Reviews - The Broom of the System

395 reviews for:

The Broom of the System

David Foster Wallace

3.76 AVERAGE

riorda15's review against another edition

5.0

Just an awesome book. So smart and fun. Probably kinda douche but I didn't mind. I thought it was a great novels.

jenmcvay's review against another edition

2.25

funny slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

It is difficult to like a book in which the characters are so unlikeable. I did enjoy the bird, Vlad the Impaler; the humans are almost entirely unpleasant.

One of the primaries, Rick Vigorous, is so obnoxiously neurotic/neurotically obnoxious and *verbose* that I nearly gave up several times just to get away from him. Sometimes obnoxious characters draw in the reader and are endearing or interesting in some way, but I just could not find an angle from which to view RV that helped me want to know more about him. I just wanted him to shut up, already - and perhaps that is the point.

I finished the book because I wanted to know how all the madness would come together in the end. It did so, for me, unsatisfyingly. Maybe that is also the point.

Certainly, DFW has a talent with words: it is just not to my taste.

racheltanza's review against another edition

3.0

This is a hard one to judge because I'm judging it against his later works. The fact that he wrote this at my age is infuriating and amazing, and it is a quick and funny read. I think it gets bogged down a bit in the philosophy in parts but the prose is lively and smart, and the world he builds is like our world plus, with weird details and hyperbole that would become such a delightful staple of his later fiction.

jamie_chan's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous funny mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

highly entertaining even if I may not grasp the whole meaning. I'm a big fan of magical realism which is why this book's absurdist realism appeals to me, though I think you have to be in a particular mood to welcome Wallace's erratic writing style

strikketoj's review against another edition

3.5

funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

rickwren's review against another edition

5.0

Very few authors can pull off Absurdist literature. It takes wit and it take finesse and it also take a well-timed bludgeon. Most often it just falls flat, ending up on the rubbish pile. Not here - not with this writer who managed to create a story so smart and with such an original voice that lines stay with me and scenes are burned into my psyche.

Enormous, expanding eaters devouring the universe. Foul-mouthed birds speaking the message of God for a modest fee, tax deductible of course. Manufactured deserts in Ohio, complete with walking trails and perimeter lakes for the discriminating survivalist to meander on an afternoon walk. Phone snafus and infidelity and unethical psychiatrists all compete for the most ludicrous methods of telling us what a ridiculous era we inhabit. What an absurd reality.

David Foster Wallace can create messages within messages and deliver them like verbal bullets from a typewritten machine gun.

Read it. Enjoy it. Never think of steak restaurants or wooden legs quite the same way again.