I finished Infinite Jest today. I've gotten through Gravity's Rainbow and Underworld with nary a scratch, but this really, really fucked me up.
Also, please tell me what you think about it, I'd love to know if you think I'm off or how you approached it, any opinions I can get are totally valued.
I would love to and I really enjoyed your post, but it's going to take me a day or two. I'm going out for pre-birthday celebrations in about 30 minutes, and helping a friend move tomorrow morning. But I promise ya you'll have something by Saturday :)
Okay, like, I wasn't exactly expecting to just put it down, go 'golly gee that was good' and move on, but I can seriously imagine myself spending a lot of time analyzing this book. Like basically re-reading it. I'm a huge pomo fan, so I don't like stylistic whims being wantonly described as tricks (which is a dumb thing to say, and something I have heard from many pomo critics), and I think, with IJ, like, the very underpinnings of the aims of pomo lit is fully realized, much like in Gravity's Rainbow. To contrast, I love Zadie Smith, but White Teeth is indebted almost exclusively to the stylistic flourishes, but is an obviously somewhat theoretically immature work (which makes sense cause she was so young when she wrote it, and not to take away the fact that is was an astonishingly empathetic and well-curated novel). Underworld suffered from the apt critique that DeLillo's voice was clearly the puppeteer behind every character, but DFW's aim is different, he is clearly present in every syllable, and this is what makes the whole novel magnetic, for over 1000 pages. I am absolutely amazed at how it felt so alienating, inviting and deeply, truly, human, all at the same damn time. I really, genuinely felt like I was connecting deeply with the human being behind the words. I find myself very often getting so wrapped up in the world an author has created, and if this doesn't happen I can get very bored very quickly, and although this world felt so alienating and isolated from the individuals occupying it, I could feel the sweet, sweet person behind all the brute, cold analysis trying to be the gentle and deformed little Mario. And like, upon reflection, so much is just poking out to me now like "SERIOUSLY, WHY DIDN'T YOU UNDERSTAND THIS WHEN YOU FIRST READ IT" like the triple-crossing spies who, in actuality, removed from the political circumstances surrounding them, are not even spies in the first place, but sincere individuals trying to operate in their most ethical and moral interests. I'm just going to spend all day on thehowlingfantods.com
Here's my thoughts. I've read more DFW after reading Infinite Jest but in my opinion not enough. I was supposed to read a book by Zadie Smith (probably Teeth) and never did. Looking at her on Wiki I'm not familiar with her at all. I've heard people be enthused about her though. (Sometimes people being enthused about something puts me off.) We definitely experienced IJ differently...but that's not a bad thing. So I'll tell you the story of how I came to IJ. It was gifted to me by a friend, I heard it was supposed to be brilliant, and I tried reading it. Probably got about 20 pages in. Abandoned it/forgot about it for a year or so. See it again, pick it up, figure I should try again. This time maybe I got 50 pages in. Things that prevented me from getting into the novel right away: -lack of familiarity w/DFW's style and lack of comprehension regarding how important it is to read the footnotes; -admittedly, a rather apparently-haphazard and chaotic beginning. Also, I was having a very bad time reading extended prose pieces at the time, which is all on me. Did enjoy the tone. Picked it up for the third time. Started reading it. It was good. Had a family member go into rehab at pretty much the same time I'm reading the novel. Visited said family member and actually witnessed AA/family of AA meetings for the first time. See this reflected in the novel. See how exactly, precisely, true novel is to the spirit and culture of AA. Am fascinated and totally plugged in. Realize book is about addition. (Sidebar: Lots of people say this book is about entertainment. I say it's about addiction. These two things may not actually be that different. My opinion is probably also influenced by this background I'm giving you.) Already had been interested in/more engaged in book to this point, now am at 100% fully throttle. Disclosure, re: analysis: Yes I think you could analyze the shit out of this book. When I read something and I feel I haven't fully grasped everything in it (which, honestly, I don't think anyone can on a first read of IF), I 'cheat' aka I do research. Start w/Wikipedia and outsource from there. So I did do some more reading on themes in the book, I also wanted to make sure I had my timelines right and so on. I also talked to the person who gave me the book about the book (he's a brilliant brilliant person). All in all: found book hilarious as shit, but cerebral as hell. Reading it the first time around WAS difficult. I suspect reading it again will be substantially less so. I think the book has done a remarkably good job at mostly not becoming dated, videotapes aside. (In fact some parts of the book it's astounding to realize were written in/before 1996 - they speak much more modernly.) DFW is one of those authors whose work I read and I just wish like anything that I could be that brilliant at writing any how any time at all ever. The kind of author that drives me to despair with just how god damn good he is. I suppose I'll have to check out that site now. Another disclosure: if I don't think about something for a few months or more, even if I really do like it, almost everything about it becomes fuzzy in my memory. I have to review summaries and/or the text itself to bring things back sharply. Just saying because if you bring up anything super super specific in this discussion (assuming it continues), I might be like "WTF" and then need to look it up before I "remember" it. Fortunately, we're on the internet, so it's actually a lot easier to hide this than it is in person. ANYWAY. Can you also talk to me about what other modern/pomo authors you read, since it seems to be something that you are passionate about and actively pursue? Let's talk about literature and what genres you like (and don't).
I would have loved to have a more thorough experience with AA before having read IJ, I struggled with addiction some when I was younger, and have seen many people go down that path and never come back, so those parts were particularly striking for me. But the Kirkegaardian "leap of faith" and "what you practice is who you are" theme was beautifully done throughout the entire novel. Also, I never read/saw Hamlet. Apparently I should reallllly do that. There's definitely the strong presence of the lines between entertainment and addiction overlapping in an unhealthy way, and if you haven't read it, E Unibus Pluram was an article he wrote before IJ was published, and is probably derived from a lot of what he was thinking about while working on IJ, but with focus on television viewership and writing. Oh man, yeah, it was totally astounding how just, with so much distance socially and technologically we have between the 90s and now, it was still on pointe. I especially found the section about how video-telephoning was a commercial failure, while it wasn't so prescient as to have actually happened, the comments on confusion and mixing of private/public life is spot-on. I'm really glad I'm not alone on this. I will pile through things, make notes, re-read, highlight, do external reading, and two months later I couldn't quote a line to save my life. There's a bunch of resources on howlingfantods.com, but,if you want a lil refresher (which did wonders for me considering I hadn't read the beginning section in like 3-4 months now, and jesus christ so much important stuff happened in the first 100 pages that didn't make any sense initially) this is a page-by-page summary and this is it in chronological order. As for general pomo:
It's a vague net cast on a lot of stuff, but, for lit, it's legacy has cast a strange shadow for younger authors trying to move it forward, which was what Franzen addressed in Why Bother?, but I think DFW pulled off beautifully with IJ. Even then, that was still 20 years ago, and I'm at a loss to say what's happening now cause I'm honestly just trying to get through my reading list in my free time. biiig Pynchon fan, haven't read Gaddis but he's on my list, Burroughs is a developed taste, DeLillo is good, but not like, incredible. I think that contemporary and experimental Latin/South American lit def should be included, like Savage Detectives and Hopscotch, although my exposure and knowledge about that niche is a little limited. I would def check out Crying of Lot 49 if you haven't, that's usually my go-to when recommending. I think the book has done a remarkably good job at mostly not becoming dated
if I don't think about something for a few months or more, even if I really do like it, almost everything about it becomes fuzzy in my memory.