, that was created in 1989, popularized in 1990. IJ came out in 1996, so my instinct is that DFW knew about the internet/www when he wrote the book.
I wish to read this but I'm on page 600 of my first pass of the book and worry it'll spoil it for me. At risk of marking myself a "lit-bro" I think the book is proving solidly prophetic.
The main prophetic thing in there is the notion of people watching media until they die. I've been dealing with a sixty something recently who has managed to become dehydrated and malnourished from watching too much YouTube recently. He has back trouble from inactivity and his back has made him yet more inactive. All he does is watch ragebait on YouTube now.
I think this reality is something many folks are still in denial about. Like, how many times do you see an add depicting some translucent person's distorted cervical spine, referencing 'devices' in all their various forms as the cause. The entertainment / devices we use every day are literally causing morphological changes in our bodies. That's so dark, and I think loads of people simply choose not to think about it. Is ignorance bliss? Maybe for those hypnotized by the various 'entertainments' in their lives. But for people like yourself, who actually witness it, I'd say Infinite Jest is a useful, cautionary tale.
I don't think substance is right: I think it's about freedom from it, or maybe a "higher power" of some sorts, mysticism maybe.
I think it makes more sense, also in the context of what Wallace said elsewhere ("This Is Water"): "Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.(...)"