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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
dark
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
lighthearted
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
David Foster Wallace may have been a brilliant writer, but this book is an incoherent pile of limp lettuce. What did I just read? There’s the makings of a plot, some interesting characters, and a unique storytelling style focusing mostly on dialogue. But there’s no resolution, no explanation, no satisfaction. I was about to give it 4 stars, but Wallace limps to the end and doesn’t even give us the last word. I’m left even more confused at the end than I was at the beginning. This book is a mess.
Reading this book made me feel used. I enjoyed the process of reading TBOTS, it was entertaining, light hearted (to DFW standards) and what seemed to be thoroughly interesting. But it ended like the last episode of The Sopranos just with less questions answered. If we werent living in a pandemic id say it wasted my time, but we are and nothing really matters.
I feel like I would understand this novel better if I had read Wittgenstein first, although I like this idea that everything is language—every problem in our lives is a problem of language.
This novel has the male author—chauvanist character problem. I can't tell if the author thinks it's okay for men to behave the way his characters act, or if the characters are supposed to be assholes.
This novel has the male author—chauvanist character problem. I can't tell if the author thinks it's okay for men to behave the way his characters act, or if the characters are supposed to be assholes.
It's continually astonishing that Wallace wrote this when he was the age I am now; the voice is intimidatingly hyper-intelligent and verbose. I enjoyed this at first until about a third of the way in, when I could feel the many crisscrossing and interconnecting narratives slipping from my grasp. I was constantly asking myself "Who is this character supposed to be again?" It's a shame, because I really wanted to like this, and I want to return to it again in the future when I can devote enough brainpower toward understanding just what the hell it's actually about.
This is a very well written book. I loved it at first, even about half way through I would give it 4 or 5 stars. The more I read though the more I started to realize there was very little behind the beautiful language and interesting characters. Lenore and Rick are really the only characters with that much to them, everyone else seems to exist to be funny characters for them to interact with.
I can see why other people would like this book, but I hope that his other work has fuller characters and more going on in the narrative. the two stars is a little harsh but I'm only saying that because of how great the first half is.
I would love recomendations for books that are better than this, but are similarly well written language
I can see why other people would like this book, but I hope that his other work has fuller characters and more going on in the narrative. the two stars is a little harsh but I'm only saying that because of how great the first half is.
I would love recomendations for books that are better than this, but are similarly well written language
This sucked honestly. Intellectual masturbation that didn’t care about the audience’s entertainment or enlightenment. And it seemed like DFW didn’t even like his characters. One character depiction was borderline racist, at best very stereotypical. Plot was convoluted and inconclusive, to the extent that it existed. Didn’t care about the Wittgenstein stuff; it didn’t convince me it was important. Best thing I can say about it was that was easily readable. Kinda funny and mostly not dull on a prose level. Basically juvenilia at the end of the day so whatever.
The Broom of the System is a great book with a creative story, quirky characters, and brimming over with ideas to explore. The story follows Lenore Beadsman a recent graduate who has become convinced that her life is a story being written by others. Philosophy of language and questions of power and freedom swirl as Lenore tries to figure out what has happened to her missing grandmother. It falls a tad short in that some of the ideas are not fully explored and at times what seem to be somewhat ham-fisted scenes, but these are easily outweighed by the enthusiasm and cerebral creativity elsewhere in the novel. In the same book that we find somewhat contrived parables we also find moments of poetry: "We'll be joined in the light of the sky, Lenore. See the light of the sky? The dawn and sunset will be fed from our veins. We'll be spread all over. We'll be everything." Though there are some obvious shortcomings in the book, it is overall a very good novel and truly impressive that it was written by a young DFW in college.
emotional
funny
sad
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts