Infinite jest

[money spud 3]

I'm about 3/4s of the way through this book, thoroughly enjoying it. Who all has read it, what supplemental materials if any do you recommend and what else have you enjoyed from David Foster Wallace?

[South Austin 53214]

I tried to read it so I could tell people that Infinite Jest is one of my favorite books  But about 300 pages in I had to call it quits. 

[money spud 3]

This is my third time starting it, I think I made it about 150ish pages the other times. The pandemic has made reading a long arduous book a much easier task.

[Rougarou 594]

I didn't think anyone *really* read IJ.

I have tried twice, never got past the tennis academy interview.

I did read The Broom of the System and thought it was subpar. I also didn't particularly enjoy Consider the Lobster. I thought the transcript of Kenyon college (This is Water) was pretty good, but only after like the 5th time.

I just don't think this guy is my speed.

[futureman 22691]

On 7/15/2020 at 5:09 PM, South Austin said:

so I could tell people that Infinite Jest is one of my favorite books 

a lot of people that haven’t read it just say it anyway

[futureman 22691]

have not attempted IJ but truly enjoyed brief interviews with hideous men and consider the lobster.  he’s much easier to digest in small doses. 

[Yuk 1613]

It's a masterpiece.  In terms of reference materials, I didn't use any.  Although I did read Aaron Swartz annotations and analysis on it.  

I would have to put the book down from time to time to think about it.  The sections on depression, drug use, and even suicidal ideation stuck with me.  I don't struggle with them myself but DFW was able to explain them in ways that I still think about today. 

Quote

The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.

 

[ztejas 44173]

My mom has a copy sitting on her downstairs bookshelf. I've thought about picking it up. Maybe I will and report back.

[Llano Estacado 1257]

I always think about attempting a read, but doesn’t seem worthwhile after reviews from people who actually achieved it.

Read the collections; Consider the Lobster, ASFTIWNDA and find them funny and entertaining, but until told otherwise IJ does not seem worth endeavoring post-it notes, highlighters, and copious note taking for entertainment in the age of YouTube and Netflix.

[washparkhorn 9972]

Great book. Passages will stay with you for the rest of your days. 

Fractal writing was an interesting twist - and somewhat counter to post-modernism. Excellent novel.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/infinite-proofs-the-effects-of-mathematics-on-david-foster-wallace/#!

Quote

But Wallace didn’t just talk about math. He structured his work with it. In a 1996 Bookworm interview with Michael Silverblatt, Wallace explained that he modeled Infinite Jest after a Sierpinski Gasket, a type of fractal in which a triangle is infinitely subdivided into smaller triangles using the midpoint of its borders. Pressed by Silverblatt on why he chose such a formation, Wallace elaborated: “Its chaos is more on the surface; its bones are its beauty.”

 

[Yuk 1613]

My favorite character is probably Mario.  And I'll be damned if I haven't thought about Johnny Gentle a lot in the past few years.

[futureman 22691]

On 7/29/2020 at 6:25 PM, Llano Estacado said:

IJ does not seem worth endeavoring post-it notes, highlighters, and copious note taking for entertainment in the age of YouTube and Netflix.

this is pretty funny considering one of the major themes of the novel is our addiction to and how we consume entertainment. 

[money spud 3]

Got side tracked for a bit but finally finished it. Absolutely excellent book, but not for everyone. The plot, difficulty and ending will be a turnoff for some, but if you can set aside the time to finish the book it's worth it.

[futureman 22691]

On 8/28/2020 at 1:58 PM, money spud said:

Got side tracked for a bit but finally finished it. Absolutely excellent book, but not for everyone. The plot, difficulty and ending will be a turnoff for some, but if you can set aside the time to finish the book it's worth it.

how does it end?

[washparkhorn 9972]

On 8/30/2020 at 1:33 PM, futureman said:

how does it end?

In your mind (somewhere beyond the right frame) where lines bend towards convergence. 

[fellside 1135]

Almost finished.  Not gonna lie, I would have quit a quarter of the way through if I didn't read how stereotypical it was to quit a quarter of the way through.  I'm glad I stick with it because it gets better as it goes and (as others have stated) some parts are definitely leaving an imprint and sticking in my mind.

Any chance Wes Anderson was influenced by this when he wrote The Royal Tennenbaums?  I see some parallels. 

[futureman 22691]

On 7/17/2021 at 3:35 PM, fellside said:

Almost finished.  Not gonna lie, I would have quit a quarter of the way through if I didn't read how stereotypical it was to quit a quarter of the way through.  I'm glad I stick with it because it gets better as it goes and (as others have stated) some parts are definitely leaving an imprint and sticking in my mind.

Any chance Wes Anderson was influenced by this when he wrote The Royal Tennenbaums?  I see some parallels. 

how long did it take you?

[Kringelbert Fishtybuns 945]

It took me about two months when I was traveling a lot for work to finish it.  It is the only book I was glad to have on my tablet to read.  The ability to jump to the footnotes/end notes without having to flip through 800 pages probably saved my sanity/helped me finish.  

I also read it with support material I found online when shit got a little to weird.

It was worth the slog especially for the greatest description of depression I have ever read and the filmography of James O. Incandenza.

[Reynolds Woodcock 5066]

Excellent book. I think I was inspired to read it by one of the old threads in the PCL on shaggy, back when the forum wasn’t buried in “Hobbies”. I think maybe Ramonce Taylor’s Weed started the thread, and there was some great discussion. 

[futureman 22691]

On 12/9/2021 at 1:38 PM, Reynolds Woodcock said:

Excellent book. I think I was inspired to read it by one of the old threads in the PCL on shaggy, back when the forum wasn’t buried in “Hobbies”. I think maybe Ramonce Taylor’s Weed started the thread, and there was some great discussion. 

http://www.shaggytexas.com/board/showthread.php/103389-Infinite-Jest

[Guest Lobo]

On 7/15/2020 at 4:41 PM, money spud said:

 

I'm about 3/4s of the way through this book, thoroughly enjoying it. Who all has read it, what supplemental materials if any do you recommend and what else have you enjoyed from David Foster Wallace?

 

Funny you should ask, all the supplemental materials you could ever ask for and more are available at a little joint called the University of Texas at Austin.  

https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=00503

As others have said, it's a tough read but worth it.  

i started the Pale King twice during pandemic and FUCK THAT! 

[TurkeyChew 383]

On 1/16/2022 at 7:55 PM, Lobo said:

Funny you should ask, all the supplemental materials you could ever ask for and more are available at a little joint called the University of Texas at Austin.  

https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=00503

As others have said, it's a tough read but worth it.  

i started the Pale King twice during pandemic and FUCK THAT! 

I started Broom of the System last year and couldn't get through it, either. I wonder...

[ajax 2675]

On 1/18/2022 at 8:58 PM, TurkeyChew said:

I started Broom of the System last year and couldn't get through it, either. I wonder...

Broom of the System is a thousand times easier to get through than Infinite Jest. DF Wallace's nonfiction essays are a joy to read but his fiction is just too much, too meta.

He did predict that irony would be the downfall of us all.