Just finished picrel, took 2 months. Generally liked it, actually surprisingly humorous, and I think I understood most of it but the ending felt very disconcerting. Are we supposed to like, infer and extrapolate the succeeding course of events based on the plot of Hamlet? Would it go something like >Hal watches the "Entertainment" J.O.I (jerk off instructions) made for him and connects with it, analogous to Hamlet seeing the ghost (also a bit of nice and rather touching meta commentary on how art connects people post-mortum, seeing as Shakes made Hamlet for his deceased son) >Since it was made for him, he understands it instead of viewing it as just entertainment, and doesn't go catatonic but is still like, horribly mentally disfigured, explaining the opening scene where the University guys think he needs help>Knows about Gately b/c of the like supernatural wraith stuff, idk, I think he was supposed to be like Laertes or smth since Hal and Gately are a lot alike and foils>eventually comes to like, Identify with his father and try to seek justice and so on and so forth>Dies like Gately did eventuallyOr I'm just completely missing something and am being very very stupid. Either way, I'll definitely need to reread IJ, was overall interesting and novel and engaging though ultimately not anything exceptionally profound akin to Hamlet itself
fun tennis book. the drug addict parts are wholly unnecessary. i know you feel insecure about your intelligence Gately
>>25308539Gately meets Hal through Joelle, and they go up to Canada to dig up JOI's corpse. Unbeknownst to them, the master tape's already been taken. As far as we know Gately and Hal are alive and mostly well after 20 Nov YDAU and the Year of Glad day
>>25308601Oh. I thought the ending scene was Gately dying, the beach and tide being the afterlife. Am I retarded?
>>25308633I thought so too at first but there's a single sentence in the very first chapter that confirms Gately and Hal and John Wayne went to go dig up JOI after the end of the book but before the first chapter.
>>25308601>>25308633That would make Gately the Horatio stand-in, what with them digging up the fellow of Infinite Jest (Who would Pemulis be, then? Laertes? Or am I trying too hard to find allusions?). Makes sense, icl I forgot that Horatio had initially seen the ghost before telling Hamlet, ought to have reread it before IJ.
>>25308656>I think of John N. R. Wayne, who would have won this year's WhataBurger, standing watch in a mask as Donald Gately and I dig up my father's head.I must've missed a lot of this sort of stuff. Oh well, nobody gets everything their first time round, certainly not on IJ. Hal's probably enough of a dork to both realize the irony of the situation and earnestly recreate the entirety of Hamlet's Poor Yorick monologue when he dug up J.O.I.'s head.
>>25308669If Gatelys fever dreams are anything to go off of then Hal's actually in hysterics when they can't find the cartridge because he realizes it's a continental emergency. He screams out that they're too late
>Look up Infinite Jest>First link is a reddit linkHMMMMMMMMMM...
>>25308539I know this will sound like a strange attempt at trolling, but this book makes me feel extremely smart and extremely gay. I guess I'm well aware of how the average woman could never create, understand, or appreciate an intellectual behemoth such as this. All the criticisms I have heard from women have been extremely shallow — e.g. the language is too dense; DFW was “misogynistic” and “pretentious”; the narration is not traditional; it’s too depressing and cynical. It's almost like they don't understand that different schools of art exist, and maybe they shouldn't criticize a book that isn't marketed to them.The thought of marrying a person who not only can't match the mental acuity of DFW or the average man is extremely blackpilling. Are femboys and crossdressers usually into DFW?
>>25308689Go be a faggot somewhere else.
>>25308690Nah
>>25308689God, this board depresses me. Can't have a genuine discussion about anything without some incel fag making it about how much of an incel fag he is
>>25308754you don't belong here. leave
>>25308754/lit/ is an incel and fag board. Them the rules
>>25308754/lit/ is a majority homosexual board, anon.
>>25308539This is just a tangent but supposably IJ is ‘shaped like’ or has ‘the shape to’ a sierpinski gasket, what if each of those gaskets was shaped like the library scene from ulysses by james joyce where stephen is like ‘burbage was hamlet’s cousin and shakespeare’s spiritual father’ or something like that
>>25308686kek
>>25308539What makes you think you are supposed to interpret it through plot? >>25308811The Sierpinski gasket structure was the first draft and only remnants of that structure exist in the final novel. The Hamlet reference iin the novel is not particularly deep and mostly there to show that the problems the novel deals with are not new.
>>25309197shut the fuck up pseud
>>25308539>the ending felt very disconcerting. Are we supposed to like, infer and extrapolate the succeeding course of events based on the plot of Hamlet?it's been a while so i don't remember the details but a lot of the "real" ending was revealed previously in the book when it wasn't obvious. something about how hal's dad made the entertainment for the purpose of helping him connect with other people, so hal and gately dig up his grave to find the tape but it's gone. i forget the rest. but yeah i enjoyed the book and mostly don't mind the aspects of it that were "difficult", but the ending disappointed me. too long of a book for me to bother reading a second time just to fully understand it, especially given i was already forgetting some of what happened in the beginning by the time i finally finished it
I want to read this book because I think it’s something I would probably appreciate but I am not such a strong reader as you guys probably are and probably wouldn’t pick up on any of the symbolism or whatever.
>>25309334Define "strong" reader. If you're brand new to reading, I'd recommend starting with minimalist literature. Maximalism and postmodern literature is notoriously difficult for most readers, but keep in mind that most readers are into YA, romantesy, and sci fi.
>>25309489There are 3 people on /lit/ who are strong readers by any definition.
>>25308539I've been reading this for 2 weeks and barely a 10th of the way through. I just got done reading the fucking 304 endnote. At this rate I won't be finished reading it until at least September.
>>25308539Is there any point in reading this if you are not American or white?
>>25309761You just need a high iq. Being American definitely helps
>>25309705We believe in you anon
>>25308754They are as self important as trannies, suddenly the whole world has to recognise them and their issues in particular and their kind is under all sorts of genocides or whatever the fuck. It's the type of death cult ecochamber that attracts only unfunctional people. Im very religious, right wing and conservative but these people get on my nerves about as much as trannies do given how they seek to make everything about themselves and how it's impossible to find online spaces where they arent involved with their endless whining back and forth. /lit/ these last 2 months has been particularly grim on that aspect but it's mostly just waves of posters that come and go (or maybe I just need to hide more threads more often)
>>25310731>please let me stick my head in the sand about this issueNo.
>>25310731OP here, I'm actually a "tranny" as you would say, yet made literally no mention of this because I just want to actually talk about the book and YOU'RE the one bringing it up. Curious, No?
>>25311056We're going to hang your ilk from light poles.
>>25310731>Im very religious, right wing and conservativeYou're also a woman. The scriptures also view you as a lesser social being than men. Just read Numbers 30.
>>25308689>this book makes me feel extremely smart and extremely gayfucking same, dude, and racist, sieg fucking heil, my smart fag friend
call it a nubbin
>>25311158>and racistJust don't make Wardine cry
>>25309201Why? He seems straightforward to me
