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I read every drat word of it ... from right to left.  The beginning of the book references, events and characters that don’t occur until much later. It almost assumes that you have already read the book or that you will come back once you have. So those are the kind of games it’s going to be playing. Also the many different characters and story lines can make it seem like you aren’t making much headway in the beginning. But, if you are 100 pages in and, not that into it, I’ll tell you now these storylines do not merge together on the way to a final resolution. What you read in the first 10 or so pages about Hal is chronologically the last thing in the book. The separate story lines do start to intertwine and cross over, and things definitely get more interesting story and plot wise, especially when the Les Assassins des Fauteuils Roulants start to show up. But, the book never changes how it does things. I’d say flip to some in the 500’s and just read a little bit. If what you see there doesn’t make you want to put in the work to get there, it may be best if you give up.
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Oct 6, 2009 17:00
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^^^ Part of the fun on IJ is that the end of the book isn't the end of the story. It loops back to the beginning (circle/infinite), which is more the end of the story than the end of the physical book is.
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Nov 9, 2009 00:14
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Kill Your Friends posted:My personal favorite thing he's ever written is an article about the AVN Adult Video Awards in Las Vegas called Big Red Son. It's really funny and interesting and unlike so many writers he makes me feel like I'm really there seeing everything that he's describing. The best about that peace is that you really somehow care for all the people. It seem like it would have been really easy to write about Max Hardcore and have him seem like an evil villain, perhaps it would have been hard not to do that to him. But the way its written he comes off as a person that you can decide how to feel about, rather than being told how to feel about. also: anything about him being burdened by his genius is crap, its painfully clear that he was crippled by self doubt and depression
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May 5, 2010 01:33
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I almost suggested it in the "I'm gonna read 52 books" thread but i didnt want to that much of a dick. I know some people had a blog going and were trying to read it in 30 days. I think they missed by 2 days. It certainly takes a while for all the different parts to be introduced, and then start to fit together as a story. Somethings purposefully never really do.
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May 19, 2010 04:48
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I work at a university, so during the summer my job is a joke, because it entirely related to how many students are here. My first summer I read all of Harry Potter. I've read a few stories from Girl with the Curious Hair and Oblivion some I'm going to try and finish one of those up. Probabaly Hair because gently caress, Oblivion is depressing and a little daugnting for summer time reading - tiny rear end print, razor thing margins and no paragraph breaks for miles. So many pages are unforgiving walls of text.
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May 19, 2010 16:53
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Edged Hymn posted:Can anyone direct me to some good discussion on Oblivion? It's beautifully written and all, but the endings of every story so far have zipped over my head - especially the title story, what the hell? There isnt much out there, if you have a university or library with JSTOR or something similar there is a review/critic of it in - The Hudson Review, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Winter, 2005).
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May 20, 2010 19:03
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For anyone that has read THE GIRL WITH THE CURIOUS HAIR and didn't know, or didn't bother to look up Kieth Jarrett he is real and he does just improvise entire concerts; like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPqK1JJOFxw I kept meaning to see if he was a real person and then i saw him in a NMD thread.
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Jul 26, 2010 01:55
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PRI Caulk posted:and while the writing was pretty clever, I kept getting pissed off at DFW for appearing to really enjoy his own cleverness at the expense of something I would want to bother reading. Nothing seemed genuine. I honestly would like to know what you mean by this because I've heard other people and critics talk about it and don't know what they mean. At 150pages in I would mostly agree with you about the characters and plot, though I think you are completly wrong about things being genuine.
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Jul 27, 2010 16:56
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PRI Caulk posted:I have heard similar entreaties from the mouths of capricious self-absorbed twats who were afraid that people were beginning to dislike them (their emphatic pleas lacked the same educated preface, but who cares?). I'm not sure why you posted that quote, but it reminds me a little of the difference between authors who write characters by telling you about them and authors who write characters by showing them to you. Look at you not getting it and being foolish. I still am honestly interested in what you mean by DFW enjoying his own cleverness at the expense of the book though.
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Jul 27, 2010 20:20
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PRI Caulk posted:If you got a point, pal, make it. As for not getting a much more explicit statement of mine - what part of it confuses you? He's so wrapped up in being clever and interesting that I'm totally bored by the narrative that I (perhaps naively) expect him to get around to exploring. If you want a strong central narrative then you're going want another book. I think what confuses me is that things were both clever and interesting but still boring. Or that people see the parts of the book that arnt driving the plot as DFW just trying to clever and not as important parts of the book, if thats what you meant. If you had just said there is too much extraneous filler that would make more sense to me. aricoarena fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Jul 27, 2010 |
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Jul 27, 2010 21:36
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The cover with the girls head made out of suburban housing streets is better. And jagged edge pages can suck a dick - really(I hate them so much). No, I still havn't read it. Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way is taking longer than expected. 
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Aug 10, 2010 14:21
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inferis posted:The smoking gun posted the autopsy report: Well that was depressing as all gently caress.
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Aug 15, 2010 21:03
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flavaaDAAAAAVE posted:I'm reading Delillo's White Noise and while it is similar it's, like another poster said, not as lively. It has sort of a dissociated feel to it. He says in the Lipsky book that Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way was entirly ripping off of Barth.
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Aug 18, 2010 14:54
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Le Sean posted:No, yeah, but seriously. Have you got the wheelchair assassins yet? Id say that i had problems getting going, but I do that with most books. Around page 200 I started reading seriously every day. I hit a speed bump around the time with the wraith though.
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Aug 24, 2010 03:39
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meanolmrcloud posted:I wish I had drawing talent so i could draw Marios outward appearance. DFW's love of physical deformity had me cracking up, it just piles on to absurd lengths and puts the goofiest mental image in your mind. I have a lot of theories as to why DFW likes deformity so much, but the simplest is that its such a natural seriously funny/unfunny thing in the hands of a good writer. You can find one here if you scroll down, also a short anecdotal about the artist and DFW http://thepaincomics.com/weekly080917.htm
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Aug 26, 2010 01:02
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Kieselguhr Kid posted:Maybe this guy comes from some crazy country where they don't have Toblerones? Being from the USA I've always had the feeling that they were more of a Europian thing, but I have no idea why i think that.
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Sep 7, 2010 15:55
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7 y.o. bitch posted:But it seems to be a radical departure from his other stuff, especially IJ, so I hope it's satisfying, maybe it'll be like a 21st-century Ulysses, with a very narrow narrative frame, but the point is in the dressing. The discription made me think of the part in This is Water about trying to go to the grocery store after a long day of work. aricoarena fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Sep 16, 2010 |
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Sep 15, 2010 14:24
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so what alexander posted:http://johnziegler.com/editorials_details.asp?editorial=165 I was hoping that would have been more funny than sad, but it's just pathetic.
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Apr 6, 2011 15:25
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WoG posted:So this is redundant information for most of you, since anyone who reads this thread probably also reads Howling Fantods, but it's too cool not to post: Ha,the Eschaton computer says Enfield Tennis Academy.
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Aug 22, 2011 18:51
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Convexed posted:I've never read any David Foster Wallace before. So, I have a little break from my research in English now until mid-January, and I've embarked on Infinite Jest. Is this a good place to start with his work? I would say that its, if not the best, as good as any place to start with his fiction, but probably the best. His nonfiction is also great but not really the same.
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Dec 16, 2011 03:52
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Convexed posted:Thank you, I will source some of his non-fiction work. drat, I'm excited to really get into this book. For non-fiction I think "A supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" has more comical stories, but I really like "Consider the Lobster"
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Dec 16, 2011 04:02
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missmomo posted:This is making the English degree I absolutely loved doing pale into insignificance I don't want to spoil anything but, its pretty clear what to do when you reach the "end".
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Dec 24, 2011 17:24
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escape artist posted:Perhaps I should avoid this thread since I have yet to read Infinite Jest. I really like the Adult Video Awards article, The Big Red One, especially becuase it written with no judgment, just presenting everyone as normal people and this what they do. I think it would be very easy to write that article with subletly, or overtly, biased language. Also I certainly saw some Max Hardcore vids back in the day and it was weird to read to about him after so long. Anisocoria Feldman posted:Host is proof that hyperlinks do not translate well to the printed page. To be clear it was originaly conceved as an online article, when clicked on a link it would open a popup with the footnote. They try to recreate this in the text.
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May 12, 2012 20:35
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