Is Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace a good novel?

This.

It's not as good as a lot of people say, and not as bad as a lot of people say. It's pretty good, though, and worth reading.

I'm starting college in the fall and just picked this up, should I hide it under my dorm bed so my roommates don't make fun of me?

Kek.
Actually every once in a while I see some serious discussion here. Even relating to IJ. It happened a few days ago in a hamlet-IJ thread. It was pretty interesting. Too bad you have to filter through 99% trash

wow. Not OP but thanks guys. This is what I've been wanting to hear

garbage posts with 0 information content

thansk for your waste of time

Bruce willis dies at the end though

That's a meme fag

>unless actual discussion of literature is absolutely vital to the ironic shitpost that you're making!
now this is shitposting
*gately

The humor is lame, the characters are wooden, and the plot is mixed up with a bunch of irrelevant filler to the sum of a thousand pages. There's no accounting for taste, but there's a good chance you're gonna read this and be offended by how dull it is.

people outside of Veeky Forums dont hate it, you'll be fine

I don't know if them liking it would be any better

its got all the good ideas that a good book should have, but its still a terrible read. i do like dfw tho

>novel

I don't think there's much filler in there. There are quite a few sections I don't get but so much of the "random" detail serves to make a point.

Plus I think Avril and maybe Orin I. are two of the best drawn characters of all time.

I only listen to audiobooks to read (at work) and want to get down with the Jest. But the audiobook doesn;t have the annotations from the back. Are they really that important where I won;t be able to follow the book properly without them?

My dear friend, when you reach your early twenties, as I have, you come to realize that life is short. We're allotted limited hours here on this pale blue dot we call Earth, so we best not waste them. That's why when it comes to reading, I read the best and only the best. And the best is David Foster Wallace. I strenuously urge everyone on this board who's reading this to pick up Infinite Jest when you get the chance. Just remember: Wallace said, "Fiction's about what it is to be a fucking human being." He didn't say, "Fiction's about what it is to be a fucking Witch-king of Angmar."

Yes, there are entire sections of the narrative within the footnotes.

>well it's obviously not this extreme nor that extreme but the relative middle path i just created that happens to have gone unnoticed all this time
don't worry user, what's important is that you've found a way to feel superior to both camps

It's my favorite book. If you know what it's about, generally, and you're interested, then read it.

Obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I think its pretty safe to say that it's at worst a good book.

Could I just look up the footnotes after listening at work, or do I need to read them all right away to avoid confusion?

No it would totally fuck up the sequence in which you're meant to find things out, toward the end there are 5 page footnotes with key details in. I literally have no fucking idea why they didn't just read them out after reading the number, makes 0 sense.

Thanks for the answer, sucks that it isn't the answer I was hoping for. Looks like I have to read this book the old fashioned long way when I could finish it in under a week in audio format.

What is this novel? I've been browsing Veeky Forums for years and yet, I've never seen this piece of literature before

Is that supposed to be a picture of you or the other guy?

>to have gone unnoticed all this time

It's hardly unnoticed. Lots of people have praised Infinite Jest for what it does right, and criticized it for what it fails at. You're unlikely to find that sort of levelheaded discussion on fucking Veeky Forums, though.

Why are you bothered?

I'm currently on page 190 or so and it's been a slog so far; it's about the third time i've made it this far. I've heard that you have to get to page 200 for it to get good.

That being said, I really enjoy the kind of meandering nature of it, how the book stops in on different, vaguely connected moments in time. In relation to other DFW stuff I've read, specifically This Is Water, that kind of, I don't really know what to call it, pseudo-realism? absurdist realism? is how I can best describe it, his other work makes that style make sense.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysterical_realism

1984 is a good book tho

No
It is a very shallow and boring book which people who are just starting to "get into" reading mistake for being valuable and interesting due to its length.

If you want a good summary of the kind of material you're in for just watch the movie "End of the Tour"which takes less time to consume but is equally intolerable. The film comprises long conversations between two horrible pretentious and self-indulgent manchildren who have petty squabbles over girls and get extremely emotional talking about drugs and suicide. Prepare for sequences as memorable as two men looking into the sunset together (this is literally the climactic scene) and remarking on how beautiful it is.

If you want themes as daring as "addiction is a bad thing" said at you for page after page in a way which is hyper-emotional and also just plain badly written (The author himself admitted that he couldn't stand hearing his work read aloud because it sounded so bad - every character has the same voice, which is also that of the narration and also that of DFK himself) go for it but honestly anyone who likes this book has either not read very many books or is a sociopath who identifies with DFKs self-love ravings.

Just started reading it OP. First impressions are - long sentences, a lot of vocab but overall it's been really interesting.

I've only read the first two chapters but I can tell why people keep saying it's good.

There is a separate audiobook for the endnotes that's like 7 hours long, just get that with it and you should be fine as I'm pretty sure the audiobook announces when an endnote is supposed to be read.

Same here, I was also high as fuck last night when I started reading it though so I don't know if it's actually good or not

I feel as though the best course of action, if I'm being frank in regards to your post, is that you kill yourself.

The world has so many of you, don't they? Why have more.
You're not valuable, but you know this. In the grand scheme of the Universe, you're wholly irrelevant.
Just as I am, just as the poster below me. You're nothing special. You should kill yourself.
It's no big deal. I'm not trying to humiliate you or anything, but you should really do it.

You'll never reach beyond that trite post, which I"m sure you put a lot into.
So why bother going on?
Why continue?
It doesn't matter.

You'll never be famous for your writing.
And even if you were, what does that matter?
You should kill yourself.

Align yourself with the sentient dead.
Do it as a laugh.
Or do it in sincerity.
What does it matter?
It doesn't.

Please, take your own life.
Be a martyr.
Do it for us all.
This is your chance to be a hero.

I love you.
And I'm telling you to kill yourself.

Namaste.

This.

But if you're nothing special why kill yourself and be a martyr ?

>Relax don't do it
>When you want to go to it
>Relax don't do it
>When you want to come
>Relax don't do it
>When you want to come
>When you want to come

>Relax don't do it
>When you want to to go to it
>Relax don't do it
>When you want to come
>Relax don't do it
>When you want to suck to it
>Relax don't do it
>When you want to come
>Come-oh oh oh

What does DFK stand for?