Infinite Jest in Oly Reads

Feb 23, 2009 Mykle rated it it was ok

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. UPDATE: yeah, I guess you could call this a "spoiler" although I wish it had been spoiled for me when I started.

Because I seem to be all about pissing off the people who love me lately, and because Blake Butler himself asked for details, here's what I just posted about IJ over at the HTMLGIANT thread "Mad At Books!" (http://htmlgiant.com/snippet/mad-at-b...)

"I wouldn’t have been bitter about the lack of any kind of ending (and I don’t think the contents of the first chapter would be enough, even UPDATE: yeah, I guess you could call this a "spoiler" although I wish it had been spoiled for me when I started.

Because I seem to be all about pissing off the people who love me lately, and because Blake Butler himself asked for details, here's what I just posted about IJ over at the HTMLGIANT thread "Mad At Books!" (http://htmlgiant.com/snippet/mad-at-b...)

"I wouldn’t have been bitter about the lack of any kind of ending (and I don’t think the contents of the first chapter would be enough, even if it had been placed at the end) if I hadn’t had to slog through so much drawn-out middle thickness to arrive at that non-place. That book needed to be about 400 pages shorter. There was no need for a cheap, two-dimensional caricature of German tennis coaches. No point to an excruciatingly dull and endless dialogue at sunset. The whole wheelchair-bound terrorists subplot wasn’t funny and went noplace, slowly. The more highly technical footnotes DFW added, the clearer it was he was making it all up. And the one character who dominates and animates the second half of the book is left, I seem to recall, lying unconscious somewhere? While meanwhile I recall Hal’s brother is maybe being tortured to death someplace, awaiting death or rescue? Forgive me, it’s been a while and I threw that book really far …

It’s really easy to come up with clever beginnings for themes, stories, subplots, etc. if you don’t have to finish them. Finishing them is part of the job. Otherwise you might as well watch Lost. Some people think not finishing what you start is some kind of deep statement. To me it looks like he just couldn’t finish it — Lord knows he struggled, had problems, suffered — but his publishers decided to sell it anyway.

I know somebody’s shouting “too soon! too soon!” We all miss DFW a lot ’cause he was great, but Infinite Jest was not his best work at all. However, the whole sales-pitch of the publisher, the book cover, the many blurbs, the ad campaign and all the buzz was that this was IT, this was THE GREAT BOOK that comes ONCE IN A GENERATION and is GENIUS and WILL BE WORTH THE TIME, EXPENSE AND EFFORT, WE PROMISE. That’s a perfect set-up for disappointment."

There. I said it. I'm bad. Commence with the hating. ...more

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May 12, 2008 Keri rated it really liked it

Shelves: no-pain-no-gain-fiction

It's taken me a LOT longer to read this book than I had anticipated. I am enjoying it but it is not what I would consider a "fast reader". I shall persevere eventhough my book group has started up again.

I am saddened to hear that David Foster Wallace was found dead this past weekend. It's kind of eerie to be reading his book at the time he committed suicide, especially since I actually purchased this book in 1998 and only now decided to read it.

I started this book on Memorial weekend in 2008 an ...more

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