Board 8 > Have you ever read Infinite Jest?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I recently got into an argument with someone about this where they claimed no one who says they have read IJ has actually read IJ. At first I thought we were having a "haha big book go brrrrr" argument but it got more and more heated to the point where I had to just stop talking to them entirely.

Like they were dumb mad and insistent in telling me that I never read a book that I read. How are you even supposed to deal with someone like that? People are exhausting.

Got halfway through, admitted to myself I wasn't enjoying it, and set it aside.

There's only so much tennis and furniture polish sunscreen I can handle.

DFW's short story "Girl With Curious Hair" is dynamite though.

Never even heard of it

Over a decade ago I checked it out from the library on two separate occasions and never even opened it. It's definitely not the only book I've done this with.

Also I probably did claim to have read it once on this board, years ago.

I hadn't heard of it so googled it. 1000 pages isn't even that bad unless there's something about the writing style / narrative that is jarring.

ShatteredElysium posted...

I hadn't heard of it so googled it. 1000 pages isn't even that bad unless there's something about the writing style / narrative that is jarring.

about that

Despite loving the book itself it is definitely not a smooth read and there are parts of it that just DRAG (like the tennis tournament which is where I imagine most people finally tap out). DFW is very much a believer that the reader is not your friend.

But there are so many running threads throughout that I think are more than enough to push through - The Entertainment, Madame Psychosis, The Wheelchair Assassins, everything to do with Eschaton and the like ten pages of calculus in the endnotes explaining it (even if I think some of the math is sketchy), basically anything not-Tennis related. Though some of the ETA stuff is great too like the possessions and whatnot.

That being said, I would never recommend it to anybody and would probably discourage people from starting it. The people who would enjoy it are the ones who would actively ignore the warning anyway.

Specifically to me though, as someone who did unfortunately try to eliminate my own map, I'd never seen something written that so accurately depicted my feelings in that moment as the first Kate Gompert chapter. After reading that I committed to finishing it, and I'm glad I did. DFW can write an incidental character better than any author I know tbqh

I bought it years ago but I doubt I ever actually start it...

it's an unpleasant read that is a definite masterpiece/work of art

I also only got about 40% of the way through it before I gave up

Got through it back in college. Just read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again earlier this month - my general opinion of DFW is he's one of the greatest writers who ever lived but I also wish he would shut up about tennis.

his tennis essays are the best though

I haven't but it sounds like something I would find interesting to read if I ever actually took time to read books

"Lying about fiction you've read" is a very wild thing to do though. Very mid-2000s energy to that kind of shitposting.

what's that

colliding posted...

his tennis essays are the best though

I liked the first one in A Supposedly Fun Thing but the Michael Joyce one did nothing for me - and the first one largely worked for me because I live in Champaign-Urbana and it was loaded with really specific references to the area. Admittedly, David Lynch is my favorite director and I have been to the Illinois State Fair, so those two essays had a personal appeal. The title essay about cruise ships was also compelling and the essay on television is one of the best things I have ever read about the medium. Not quite sure what I was supposed to get out of Michael Joyce but I also don't care about sports in general, but the more philosophical themes also felt stronger in the other pieces.

I used to read 5000 page books for fun as a teenager. What the heck?

PerfectChaosZ posted...

I used to read 5000 page books for fun as a teenager. What the heck?

Did you? As far as I can tell, the longest single volume book is 1.3 million words and printed at around 1,500 pages (longer books usually use smaller text). What 5,000 page books did you read?

I've fallen into a Xianxia rabbit hole these last few years, and the average one of them has more chapters than books have pages, so length is certainly no barrier to entry for me.

I've heard of Infinite Jest, even thought about giving it a whirl at some point, but never took the plunge. It seemed like a flavor-of-the-month obsession regardless of how good it might actually have been.

CasanovaZelos posted...

Did you? As far as I can tell, the longest single volume book is 1.3 million words and printed at around 1,500 pages (longer books usually use smaller text). What 5,000 page books did you read?

They were trilogies published as one book.

Esuriat posted...

Over a decade ago I checked it out from the library on two separate occasions and never even opened it. It's definitely not the only book I've done this with.

Also I probably did claim to have read it once on this board, years ago.

sad

Anyway, I've read it

I haven't but I definitely want to one day as a fan of unconventional literature.

Aecioo posted...

sad

It kind of is. It sucks that it's like this, but I've had to make peace with how my interest in things wildly fluctuates and I can want to read something one day and then just a day later the interest is gone and may never return. It doesn't matter if I'm enjoying it or not.

And there's nothing I can do to push past that. Like right now the idea of reading it sounds great. Will I actually do it? Unlikely. I don't know if others were the same, but that's why I remember lying from time to time about reading books or playing games that I hadn't touched back around like 2006-2009. I wanted the energy and time to get around to doing those things and that was just my empty way of coping.

FFDragon posted...

I recently got into an argument with someone about this where they claimed no one who says they have read IJ has actually read IJ.

I can understand their confusion. If the Jest was truly Infinite, no one would ever finish reading it. Tell them you read Finite Jest, then they'll understand.

it's a harsh experience when you realize your friend or acquaintance is legitimately low intelligence, yet super confident. i mean, half of everybody is below average, but many aren't insufferable about it

what do you do in that scenario? you can't argue them out of it, it's just the way they are

do you just let all of their bad opinions slide? isn't that kind of patronizing? do you just cut them off entirely? i dunno

have requested it from my library, let's see how this goes

Hard tag for the read-through topic

no. interested, but also put off of it, like i am with like tolstoy, but the length. the descriptions of the book as reader-unfriendly also give me no incentive to try - too much else to read.

the essay collection consider the lobster is amazing though. the guy was a brilliant writer and a brilliant mind. really opened up my way of thinking.

i feel like your friend is referring to the stereotype about the prententious and condescending guy (especially toward women and in dating) who brags about having read Infinite Jest, like it's some kind of status symbol of being intelligent/well-read. you can google "infinite jest guy" and find like 25 articles about this. it's surely not true of everyone who's read the novel but it's probably based on some truth

I have never even heard of it before.

But I have read the Bible cover to cover just to say I have. 0/10 do not recommend

I only heard of it in lockdown because a few of my twitter follows, mostly journalists I think, were talking about finally trying to finish it - even though iirc they all admitted to not particularly liking it or finding it a slog.

Heh I didn't know there was an IJ meme guy but that actually doesn't surprise me. I definitely don't think I am smarter because I read it, just that I had way more free time and a little persistence.

And I don't think I implied as much either, the question posed was about books that you felt a deep connection with and I barely got the title out of my mouth before I was laid into.

When I get home I'll see if I can get a picture of the section that would have been my answer.

https://imgur.com/a/CbbqhHC

This is the quote that has stuck with me:
The so-called psychotically depressed person who tries to kill herself doesnt do so out of quote hopelessness or any abstract conviction that lifes assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fires flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. Its not desiring the fall; its terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling Dont! and Hang on!, can understand the jump. Not really. Youd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.

Yeah I could quote that entire chapter, really. Knowing DFW's fate it hits a bit harder too.