it wasn't supposed to be a non-fiction
I can't tell if OP is retard or just does not know how to meme.
>>24936619probably german and is still laughing at his own joke too hard to respond
>>24936720So, retarded and does not know how to meme?
I've only read the first chapter in a library and it's obviously supposed to be the author's self insert, "I am too smart for this world and people hate me for it" garbage, I enjoyed the prose, and I think it would be a good fit for someone on the younger side
>>24936753lol. You didn't even finish the first chapter.
>>24936753Uh... I think you'll need to re-read. This is the end of the book, and Hal is literally entirely incapable of communicating with others.Worse spoiler: Hal's problem is here inverted: at the beginning, he's like an archive of knowledge with a shallow inner world and no opinions of his own not gleaned from books, beyond eloquent, and at the end he's built a rich internal experience that he's now unable to communicate to anyone.
>>24936236I havent read this book. Is it still worth reading in current year?
>>24936753Thank God that retards like you gatekeep themselves from literature.
>>24936782so he copied the modernists again. yawn.>>24936753go back to your japanese comics and video games, only adults with diplomas belong here
>>24937608>so he copied the modernists again. yawn.Nah, that anon seems to be a plotfag, DFW is not about the individual in the way the modernists were, he focuses on the universal, what all individuals have in common and how family, community and society shape those universal things and therefore the individual. This is a big part of the reason IJ is 1100 pages, you need a lot of characters to demonstrate that these things are universal.
>>24937667>he focuses on the universal, what all individuals have in common and how family, community and society shape those universal things and therefore the individualhmmm. sounds familiar.
>>24936896yes it's very good, retards project their own pretension into it which is why this book sometimes has a reputation for being a "show-off" sort of thing when the truth is far from it
>>24936896No, it's absolute dogshit. Pseuds glaze it and expose themselves.
>>24936753>self insertredditpilled
>>24937697Not even remotely. Joyce and the modernists do not focus on the universal, they focus on the individual, the universal is a given for them.
>>24937740you're a fool and you have wasted my time
>>24937740Modernism changed after Ulysses
>>24937758Great rebuttal. >>24937762He is literally saying that the universal is the hopeful side effect of his process and style, that he is not writing about the universal but hoping to uncover it. DFW did not write about the particular, he wrote about the universal. the particular is the side effect for him.
>literally
I think it would have been better in a more grounded setting. Pale King is way superior and it is not even close to being finished.
>>24937806I did not use "literally" as an intensifier, I was pointing out that Joyce was not relying on things like figurative language or subtext, that he was being literal and direct in saying what is essentially the same thing I said. Which is to say, I was calling that anon (You?) a retard.
>>24937881You literally did.
>>24936782I feel bad for criticizing the book, I didn't know it was so beloved here, I like to look at first chapters of books when I'm at the library and I only had that from which to judge it from, my bad.I'll give it another chance
>>24937887So Joyce was being figurative? lol.
>>24937971Not in that quote but he was in others. Sometimes he's literal, sometimes he's colloquial, etc. That's what it means to focus on all, on totality, on the universal. You have read Joyce and are familiar with his style-shifting yes?
>>24938001lol. You are scrambling for a way out.
>>24938039So no, then.
>only second chapter in a gorillion page book>narrator says Erdedy prefers jacking off over sex while high then like 3 pages later says he's never had sex while highNot looking promising bros
>>24938042lol. Even if the only thing I have read by Joyce is the above quote, this is just moving the goal posts. Joyce using figurative language in his fiction has no relevance to my pointing out that Joyce was being literal and very direct in that quote and said the exact same thing I did. >>24938063Drug addicts are rational and reasonable?
>>24938063DFW is a hack, yes.
>>24938070Concession accepted. Try harder hiding your pseudery next time, DFW readers already have a bad rap of being pretentious posers and this failure of yours is not helping.
>>24938076people read him because they want to have an excuse to not read anything else and be ad hoc authorities on everything. it's why so many of his fans are under the age of 22
>>24938070What are your thoughts on Gertrude Stein's The Making of Americans or William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury? I've already read them but I know you haven't, and I need a real expert to explain them to me.
>>24938106I am currently on my third reading of The Making of Americans. It has been ~20 years since I have read Faulkner and don't remember much about The Sound and the Fury.
>>24938143i never read any of them so i probably understand them better than you
>>24938063I prefer drinking water to piss, but I've never drunk piss
>>24939141This guy's too good to have bought a can of coke from a Chinese jokester. Fool me once, they say. That doesn't factor in the kind of THIRST a working man can, like, generate, an the sort of bad decisions that THIRST can lead a man to. I've drank a lot of piss. I've drank a lot of Chinese piss.
>>24936720This post actually makes me like Germans.
Not reading this thread too closely so I don't spoil it for myself, but I'm almost done and all i'm gonna say is Don Gately <spoiler>is the man</spoiler>.
>>24940858Square brackets, my dude. And yes, yes he is. Remember to read the first chapter again once you're done. It's important.
>>24940866I've always been too scared to ask and I've been on this website for over a decade. Embarrassing, right?
>>24940858>>24940866What makes someone whose primary motivations in life are fear, doubt, and self interest, the man?
>>24940910>Don Gately>someone whose primary motivations in life are fear, doubtBecause he is working toward understanding those things. He had hit rock bottom, and he isn't still blaming everyone else. He protects his own. He has boundaries. He does the work. Is he scared of his past coming back to haunt him? Yes. Is he sometimes uncertain about the whole God thing when it comes to AA? Yes, but he doesn't let that become a barrier between he and recovery and, importantly, others and recovery. >and self interestWhere the fuck do you even get that?
>>24941131>Because he is working toward understanding those things. How?>He had hit rock bottomHe didn't, he went into Ennet House to avoid prison, not because he hit rock bottom. He possibly hits rock bottom while lying mute in St. Es but we don't know, we only know that he is finally confronting the things he has been avoiding but he is only confronting them because the emotional pain is a nice break from the physical pain. >and he isn't still blaming everyone elseHe never blamed anyone, that was never his issue. Who do you think he blamed?>He protects his own.He protects himself. >He has boundaries. Which he happily crosses and finds ways to justify crossing. The only boundary he does not cross is the one which would result in him going to prison, but he crossed that one with the Canadians. >He does the work. Which of the 12 steps does he complete? What actual work do we have evidence of him doing? Fake it until you make it and nothing more. >Is he scared of his past coming back to haunt him? Yes. Is he sometimes uncertain about the whole God thing when it comes to AA? Yes, but he doesn't let that become a barrier between he and recovery and, importantly, others and recovery.Rhetoric. >Where the fuck do you even get that?Everything he does is out of fear of what he might have to deal with; he "protects" Lenz because he is scared of the paper work if Lenz gets demapped on his shift and the only reason that whole thing happens is because he would not let Lenz get towed despite his seniors all telling him that tenants will keep pushing until he lets them get towed and that he needs to let such tenants get towed. It is all about him, his fear and not the fear of his past coming back but the fear of being accountable for his past, present and future. You really should put a little effort into identifying why Gately became a drug addict, it is fairly important.
>>24941794I want you to be wrong but I am finding it difficult to come up any argument and I am starting to question my reading comprehension.
