It is NOT a literary masterpiece. It is, in basically just an overdressed YA novel. Let me, someone who has actually understood the text, break this down for you:>The core plotA brooding, special teenager, Hal Incandenza, with parent issues lives in a rigid, hierarchical system, namely the Enfield Tennis Academy. A mysterious, charismatic rebel figure, be it His ghost or the Entertainment itself, threatens the order. A ragtag group of teens, Hal, Orin, Pemulis, must navigate a corrupt adult world to uncover a dark secret that could destroy society. This is essentially Divergent, no?>Ham fisted Allegory"O.N.A.N.," "The Concavity/Convexity," "Subsidized Time." These are not subtle political commentaries. They are the same heavy handed, brand name dystopian devices as "Panem" or "The Capitol." It is a cartoony, exaggerated backdrop for teen angst, not a serious philosophical inquiry. DFW merely replaced the Hunger Games with a tennis tournament and a lethal film cartridge.>The teen protaganistHal is the archetypal YA hero. He is unnaturally gifted, emotionally stunted, misunderstood by every adult, and on a quest for identity in a world he did not make. His internal torment is just advanced teen angst. His inability to communicate is peak adolescent alienation dressed up in pseudo intellectual jargon. He is a Holden Caulfield who can quote Wittgenstein.>The threatThe samizdat is a MacGuffin of pure destruction. "It is so pleasurable it kills you." This is a YA villain: a single, addictive, monolithic Evil that the adults cannot handle, so the youth must. It is the same as a magic system or a corrupt government, a simple problem with a fantastical, technological cause.>Fake Depth"Entertainment as dystopia?" "Addiction?" "The pursuit of happiness turning lethal?" These are concepts a smart sixteen year old finds revolutionary. DFW is just explaining Baudrillard to high schoolers. The book spoon feeds you a profound message about our media sick society in the most pretentious, drawn out way possible. It is on par with BNW>(You) are so special just like the incandenzas for reading thisThe one thousand plus pages and endnotes are a ploy. They are the literary equivalent of a teen wearing a band t shirt for a group they have never listened to. The convoluted structure and density exist solely to make the reader feel accomplished for finishing what is, at its heart, a story about sad teens in a weird boarding school.You were tricked. You lugged that doorstop around to look intellectual, when you were actually reading a hyper verbose, structurally bloated teen novel. The fact that it is about depression and addiction does not elevate it; it just makes it YA for sad people.The ultimate proof? Strip away the digressions and SAT words, and the emotional core is pure adolescent solipsism: "Nobody understands me, the world is designed to addict and destroy me, and I must find meaning in the wreckage."
>>24945045I applaud effortshitposts
And the failed author turns to writing criticism. To tear down those who did what he couldn’t.Nice Reddit spacing btw.
It is YA because you are a plotfag?
>>24945213He probably read the wikipedia summary.
I agree. That doesn't mean the novel is bad, however, and it doesn't even necessarily bar it from being a masterpiece. Also, keep in mind that Infinite Jest preceded modern YA.
>>24945194And the flightless penguin turns to mocking the albatross. To peck at those who grew feathers he couldn't.Nice belly-slide btw.
>>24945227Maybe, but even most who love it interpret it pretty much the same way. The wikipedia entry is probably written by people who love it and it looks to have been written by people who completely missed the point, reduces every plot point to being a theme with the "overarching theme of addiction and devotion," which is just poorly tying together those plot points and ignoring half the book. I don't mean this as an insult to those that wrote the entry or those like them, you have to start somewhere, we all start out clueless.
Thanks chatgpt.
>>24945249You’re a fruity nigger
>>24945256It wouldn't have written "t shirt" without hyphen. Precluding the case that the poster wanted you to think this.
>>24945251It's weird, all you need to do is identify what the title alludes to and everything will start falling into place, but most seem unable or unwilling.
>>24945045fuck you
>>24945045>You were tricked. You lugged that doorstop around to look intellectual, when you were actually reading a hyper verbose, structurally bloated teen novel.I read the book cause my friend recommended it in college and I played JV tennis in high school. It was fun, and infrequently insightful in a fortune cookie sort of way. If you're going second person accusatory in your tone, you should make it more vague so it applies to the average /lit/ retard like me. I must concede it does have YA elements though, which I attribute to DFW's obsession with lowbrow slop. He taught Stephen King and James Patterson alongside Flaubert and Tolstoy in his workshops for God's sake.
>>24945045this reads like ai
>Infinite Jest
>>24945045Infinite Jest is basically an early Palahniuk novel but 10x longer. You got your detached irony, your morbid voyeuristic anecdotes, your muh society bits, but it insists upon itself whereas the first four or five Chuck novels were pretty plain and unpretentious.If I’d have read infinite jest in junior high or high school I would have definitely loved it. As a 30 year old who was way more familiar with his nonfiction and his interviews where he talks about the dangers of irony poisoning, I was surprised to find that his best known work is typical ironic Gen X know it all doomer slopLove his essays though, and I legitimately keep a Garner’s usage dictionary for bathroom reading based on reading his review of it
>>24945045IJ is just Catcher in the Rye but written by someone with verbal diarrhea.
>>24945268>copy chatgpt >delete all hyphensWoah
All fiction is YA
>YA...LE BAD!!!!
>>24945045Everything is being fucking YA-fied, I hate it!
>>24946860All the masters grads i talked to were raised on hunger games, what do you expect
>>24945045>you were actually reading a hyper verbose, structurally bloated teen novel.You can infer much from a person's deportment and appearance. Pynchon only got away with it for so long by avoiding interviews. >It is NOT a literary masterpiece. It is, in basically just an overdressed YA novelThis should be the most obvious thing in the literary world and the 'secret' to why he offed himself. Just look at that faggot bandana. He's ready to blow you. He's staring into your soul, looking for his father's cock. And he got upstaged by a genre fiction take on the Found Footage film genre in House of Leaves of all things. >>24946570>my friend recommended it in college and I played JV tennis in high school.This is not the Tennis novel. Waiting for Godot, and Walter Abish's In The Future Perfect are.
I've read the first two chapters and it does have a certain charm to it though seems to suffer from a lack of focus and inconsistent tone. I resent when authors go for certain broad effects rather than specific, earned moments of inspiration
It's just a book. Maybe you people should read more books instead of talking about the same books over and over, it's so fucking boring.
