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Well, duh (1996)

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Re: Well, duh (1996)

#71

Post by perl4ever »

wmhorne wrote: post #42

Funny, I found this book over a decade after it was published, having been exposed to almost none of this "hype" whatsoever---and I still liked it. I don't buy his thesis that its success was due only to the "hype machine." I suppose I respect his opinion---or at least his right to having it---but I simply do not agree with it or with many of the things he says. > The novel has moved some 60,000 copies and racked up…

"Nothing of his struggles to pray daily to a God he doesn't believe in, simply in an effort to stay sober for another 24 hours?"

One of the novels that affected me the most as a teen, and turned out to have even deeper meaning to me than I originally realized, I happened to look up on Amazon a decade or two on, and was startled that some reviewers said things like (paraphrasing) "this book sucks because all the characters are losers!"

Re: Well, duh (1996)

#72

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

ses1984 wrote: post #30
ryanyde wrote: post #19

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.

Here's the full quote:

> Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.

That is, "opium" here is references a painkiller; religion is viewed as a way to deaden pain and suffering. It's not about addiction.

Re: Well, duh (1996)

#73

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

vo2maxer wrote: post #50

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…

"Ulysses" is trash, sorry. The equivalent of a three-hour long Simpsons gag compilation marathon Youtube video, except for academics.

"Infinite Jest" is okay, but needs an editor badly.

Re: Well, duh (1996)

#74

Post by anthk »

vo2maxer wrote: post #63
adventskalender wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such books may exist mainly for signalling status, signalling "I can afford to spend time on useless endeavors". Like a whole university degree in literature, only more condensed. 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 s…

I’m not sure I understand what you mean: Works written by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Javier Marías, Dante, Chaucer, Tolstoy, Cervantes, Montaigne, Kafka, Roberto Bolaño, Julio Cortázar, and even Shakespeare are read just for pomposity? Their content is not worth the effort in understanding them? It’s all just for putting on airs which anyone can easily do by reading a summary?

Don Quixote is damn easy. Long, but easy. Source: a Spaniard.

Re: Well, duh (1996)

#76

Post by adventskalender »

vo2maxer wrote: post #63
adventskalender wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such books may exist mainly for signalling status, signalling "I can afford to spend time on useless endeavors". Like a whole university degree in literature, only more condensed. 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 s…

I’m not sure I understand what you mean: Works written by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Javier Marías, Dante, Chaucer, Tolstoy, Cervantes, Montaigne, Kafka, Roberto Bolaño, Julio Cortázar, and even Shakespeare are read just for pomposity? Their content is not worth the effort in understanding them? It’s all just for putting on airs which anyone can easily do by reading a summary?

I wouldn't generalize over all books. However, I am pretty sure getting a degree in literature is mostly about signalling status.

Re: Well, duh (1996)

#77

Post by vo2maxer »

anthk wrote: post #74
vo2maxer wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean: Works written by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Javier Marías, Dante, Chaucer, Tolstoy, Cervantes, Montaigne, Kafka, Roberto Bolaño, Julio Cortázar, and even Shakespeare are read just for pomposity? Their content is not worth the effort in understanding them? It’s all just for putting on airs which anyone can easily do by reading a summary?

Don Quixote is damn easy. Long, but easy. Source: a Spaniard.

Claro que es muy fácil (Sure, it’s very easy). Quevedo is even damn easier ;-)

“Si no os picaderes más de saber más menear las negras que llevais que la lengua –dijo el otro estudiante–, vos lleváredes el primero en licencias como llevaste cola.”

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de La Mancha

Re: Well, duh (1996)

#78

Post by elgfare »

ses1984 wrote: post #30
ryanyde wrote: post #19

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.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

Re: Well, duh (1996)

#79

Post by scandinavegan »

mplanchard wrote: post #44

Like many others in the comments, I loved Infinite Jest, for many reasons, but just to go into one in particular, I feel like David Foster Wallace’s viciously smart, sardonic, ironic, and often deeply depressing sense of humor is at its peak in IJ. There are so many things from the book that stick out to me as being memorably funny: the woman with an artificial heart who dies because a purse snatcher takes it, chasin…

Thank you for all the examples! I've read the book, but don't have all of it in active memory, so I appreciate your list as it helped me remember different parts. I have to look up the mold-eating part because I remember it as hilarious.

Three other more or less absurd parts of the book that I enjoyed was the (apparently true) concept of different sized arms of tennis players, subsidized time (Year of the Whopper, Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar, Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment), and how half a state in the US is turned into a giant landfill that waste is catapulted into.

The two things I remember vividly from reading the book is how funny it is, and how it would take me a page or two in the beginning of each session to get into the rhythm of the language. It's similar to Cormac McCarthy (I currently read Blood Meridian), where the special cadence of the language makes both IJ and BM very pleasurable to read.

https://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/in...

Re: Well, duh (1996)

#80

Post by pjc50 »

pokler wrote: post #33
locusofself wrote: post #2

I had a ton of fun reading Infinite Jest, it took me two months of reading daily but after a while I couldn't wait to get home from work to read it (I didn't have a kid yet mind you). There are many things about it that are dissatisfying, frustrating even maddening. But there are so many points of brilliance it makes the whole thing worth it. The ambitiousness, audacity and shortcomings are part of it. I felt similar…

What 50 page section? Are you referring to the Eschaton game? If so, its not in the middle, nor is it 50 pages.

It's a different 50 page section for every reader. That's why the book is so long in the first place.
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