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4.19 AVERAGE
4.19 AVERAGE
challenging
funny
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Original off-the-cuff review from when I first joined Goodreads:
Imagine (if you will) an attempt to capture the whole of human experience in a semi-plausible all-too-near future North America. Now imagine that the attempt works. And it does a pretty good job of getting a good cross-section and eviscerating it (it is a cross-section, after all) in all of its banal humanity.
The physical weight of this novel can be a bit intimidating. Most folks don't feel this ambitious when it comes to their pleasure reading. Which is too bad, really. Because if you just take your time, you'll find yourself well-rewarded.
But yeah, you've got to be prepared to take a joke.
------
2012 re-read review:
coming...
------
2012 co-reading notes
------
SEE ALSO
• "10 Science Fiction Books That I Love (and you will at least like a lot)" at litreactor
• 10 Science Fiction Novels You Pretend to Have Read (And Why You Should Actually Read Them) at io9
Imagine (if you will) an attempt to capture the whole of human experience in a semi-plausible all-too-near future North America. Now imagine that the attempt works. And it does a pretty good job of getting a good cross-section and eviscerating it (it is a cross-section, after all) in all of its banal humanity.
The physical weight of this novel can be a bit intimidating. Most folks don't feel this ambitious when it comes to their pleasure reading. Which is too bad, really. Because if you just take your time, you'll find yourself well-rewarded.
But yeah, you've got to be prepared to take a joke.
------
2012 re-read review:
coming...
------
2012 co-reading notes
------
SEE ALSO
• "10 Science Fiction Books That I Love (and you will at least like a lot)" at litreactor
• 10 Science Fiction Novels You Pretend to Have Read (And Why You Should Actually Read Them) at io9
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Sprawling, crazy, Terry Gilliam, Tolstoy, Burroughs, Didion, DeLillo synthesized then hit with a ray in a supervillain's lab to give him superhuman qualities, Wallace has created a book that people talk more about engaging with than the actual novel itself. I sure will.
After a few days after finishing (which only took ADD me 4 months to do), I still was at a loss at how to process it, how I ultimately felt. That was until I listened to the Slate Book Club discussion of it and I became very defensive of the book and Wallace (who they, of course like the pedantic critics they are, ascribe motives and personal characteristics to that just aren't there). This is a great book.
I don't fault anyone giving up on this book. It's tough. I needed an online discussion group to help me along. But sticking with it allowed me to behold some of the sweetest, strangest and affecting passages I've ever read. I could nitpick (and I didn't give this 5 because of things that I hated but you may love) but that seems silly. I do know if and when I reread this I will lightly skim several parts.
Moby-Dick is the Great American Novel and it is a crazed mess. It's not "Moby-Dick is the Great American Novel in spite of being a crazed mess." Greatness and frustration go hand in hand in novels. So here comes the blurb on the back of the next edition...
"Frustratingly great!" - Wampus
After a few days after finishing (which only took ADD me 4 months to do), I still was at a loss at how to process it, how I ultimately felt. That was until I listened to the Slate Book Club discussion of it and I became very defensive of the book and Wallace (who they, of course like the pedantic critics they are, ascribe motives and personal characteristics to that just aren't there). This is a great book.
I don't fault anyone giving up on this book. It's tough. I needed an online discussion group to help me along. But sticking with it allowed me to behold some of the sweetest, strangest and affecting passages I've ever read. I could nitpick (and I didn't give this 5 because of things that I hated but you may love) but that seems silly. I do know if and when I reread this I will lightly skim several parts.
Moby-Dick is the Great American Novel and it is a crazed mess. It's not "Moby-Dick is the Great American Novel in spite of being a crazed mess." Greatness and frustration go hand in hand in novels. So here comes the blurb on the back of the next edition...
"Frustratingly great!" - Wampus
Grotesquely entertaining. Made me renounce fiction and drugs.
I hated this overly self-important book with a passion.
This review was originally published through Notre Dame Magazine's online blog here: http://magazine.nd.edu/news/61681-what-im-reading-infinite-jest-david-foster-wallace/ . Warning, mild spoilers throughout:
I have climbed the Everest of the book world.
I want to use phrases like “howling fantods” in conversation.
I want to understand what the hell I just read.
But most of all, I want Infinite Jest to never end.
I’m not the only one — the Internet, the swirling digital mess that it is, is full of other readers who have a desire to continue the stories of all those sad, desperate and all-too-real characters that David Foster Wallace created in his 1996 novel.
Also like many other readers, this wasn’t my first attempt at the 1,080-page tome. I’ve tried at least twice before to tuck into this behemoth, but both times I petered out around page 150 — barely making a dent. I remember seeing friends take it on and thinking, “How in the world do they have time for that book?”
The trick is to take it like a night drive: You can’t see the whole road ahead of you, but your headlights will illuminate just enough to travel by. I read along with the online crowd at Infinite Summer, who took on the Herculean task of a group-read in the summer of 2009. Six years later, armed with an arsenal of multicolored pens, a notebook, Post-it notes and some patience, I began to read on June 21. I took it at an average of 10 pages a day, defining words and phrases I didn’t know in my notebook and jotting down my thoughts afterward. I hauled that damn book everywhere — to work, to play, anywhere I might have a free minute. It was a physical reminder of the challenge I took on.
I had so many questions while reading, but none of which Wallace could answer. It’s not for lack of trying; I’m a journalist and have no qualms in hunting someone down to chat. He’d be harder to contact than most, though, as he killed himself in 2008. Instead, I took to talking to my cat, George Catstanza, who was no help, though he did enjoy nibbling the edges of my paperback copy. Wallace, a known animal lover, would’ve probably found that fitting. I shouted on multiple occasions. I also cried. And laughed out loud, great big belly laughs that echoed through my home. It’s a very lonely book, and a very lonely venture. It stirred some internal reflection in me that I know will last for years.
It’s so rich in story, it’s painful. The only thing I can do is throw up my hands and make some inhuman noise when I think about what an accomplishment this book is. It’s ripe with quotable gems that fit just as well on the page as they’d fit on a poster:
“I do things like get in a taxi and say, ‘The library, and step on it.’”
“You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.”
“Te Occidere Possunt Sed Te Edere Non Possunt Nefas Est" (“They can kill you, but the legalities of eating you are quite a bit dicier”).
Now that I’ve finished it, though, I find it hard to discuss. What’s it all about? It’s about a family, yes. Members of the Incandenza family are the plot-drivers, but you also have the spectral and veiled Joelle Van Dyne, the horrible Don Gately (who nonetheless has you rooting for him), and the cast of characters from Boston’s Enfield Tennis Academy and the greater Organization of North American Nations. It’s about the effect Entertainment (with an intentional capital E) has on the human race. It’s about that saving grace present in humanity — and also about the cruelty we can inflict on each other and ourselves. It’s about everything and nothing at all. Perhaps that’s the point.
I have climbed the Everest of the book world.
I want to use phrases like “howling fantods” in conversation.
I want to understand what the hell I just read.
But most of all, I want Infinite Jest to never end.
I’m not the only one — the Internet, the swirling digital mess that it is, is full of other readers who have a desire to continue the stories of all those sad, desperate and all-too-real characters that David Foster Wallace created in his 1996 novel.
Also like many other readers, this wasn’t my first attempt at the 1,080-page tome. I’ve tried at least twice before to tuck into this behemoth, but both times I petered out around page 150 — barely making a dent. I remember seeing friends take it on and thinking, “How in the world do they have time for that book?”
The trick is to take it like a night drive: You can’t see the whole road ahead of you, but your headlights will illuminate just enough to travel by. I read along with the online crowd at Infinite Summer, who took on the Herculean task of a group-read in the summer of 2009. Six years later, armed with an arsenal of multicolored pens, a notebook, Post-it notes and some patience, I began to read on June 21. I took it at an average of 10 pages a day, defining words and phrases I didn’t know in my notebook and jotting down my thoughts afterward. I hauled that damn book everywhere — to work, to play, anywhere I might have a free minute. It was a physical reminder of the challenge I took on.
I had so many questions while reading, but none of which Wallace could answer. It’s not for lack of trying; I’m a journalist and have no qualms in hunting someone down to chat. He’d be harder to contact than most, though, as he killed himself in 2008. Instead, I took to talking to my cat, George Catstanza, who was no help, though he did enjoy nibbling the edges of my paperback copy. Wallace, a known animal lover, would’ve probably found that fitting. I shouted on multiple occasions. I also cried. And laughed out loud, great big belly laughs that echoed through my home. It’s a very lonely book, and a very lonely venture. It stirred some internal reflection in me that I know will last for years.
It’s so rich in story, it’s painful. The only thing I can do is throw up my hands and make some inhuman noise when I think about what an accomplishment this book is. It’s ripe with quotable gems that fit just as well on the page as they’d fit on a poster:
“I do things like get in a taxi and say, ‘The library, and step on it.’”
“You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.”
“Te Occidere Possunt Sed Te Edere Non Possunt Nefas Est" (“They can kill you, but the legalities of eating you are quite a bit dicier”).
Now that I’ve finished it, though, I find it hard to discuss. What’s it all about? It’s about a family, yes. Members of the Incandenza family are the plot-drivers, but you also have the spectral and veiled Joelle Van Dyne, the horrible Don Gately (who nonetheless has you rooting for him), and the cast of characters from Boston’s Enfield Tennis Academy and the greater Organization of North American Nations. It’s about the effect Entertainment (with an intentional capital E) has on the human race. It’s about that saving grace present in humanity — and also about the cruelty we can inflict on each other and ourselves. It’s about everything and nothing at all. Perhaps that’s the point.
Well it took a few months, (and some hefty overdue fines), but I finally finished it. It was one of those few books that are so dense that they're hard to pick up, and yet so entertaining that you can't put them down. This book isn't just a story, it's like climbing around inside Wallace's head. Repellent and troubling perhaps, but always fascinating.
Fabulous for insomnia reading. It's infinitely put-downable, but so wack it's all too memorable. Took me over a year to finish*. I promise the pace does pick up. Eventually**. And so like DFW has totes capital on signature writing w/r/t style and crap, and I can super Identify with the importance of interfacing in this currently pandemically challenged world, but the man-braininess and obscene minutia is full of the awe, that is to say awful.
*Yeah nope. Not reading all the foot notes. Ever.
**Around page 550.
*Yeah nope. Not reading all the foot notes. Ever.
**Around page 550.
Firstly the obvious: this book is long. I speak not just of the considerable page length, but of every other aspect as well. The pages are long, the sentences are long, the paragraphs are long. This is a long book.
Despite the fact that it defies an easy description or critique because of that length, it is always tempting to try to summarize an epic of this nature into one central thematic point on which the whole plot revolves, on which all the stakes of the characters pivot. To find that section of the book that espouses this theme best and narrow in on it. Such as with Plato's Republic the theme is "What is justice?"
If I had to choose such a phrase for Infinite Jest, it would be "what is escapism?" Not just what, but also why, and to a detailed extent, how. What are the prevailing addictions in our culture that pursue us, that we pursue? Why do we chase after escape, and what are we trying to escape? Once we've escaped, the thing that we grabbed onto, why does it consume us? Why does it take us whole, and never let us go? Why do we become addicted to it, chained to it, destroyed by it, and then, how do we escape from that? Finally, if we do break that deadly cycle, what were we trying to escape in the first place?
David Foster Wallace uses a lot of creative characters, settings, and narrative points to ask these questions. There are some answers too, I think, but nothing so simple that I could (or would want to) summarize here.
The book is also, in my opinion anyway, legitimately hilarious when it needs to be, and deeply powerful when you least expect it.
Despite the fact that it defies an easy description or critique because of that length, it is always tempting to try to summarize an epic of this nature into one central thematic point on which the whole plot revolves, on which all the stakes of the characters pivot. To find that section of the book that espouses this theme best and narrow in on it. Such as with Plato's Republic the theme is "What is justice?"
If I had to choose such a phrase for Infinite Jest, it would be "what is escapism?" Not just what, but also why, and to a detailed extent, how. What are the prevailing addictions in our culture that pursue us, that we pursue? Why do we chase after escape, and what are we trying to escape? Once we've escaped, the thing that we grabbed onto, why does it consume us? Why does it take us whole, and never let us go? Why do we become addicted to it, chained to it, destroyed by it, and then, how do we escape from that? Finally, if we do break that deadly cycle, what were we trying to escape in the first place?
David Foster Wallace uses a lot of creative characters, settings, and narrative points to ask these questions. There are some answers too, I think, but nothing so simple that I could (or would want to) summarize here.
The book is also, in my opinion anyway, legitimately hilarious when it needs to be, and deeply powerful when you least expect it.