>>25235476
You didnt like it and you now realize that you need to apologize for shitting up /lit/ with 100,000th IJ thread.

>>25235482
That is not a question, it is a baseless assertion. I have nothing to apologize for.

>>25235484
You have a lot to apologize for. You are an objectively unpleasant person who takes his family for granted, thinks he is a fair bit more clever than he actually is, and has high levels of unwarranted self importance. I see through you.

>>25235488
>my assumptions don't require proof
If you are right it should be easy for you to demonstrate that my assertion is faulty. So the question is, why are you playing games (playing it safe (safe in the send of no risk to you)) instead of proving your assertions?

>>25235496
>send
Sense. Autorcorrect has nothing on age.

>>25235497
Christ, that one was all on me. Age has nothing on autorcorrect but ultimately are scapegoats, we make fools of ourselves.

How does a dumb adhd riddled person like me get through 10 pages of some loser I dont know and dont care about being anxious about whether his weed dealer will bring him his weed that he prepped a significant portion of his time and effort. And then the next chapter right after that is about some black woman getting abused by some black guy, and then the main pov black guy, who seemingly likes the black woman telling us about how hopeless this all feels, with english so broken that it feels like a cariacature as somebody who has grown up hearing AAVE most of my life (admittedly in Canada so its more Jamaican toned) So I can only conclude in an act of charitability that black people horribly illiterate in the 90s even more than people currently think they are (clearly not that much as aave perfectly translates to the already "degrading" normalized english with "ur's" and "ppl" that the internet was already shifting to for the sake of more convenient typing) Or that the entire book is just extreme caricatures of life that have no actual relevant thing to say about life.

By not being a plotfag who can't even follow plot?There are two Hal chapters and the foreign medical attache before Wardine.

>>25235510
I am really failing at 4chan tonight, that was obviously meant for >>25235500. Still doing fine on IJ and proving my perfect comprehension, not that anyone has challenged me on that yet in any meaningful way.

>>25235510
I'm going to let you know upfront that I will take absolutely zero heed of your objections or attempts to explain why im being unfair into account. I made up my mind about this hack years ago and I'm literally just here to shit on this trash book out of pure love of the game.

>>25235514
So, you are afraid of being proven wrong?

>>25235510
oh yeah i forgot about the medical guy watching TV forever
and the Hal chapters I didnt remember because nothing happens in them
>By not being a plotfag
lol, words dont mean anything. im a character and themes person first and foremost.
not tolerating meandering = plotobsessed

>>25235520
>and the Hal chapters I didnt remember because nothing happens in them
>im a character and themes person first and foremost.
Pick one. Professional conversationalist chapter is overflowing and then followed up with the chapter about how fathers influence their sons in subtle ways; those two chapters are as pregnant as anything about men can be.

>>25235528
Did those really come before the black abused girl chapter? I must not have read far enough. I did make my comment so that I could be convinced to keep going. I guess ill read two Hal chapters and come back to report here if theres anything interesting

>>25235544
They did come before and they are very important chapters, as are all of the early chapters.

I will go on with this since I currently have nothing better to do.

Wardine be cry is the other side of the coin of the preceding two Hal chapters and meant to demonstrate the same things but for people at the bottom of the food chain.The professional conversationalist chapter presents communication as commodity; the platitudes and glad handing of contemporary middle class life. Wardine is the same but for those below the poverty line and is not meant to be any more realistic than a father renting out an office and a face to talk to his son, these are both literary devices. These chapters outline what communication is between two very different socioeconomic classes within context of the novel, the failure in communication by all sides.

How anyone can seethe about the Wardine chapter not being realistic is beyond me, do these people think that the professional conversationalist chapter is realistic? Both chapters do an amazing job within context of the novel, especially when put into context of the brief chapter about the subtle ways in which fathers influence their sons and we get Hal talking to his brothers exactly as his father taught him to through that subtle influence.

>>25235575
You sound like you’ve taken adderall or something.
Glad you comprehended it OP, not that it’s especially impressive.

>>25235578
If it is not impressive, explain it. I have never taken adderall, I just want to discuss the book I just finished on a literature board.

>>25235476
>AMA
why is it such a prolix and poorly written book?

>>25235591
Given what little you offered, I would have to say you conflate structure with plot. I could be wrong but you really did not give me much to go off of and when you get down to it all you offered was a meme so I replied with a meme.

>>25235599
nah, i just don’t enjoy his prose or maximalism that much, nothing to do with plot (there were some interesting plots and some not so interesting plots). tell me, what did you enjoy about it? and this comprehension of it, how has it reinforced your enjoyment of it?

>>25235608
You would have to explain your understanding of maximalism before I can answer that. So far everything you said has been highly dependent on subjective and/or nebulous terms (at least in context of /lit/), without understanding your concept of at least one of them reduces any answer to "I just like it." Explaining what makes it poorly written or what about his prose you don't like or what makes it prolix would work just as well but given the venue I don't see any of those happening, defining maximalism within your understanding should be reasonable.

>reading dfw in 2026

>>25235476
I can't read anything that mentions weed, i am an addict and sober and it would trigger me. Thankfully good literature doesn't mention weed.

I went a day withouth aqlcohol for the first time in like 6 mothns becasue of this book
I picked it back up shrorlty affter that but that'sm not the point

>>25235826
Maybe you should read it again, anon. Unless that is you’re intentionally writing like that as a witty wink to your alcoholism.

>>25235837
Nah I just have fat fingers like Don Gately; I don'thave a roblem

>>25235476
Great book, I read it twice in a row I loved it so much. Who was your favorite character?
>>25235500
By reading on. Wallace throws out a lot of material early on and not all of it will land for you until it comes back later. The Wardine chapter is a particularly puzzling chapter that I think he wrote mostly to piss off his fellow academics. Really it starts to "pick up" and follow a centered point of view around 200 pages in, once he's established the territory of the novel. You may object that he shouldn't prevaricate for so long, but he's covering a lot of material, and it gets easier the longer you go on.
For me, "where was the woman who'd said she'd come" was the point where I got hooked, because I thought he did a great job of capturing how it feels to be an addict in such a state of denial.

>>25235476
>one of the main characters is a literal CIA glownigger tranny
The book was decades ahead of its time.

>>25235476
How long did it take for your perfect comprehension?
How long did you read and re-read and study outside of the book to properly understand the context?
Or are you claiming a perfect comprehension yet not properly knowing background into infinite jest, the life of the author, and the themes and history of the themes behind the novel itself and the preconditions making the novel?
Do you have a perfect study of David Wallace's brain, his life, his influences?
Of the influences of the influences?
You had reference material beside you reading it?
Took a lot of notes?

The book that killed McCarthy's hopes in contemporary literature

>>25236078
Bumping this thread so that OP can see this and answer it swiftly.

>>25235488
Youre projecting again

>>25236051
Either Stice or JOI Sr.

Wardine wouldn't piss off anyone who has an above high school level of comprehension and it is not particularly puzzling, you just need to put it in context of what we have already read, it is either about communication or drugs. We also get a few a stylistic cues, it is either a dialogue and she is high as a kite talking a mile a minute giving who ever she is talking to no chance to respond; reflecting the professional conversationalist chapter, or it is her internal monologue and reflects the first chapter, in which case how she actually speaks does not reflect how she thinks and this would tell us she has low self esteem and is possibly high as a kite. There is truth in both.
>>25236078
>fails to comprehend a simple sentence
>>25236188
>samefag with a very high opinion of himself

There is something weirdly compelling about that cover design.

>>25235476
Which was a better decade, the 80s or the 90s

>>25238848
>this is going to be epic, I took the 'anything' in ama literally!
~85-95 which I suppose you could call the cultural decade of the 90s.

Why did wardine be cry

It is somewhat depressing that no one is taking OP on the challenge. Makes me wish I had read IJ instead of sticking it on my shelf with all the other books I never read. Maybe I should start reading.

>>25239333
My expectations were never all that high, random lazy Sunday whim.

>>25239333
The issue is, IJ’s reputation here and elsewhere in the western cultural sphere has dropped, nobody likes to talk about it earnestly anymore.
OP, what was your favourite section of the book, and why? Perhaps you could offer some insight I hadn’t known about prior since well I haven’t actually read the thing in over 20 years and I’ve only read it once. I’d love a reason to get back into it. I actually enjoyed the endnotes the most if I recall.

>>25239775
It would probably be a tossup between the PTA meet and raising the lung, neither of which are likely to be remembered in any meaningful way by someone who has not read it in 20 years.
>insights
The giant skulless babies are purely a literary device and pretty much shitting on 99% of society, 99.9% of /lit/, %100 of the "men" on /lit/. In context of the plot, they are urban legend. Its not really shitting on them, they are the product of the infinite jest the title alludes to and it is not their fault anymore than it is Hal's fault for the state he is in.

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Jesus Christ, I would kill myself too if I wrote that book

>>25239333
I would love to but i'm not only stupid, but also ESL.
I really enjoyed what Mario seemed to represent, although i am not quite sure what exactly that is. Especially at the end of the book, with the guy pretending and then becoming homeless trying to get someone to tough their hand, i remember tearing up a bit at that point.

Something that has been on my mind is that, the more i see the reality zoomers are currently going through the more i feel, like IJ was tailor made for their generation. I might be wrong though.

>>25240385
Mario represents Mario, he is often used to show the opposite extreme, primarily in context of Hal but he is no different than any other character and we analyze him the same way as every other character. DFW makes a point of telling us that Mario is not special and should not be treated as such, he is just slow but not retarded in anyway, slow in way of all refracted things, it just takes a bit longer for things to get to their destination but they still get there. Where people get into trouble is they just accept Mario as he is and assume any issues he has are the result of his birthdefects, some are but not directly, most are caused by the same things that cause everyone else's issues one way or another.

So, why is Mario slow?

It applies to zoomers but is not exclusive or tailor made for zoomers, JOI is victim to the same things as everyone else, as is Avril and JOI's issue is not the Wild Turkey, he was a high functioning and successful person up until he took up his father's passions of tennis, film and booze. So what changed?

Finally, a decent thread on infinite jest - thank you OP and all the anons who have posted.

>>25235476
Okay grok
Infinite Jest ending explained

>>25235476
What do you think of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-45i-v4rSA

>>25242936
>>25235476
this is the full clip

>>25239775
>enjoyed the endnotes the most
I agree, the endnotes were a lot of fun. It's a very clever way to include information that would feel out of place in the main text, and he's able to use them to connect many seemingly disconnected points together. I also think the scenes he wrote as endnotes were some of the most interesting ones, like the incident with John Wayne near the end, or M. Bain talking about Avril and Orin.
As for reasons to get back into it, I think it's just fun to read. Do you remember a particular element that stuck out to you when you first read it?
As for insights, it's a small thing, but I noticed a footnote in the endnote with Marlon Bain's email to Steeply, where it describes "Marijuana Thinking" as a state, not of sedation or "emptiness of intent" as it would appear, but of paralysis by overthinking, being trappes in a labyrinth of analysis. And I was thinking it sounds a bit like Steeply's father and how he was consumed by analysing MASH. And it's possible that this, rather than any "turn your brain off" quality, as I at least had assumed previously, is what makes the Entertainment so absorbing; its ability to reach out to just about anyone and invite them to ponder its seemingly endless depth indefinitely; which I think makes a bit of sense with respect to JOI's style and intent, plus his metatextual connection to DFW as a parallel of him as a writer, starting out cold and abstract and only with a work titled Infinite Jest figuring out how to really connect with people.
>>25240385
Barry Loach's backstory and the ADA talking about his struggle to forgive Gately were some of my favorite sections.
>>25239793
>giant skulless babies are shitting on society
I'm a bit confused by your phrasing here. Do you mean they're another allusion to the theme of regression (or stagnation) to infancy?

>>25242930
Hal and Gately both make a choice, the same choice and the only choice life has provided them with the tools to make; they are doomed to endlessly make the same mistake over and over and over. They can't even see that they endlessly make the same choice and same mistake over and over and over, by the time they even realize there is a choice to make it is too late. They are still trying to figure out what the fuck water is.

This is one of the big pieces of the infinite jest the title alludes to.
>>25242936
Don't think I will watch 12 minutes of this but the first minute strongly suggests there is a robot army of this braindead eceleb on /lil/.

>>25243142
>Do you mean they're another allusion to the theme of regression (or stagnation) to infancy?
No. Stagnation would be more accurate, there is nothing to regress too, in general regarding the book, not your question.
>Hal, who's empty but not dumb, theorizes privately that what passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human fat least as he conceptualizes it) is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naive and goo-prone and generally pathetic, is to be in some basic interior way forever infantile, some sort of not-quite-right-looking infant dragging itself anaclitically around the map, with big wet eyes and froggy-soft skin, huge skull, gooey drool. One of the really American things about Hal, probably, is the way he despises what it is he's really lonely for: this hideous internal self, incontinent of sentiment and need, that pules and writhes just under the hip empty mask, anhedonia.
Sounds a lot like a concavitated baby, doesn't it? This is just looking from Hal's view, obviously, and is colored by his subjectivity. For Hal it is the fear of looking infantile, so he chases the stick's carrot to the show.

Your question is a bit to vague to really go into here, which was part of the reason for my previous wording, this is getting into a big can of worms and pretty much starting at the end. Maybe the above will allow you to hone your question a bit if it does not answer it?

>>25242936
He says he read one chapter of it, no need to watch more.

>>25242964
oops I forgot to attach it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI8DqZ3yO6E

>>25243143
This makes no sense. Gately massively changed his life and seemed to be headed in an entirely new and better direction. Hal, conversely, seems to be changing his life for the worse, encountering problems which are derailing his athletic prowess and exacerbating the interpersonal problems he has begun to encounter. The novel was building up to a climax, both plot-wise and character-wise but then abruptly ended. Very disappointing in my view.

>>25243653
Nta but I think what he is saying that they both wait for life to force them to make a choice and by that point there is no real choice, the mistake they both keep repeating is pretending everything is OK until they cant pretend any longer. They wait until the flames are licking at their heels and then jump, instead of dealing with the fire while it is still small and they could put it out or leave the building the normal way.
>plot
lol.

>>25235476
1) What is the book about?
2) Was the book of good quality?
3) Does this book require you to be a homosexual to enjoy it?

>>25243749
It requires you to be a recovering drug addict

>>25243175
>II meeting wasn't just for the laughs
Well fuck me, this all is starting to make some sort of vague sense.
>>25243757
Retard.

>>25243774
>Retard
It’s true. What? Too scared to try drugs and find out for yourself, faggot?

>>25235826
Keep Coming Back!

>>25236068
Calling Steeply a tranny isn't fair. Hugh is a patriot who would do anything for his country. It's his country and Unspecified Services that are absolute postmodernist whackjob looks at government and three letter organizations, but Hugh's totally normal, unlike actual transexuals in real life, who, the transexuals, are no where in the realm of normal. Hugh loves his country, transexuals take money from the country and then do everything in their (vast, vast) free time to undermine and destroy our nation. Hugh is doing anything he can for the government, no matter the ask, while trannies are in a porn bubble and feed off our tax dollars, not serve their government - not that we'd want them to. So Helen is not a transexual thing, because Hugh isn't an actual retard, he just loves his country and that's his assigned duty.

Bruce Green was the only person in the book besides Mario that I didn't find distasteful on a visceral level.

>>25243691
The book spends a ton of time on the entertainment plot line and then just leaves it hanging unresolved. Why bother so much with the Quebec separatists? And Steeply? It very clearly was building to a climax and then just ends abruptly. Why waste so much time on this if it ultimately doesn't matter?

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>>25235488
>You are an objectively unpleasant person who takes his family for granted, thinks he is a fair bit more clever than he actually is, and has high levels of unwarranted self importance
Thank you for noticing.

>>25242930
drunken trannies doing the swim dance

>>25243757
I still think about the scene where the old-timers from AA drive around with Gately looking for homeless guys who dropped out of AA and started using/drinking again, IIRC the old-timers would taunt them from the car LMFAO

>>25235488
The IJ poster is the worst fucking poster on this board and that's saying a lot because I also post on this board.

>>25235476
top 3 jests?

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>>25243653
>The novel was building up to a climax
Just because something happens off page doesn't mean it doesn't happen, and that we can't make out in tantalizing detail, in our minds, the sort of things that a bunch of pissed off terrorists would do to a bunch of little ETA juniors. I think about this a lot.

>>25243916
In my head, Bruce Green = James from Twin Peaks, but punkier. James was always cool.

>>25243946
>your hair
>your dick
>your bookstack

>>25243944
The best Gately driving scene is when he can barely fit in Pat's car, and he's speeding around town, where it talks about how any time he sees a security flaw his very instinct is to want to break in, and the scene transitions from his big ass tearing ass to the Antitoi brothers, and the ruthless shit that goes down in their glass/etc. shop.

>>25243947
Maybe what matters is the fanfic head cannon we made along the way.

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>>25243916
My family is all Boston Irish and Mikey Pemulis makes me feel so seen. I especially liked the part where he gets so mad that he starts jumping up and down in place with his hat coming off his head again and again like Donald Duck, because I've seen my uncle do that IRL more than once. We're a colorful people.

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but so like wait why was The Mom's dressed like a cheerleader and John Wayne was wearing nothing but a jock strap and football helmet?

>>25243983
She was jealous of Joelle. Real jealous. And maybe a little envious.

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>>25243988
I've read a lot of fan theories but I've yet to see definitive proof of whether she actually fucked Oron or not.

I've known a lot of junkies. Used to be one myself. I can say with complete confidence earned from years of junkieing that the most unrealistic part of the book isn't the wraiths or the wheelchair assassins but the idea that Fackelmann wouldn't have skipped town as soon as he hit the lick on the bookie.

>>25243981
>My family is all Boston Irish and Mikey Pemulis makes me feel so seen.
Your 'da fuck your brudder in the arse too?

>>25243983
They're both spies. They could have been doing a lot of things. It depends on if their set of allegiances are even- or odd-numbered. They also absolutely fucked, because Avril was practicing for fucking Orin (again).

>>25243945
>discussing literature and trying to help people understand is bad!
Can you point to where in the archive he hurt you?

I have been enjoying his Gaddis posting.

I can just imagine the film catalogue of Himself if IJ was written today. "Place Your Final Bets on the End of the World Via Mobile App", or "The Subtle Art of Bombing a Nuclear Development Site", or "Don't Sell My Cryptographic Heart", or "Very Intelligent People Meeting in Very Remote Locations to Discuss How to Make Things Exponentially Worse". I swear, if I ever write a novel, I'm stealing this device of having an eccentric creative with a portfolio of oddly named works.

>>25244180
It will be cringe when you do it.

>>25244181
I am zero percent hurt

>>25243190
Thinking on this and the two minutes I watched, it would be fun to debate Sam on literature. Bet I could humiliate him even if I let him pick the book. Open offer, Sam, just let me know what book, anything fiction, non-fiction debate is pure autism.
>>25243691
Almost there. The choice is to maintain what ever sense of complacency they have no matter how bad their life is; never try to improve their life, just try and keep it from getting worse. The real question, the one the novel is all about, is why?
>drugs!
No.

Good job on the reference and seeing it for what it is and not just being about suicide.
>>25243774
No chapter is just for laughs or just for plot, everything is used towards theme and generally reused over and over.
>>25243910
Marathe and Steeply are the novel's /pol/tards. Marathe cripples himself for a paper invasion, an invasion that only exists on paper and ignores any benefit Switzerland gets from the paper invasion. Steeply reinvents himself with ever change in the political winds. Both give up any sort of life for politics, no one can ever know who they really are, Marathe will always be seen and treated as a cripple no matter how well developed his upper body is and Steeply becomes a completely different person every year. DFW is being pretty blunt here, the bluntest he is in the entire novel.
>>25243934
It actually spends very little time on it, most of the time things quickly take a sharpe left. But it all gets used, just used for things other than plot. There might be 100 pages total that is actually about the plot, most of Marathe and Steeply are exposition on theme, both direct (see above) and indirect through their discussion.
>>25243947
The plot's foreshadowed climax doesn't happen but it does resolve.
>>25243988
To elaborate; she believed Joelle slept with himself, she was larping as Joelle (hence the cheerleader outfit), JW just completed the larp. Hal was right, Avril was deeply affected by Himself's suicide.
>>25244009
Support their being spies. You can't,
>>25244020
It is nice to get to post about Gaddis but we just don't get the interaction with Gaddis, threads go nowhere.

>>25244259
You sure do write a lot to say so little.

>>25244268
what's your problem

>>25235476
What did think about the ending? I saw it as an ironic mirror (for lack of a better term) to the gay AIDS rape movie Mario & Hal were watching a few chapters prior with the really jarring final scene, which is great and all, but at the end of the day gay AIDS rape is still gay AIDS rape and after 1000 pages I'd like a concluding chapter that's a little less...how do you say... "gay AIDS rape"y -- but that's just my opinion and I won't let it sully the rest of the book for me (which I will admit I enjoyed more that I expected to.)

>>25244005
a fook in ta boot

>>25244418
I just wanted to see Hal and Bimmy link up and go fight some radioactive hamsters and shit :/