Opinions from people who have actually read it

sounds good. enjoy it!

It's mostly shit but I loved it nonetheless when I read it and it still holds an special place on my heart. I think it's a book you have to read at the right age to enjoy it. If you read it in your 20s after you have read stuff like Ulysses or Gravity's Rainbow then you will realize immediately how shitty it is and you won't get much from it. But if you read it as a teenager you will probably love it. It has some pretty great characters, it's very entertaining in the way that tv shows are entertaining, it deals very well with depression, and the central theme of addiction to entertainment is actually pretty interesting.
Also:
>tfw no best friend Pemulis

I've read Ulysses (which I absolutely loved) and I don't know whether to tackle Gravity's Rainbow or Infinite Jest. I've read Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49" and didn't like it almost at all. I also admit I didn't entirely get the book. Should I steer clear of "Gravity's Rainbow"?

IJ is hilariously easier by comparison. GR is a trainwreck.

I'm reading Ulysses right now and I love the prose, but half of his allusions go right over my head. Should I invest in a companion?

I haven't read Gravity's Rainbow but the more I read Pynchon the more I dislike him.

If you want to read something comparatively easy and fun yet touching, go with Infinite Jest. If you want to read something actually great, read Gravity's Rainbow.

>Unendlicher Spaß
>Spass
I'm Dutch but that seems like a bad translation.

Best book ive read in a long time desu. Despite becoming a meme here, it is actually interesting and i loved the way all the storylines fit together. I also loved how it jumped around in time, which initially confused the shit out of me but once I realized that it was all wrapping back around to the beginning, it clicked a lot more in my tiny brain. All in all, it was a nice shakeup to the books I usually read and I would recommend it to any non-contrarianfags who would go in with an open mind and not just assume it sucks due to its meme-status on Veeky Forums

welcome home nigger

the title might be, but the whole book is very well translated. Took the guy over 7 years to publish the translation though.

No one will ever completely get Ulysses, don't get bummed about it. Just use the online site to read the references after finishing a chapter.
joyceproject.com/

IJ is the Donnie Darko of books.

Am a white woman. Thanks anyhow :- )

It is a whole lot more enjoyable and understandable the second read-through. I powered through it the first time, not understanding everything and I was bored a lot.
Now I'm reading it again a year later but this time I feel like I can follow what's going on . It's like the whole book is exposition for itself, that's required to understand it.

But then again I'm also a brainlet, so maybe it's just me.

whatd they throw you in the clink for?

will reading this get me back into literature? I feel so disenfranchised and disinterested with everything

either that or you will hate reading

>It's like the whole book is exposition for itself, that's required to understand it.
I think that was very much intentional. It was like you the reader get addicted to the text in a way, and the sort of open-ended plot compels you to go right back and start it again, which beginning of course takes place after the rest of the novel.

I'm at around 400 pages and, at least at the moment, feel as I understand what he was getting at about how entertainment being the down fall of a nation and the individuals within it. Each character being consumed by the constant need to be stimulated or suffering from trying to be part of the show in their own way.

That is what I've recently gathered to be the main premise. Maybe I'm wrong, if so fill me, but I really enjoy reading it and can't wait to finish it.

Absolutely not

why
i haven't read a book in six monthd

It's a mixed bag and absolutely, unequivocally needed to be edited. By the end of the book it really is a chore to read and never justifies its excessive length. That said, there are individual sections that are fantastic and sincerely insightful

Reading it (and especially the Incandenza filmography) made me think that DFW should have been a comedic writer instead of a literary one.

bitch lasagna

some really great thoughts and insights in there. felt like having a conversation with somebody else, which makes for great fiction (or maybe thats cause i kept watching his interviews while reading it). Ideas against irony have had a real effect on me.
should be half its length tho

It's a perfect book. Not in any need of editing.

just the opposite, pages fly by by the hundreds towards the end

The New Bloomsday Book is pretty good. Online resources will help too.

This, it's almost exponential.

I read it when I was a teen and loved it. Doubt I'll ever read it again, but there's a lot to appreciate.

Gotta agree with these. At first I had to force myself to pick the book up but I read the last 400 pages in a fever.

It really is a truly wonderful book and nothing short of a flawed masterpiece. At times DFW's prose can come off as a bit disjointed and grating but it's usually forgivable, and the highs compensate for the lows. There are sections contained which are absolutely vivid and gorgeous and essential.

Rarely in books is everything which needs to be explored so well explored. I really love DFW's knack for dialogue which means more than it says. Character interactions really have a lot going on between the lines. It's really just completely worth the read and people shit on it for IMO pretty unsubstantiated reasons. It's readable and not that hard to follow. If anything at times it just feels like you're waiting for something to happen. I would not have minded if it was longer.

>tfw no Mario best friend

the only times i had fun I had reading IJ was the 'marijauna vacation' chapter at the beginning, the chapter about how Orin became a punter and met JVD, and the small little hints throughout the book which alluded to the actual content of "The Entertainment"
picturing the film in my mind really did spook me a little bit
rest of the book was slow, boring, monotonous, "DUDE WEED" trash tbqh desu senpai

this but unironically

is pic related supposed to be the PGOAT?

yes but it's from a pseud video, would not recommend

very very fun book

had no idea why but the last twenty pages hit me like a train

also the fact that nothing got resolved made it way more satisfying

This movie is okay, and for an amateur production it's very good, at the least, it's a must-watch for Infinite Jest readers, if not Infinite Jest fans
vimeo.com/21410100

not a bad review desu

because there are so many characters and the story isnt told in chronological order, it reads like a series of vignettes

like the poster i reply to, you may love some chapters and hate others. what's generally consistent throughout the book is the prose and vocabulary, which i generally liked

Start reading it like a series of short characters study's all happening within the same made up city. I was impressed with the language but confused for the first few hundred pages, but that's by design. It ended up being beautiful, sad, hilarious, unique, intelligent, and challenging. I think way he ends the book is a bit of a show offy thing and it would have been better if he'd been direct, but oh well. I'm sad he's gone, it would've been nice to hear his thoughts on things that have happened, and I think maybe he would've eventually learned to be happier and more productive.

Was DFW even sincere?

bretty gud

what did u do

can someone who understands math better than i do explain pic related? it seems to me that the direction of the z rotation should be in the other direction, no?

I'm not a Math guy; but It's been reported that there were errors in these segments of the book. (So you might be right)

All of DFW's writings are like this. He infects you with the same disease he had. Careful when reading him.

Jesus, i gave up like 400 pages in and im not regretting it

It's an impressive read, a great commentary on entertainment and pushes the boundaries as far as the act of reading is concerned.
The story itself is contrived and needlessly complex, although that is the point it feels at many points extremely self-congratulatory.

It's not important. It's literally just a door knob.

He struggled with performative sincerity, which was a common disability in the 90s. See: poetry slams, confessional narratives, Leaving Las Vegas, JT LeRoy, Alanis Morissette, Prozac Nation, the pilot episode of The Sopranos

I started reading it 2 days ago. I'm on page 109.

I honestly don't know what I think about it

i guess dfw's writing style is not for everyone. this chapter was one of my favourites in the book so far, i'd say stick with it but if you don't like it 400 pages in it likely won't appeal to you more

i realize that but it interests me

I like DFW's writing style, even though I don't necessarily agree with all of his decisions.

you're just gonna drop the entertainment on us without a warning? you fucking psycho

Can you clarify what you mean by performative sincerity? I think I know what you mean but just in case

in the beginning I was really excited
in the middle I was pleasantly enjoying myself, a little peeved by some footnotes but other ones I enjoyed, especially the Pemulis chapter in-footnote
By the end I was like word but thas it? forreal? Aight. Been reading Joyce, Rushdie, &c since then.

IJ was a great place to start for reading hard books that take alot of effort. It's like I showed myself i could read 1200 pages and then was onto better things.

Although with a bit of research I found it enlightening, philosophically, for then-21 year old me. Also put me onto DeLillo

Actually fucking true. Hal's monologue at the end of IJ put me in a depressive state. Only time writing has ever done that

It remains one of the very best novels I've ever read. It really opens up on a reread, it's clear that there wasn't a single paragraph put in there that didn't matter. While I've definitely seen some good criticism and can understand why someone might not enjoy it, the vast majority of people on here clearly have not read more than maybe the first 100 pages. It's not necessarily easy, but it's not nearly as hard as this board would have you believe. I've read a lot of novels since finishing IJ, and it sits firmly in my top 5 to this day.

halfway through your second read it will become great, or maybe it will fail

Agree

Also has one of the best descriptions of depression i have ever read...

P 695 (20th anniversary edition):

>Hal isn’t old enough yet to know that this is because numb emptiness isn’t the worst kind of depression. That dead-eyed anhedonia is a but a remora on the ventral flank of the true predator, the Great White Shark of pain. Authorities term this condition clinical depression or involutional depression or unipolar dysphoria. Instead of just an incapacity for feeling, a deadening of soul, the predator-grade depression Kate Gompert always feels as she Withdraws from secret marijuana is itself a feeling. It goes by many names- anguish, despair, torment, or q.v. Burton’s melancholia or Yevtuschenko’s more authoritative psychotic depression- but Kate Gompert, down in the trenches with the thing itself, knows it simply as It.

Would you let Lyle lick you? And what would you ask him about?

Haven't read it so I won't give an opinion

Why is sweat such a re-occurring theme in Dave's works?

Cause hes a very anxious guy, and also, sweat is water desu
>what the fuck is water

Amazing book, exciting and original style, quirky with depth. One of the best books I've read.

Its bloated, convoluted, difficult, and I might go so far as to say painful to read, at least the first time, but then I always enjoy coming to these threads and discussing it and remembering it fondly, so I guess it must be pretty good
In short, it lives up to the meme status it has attained

I have the audiobook and happily the reader is skilled enough for navigating the strange accents and character nuances.

>worse than Ulysses
Is this possible?

Gay

Yes! This is it! When one reviewer I was watching on the ABC book club program was talking about the length and the footnotes he said it was "almost like being entertained to death". I immediately saw this as a reference to the entertainment but sadly the reviewer missed his own point.

How does the audiobook handle the end notes?

he read this pos

I saw it in the bookstore, then I decided to buy The Crying in lot 49 instead.

there's no way anyone is entertained to death reading this brick

Yes, I didn't like reading it but I like having read it. I remember being a miserable fuck at the time I was reading it but now I look back at that time with a weird nostalgia.

Others in this thread have commented on the cyclical nature of the narrative and the rewards of multiple readings. It is possible this was an intentional meta-metaphor.

80% of the way through. Not a meme. Makes me laugh out loud fairly often. Has some sad, sweet moments too. Read it if you have the gumption.

Personally I could not put it down. If this is not the case for you then don't force yourself it's not the right time. Call me a fag but IJ unironically changed me for the better. Hard to explain. Enjoy it.

I had to force myself through it the first time, I didn't really like it at all.
7 years later and the second time through was a real blast though.

it's just supposed to be the Peemster showing off, I assume -- that's more important than its actual content

*spits in nasa glass*

Apparently you have to spring for another 8 bucks to buy the footnotes.

Read IJ very quickly and loved it. It was funny and compelling and very good. Reading GR right now and it is much more complex than IJ especially in the way of prose and narration and story, it's more fragmented in a way but begins to make sense the more you read it. It's funny in a different wackier sort of way.
The 1922 Oxford repress has annotations in the back that help a lot when understanding the musical and literature allusions. Even if you don't understand them the prose and storytelling is still very very good. No I would give GR another try
I agree

I feel the same way. A few years now since I read it, and certain scenes just pop into my head: the PGOAT and the acid, the radio nerds at night, everything at the NA, the final scenes in the empty house. His short stories are more focussed and therefore better, but there's something about having to plough through all those pages and spend so much time in the book that leaves a lasting impression. It's like an experience in itself, that I occasionally flash back to.

These also express my feelings better than I () have

yeah, that was hilarious

If it didn't have 300 pages of tennis, it would be ok.

i wholeheartedly agree with you. Like you said call me a fag but when I was getting towards the end I was sad cuz I knew I would probably never enjoy another book as much as I did IJ