Is this book just a meme, or is it actually any good? Is it worth reading?

Is this book just a meme, or is it actually any good? Is it worth reading?

Yes, it's good. Give it a try and see if you like it.

Its good, but not the highest achievement of American lit that some people make it out to be.

What makes it good?

Maybe YOU should decide YOURSELF if the book is worth YOUR read, then you can form YOUR OWN opinions about it.

Welcome to the water kid.

>asking other people for their opinions is not allowed
you know you're on a discussion forum right?

I was intimidated by IJ for years because I'm not big on postmodernism (except for DeLillo) and people make it out to be very complex and dense.

I started reading it this week and I'm about a fifth of the way through. It's hilarious, smart, melancholic, and pretty much any other emotion at once. It feels less like a coherent narrative and more like connected vignettes, which facilitates its sweeping expanse in terms of evoking different emotions. It reads a bit like an encyclopedia at times, there are many tidbits of information (I couldn't tell you if they're rooted in reality or DFW's imagination) expounded upon in painstaking detail. The book can be long-winded at times, but even those passages serve a vague purpose, so it's not just masturbatory.
All in all, 7/10 so far. I would recommend reading it on Kindle (this book has tons of footnotes and you can just jump back and forth w/ an e-book) and in English (English is my second language and I can't see how a translation could do DFW's sense of humor justice)

Cover makes it look like an edgy new age athiest take on religion.

Pass.

>you can just jump back and forth w/ an e-book
as opposed to?

have you not heard of Infinite Jest before?

Flipping through the pages manually with
a regular book . It's a pain in the ass. Are you being dense on purpose?

>Can't spell atheist
>Doesn't know Infinite Jest


Leave any time

Why the fuck would this be a meme?

It's literally the most highly acclaimed work of the last 25 years, but no, it must be a meme because of some ironic shitposters.

This fucking board.

IJ is fucking awful you stupid dumb boy

Why?

>postmodernism
Expect that DFW was trying to overcome postmodernism through this book, and in no way did he intended it to be funny, it was tragic in kafkaesque way avoiding the pleonasm of irony

I was skeptical for the same reason, meme status. However after reading about 300 pages I find it very fun to read. It all feels realistic and absurd at the same time, for example the prose: most of the time Wallace writes as if it is a very real conversation between normal people, until he suddenly starts using technical and scientific terms. It can throw you off.

Don't get me wrong, some parts are incredibly tedious to read and many people say it's about 200 pages too long (can't confirm this).

not entirely true. there are a lot of jokes and funny parts in the book, but they get overshadowed by the somewhat darker description following it.

for example when Orin calls Hal to ask him about the specifics of Himself's suicide. there were a lot of moments where I laughed out loud even though the descriptions and the setting was sad.

It's really good, but I do think it's a bit overrated. For every absolutely brilliant section in Infinite Jest, there are two adjacent sections that are either tedious or insufferable. Not a fan of his prose in this book, either -- it feels very inhuman and has a tendency to get lost in itself (in b4 "that's the point"). That said, the really fantastic parts are intelligent and poignant enough to make the whole thing worth it.

>Kafkaesque

Stop using words you don't understand

And there are plenty of hilarious passages and he did write them with humorous intentions. Watch some of his public readings

No. Read the wiki. Sounds like a mix of Brave New World and Brazil.

Literally no one can answer that question because it's pure reputation

People only say they enjoyed it because they are worried about looking stupid

>asking the opinion of anonymous strangers
Expecting anything more than "It's good", "It sux", or "read it yourself shitbird"
Just read the Wikipedia page and leave this place

I've read it three times.

What sticks out to me is:
Subtlety
Sincerity
A very interesting pre-dystopian setting
Tragic main characters with good, slow development who are hidden among a large cast and don't reveal themselves as necessarily all that important for hundreds of pages.
The scope and breadth of the novel's subject matters

its bretty gud desu

The same reason any book is good, it's engaging and tackles interesting points with great (maybe not brilliant) plot and prose.

My advice, don't start reading DFW by reading IJ

I agree, read a few of his essays first. They are fun to read and serve as an introduction to his writing style. Try Consider the Lobster or Big Red Son first.

I read Infinite Jest first and I was fine

Started, read about 150 pages and dropped it. This was a couple of years ago. Should I give it another shot? I didn't stop because it was hard, it was just kinda boring and one section in particular rustled my jimmies: Wardine Be Cry. What was it about?

I've tried the essays in A Supposedly Fun Thing and Consider The Lobster. Are there any other good ones? I particularly loved the Shipping Out essay.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Don segments. Incandenza's were boring honestly.

Maybe you should read till Hal describes his father's suicide to his brother. If this does not impress you, discontinue reading.
It is not too far from where you have left the last time. Even shortly before that part this book started to grow on me.

What often stand out the most are the character sketches: I don't think I've read another author with the talent for character that Wallace has, at least not any modern author writing about modern people (modern in the sense of "recent"). It's one of the most relevant meme books to the present day. When Infinite Jest was written, the internet hadn't blown up to the size that it is now but it almost feels like the book anticipates it: there's something about the aimlessness and the sedation of the life and characters depicted in the book that reflects living in the internet age.

K A F K A E S Q U E

Don't forget the reddit spacing. I'd pin him at 15 years old or below, maybe wandered out of /b/ and thinks he's smart for browsing the board

>DeLillo
Literally the most shallow and uninteresting of the PoMos....

I'd just read it and make your own opinion. People here, and everywhere else, will always hate what others like. There are some books and authors that I fucking love that people take nice steaming piles of shit on and vis versa. So fuck it. If it interests you go for it.

DeLillo is fine, what are you doing g complaining about him in a DFW thread? He was a huge influence on DFW, it shows in the dialogue especially