Infinite Jest- a load of old shit?

[convulsivespace]

All signs point to DFW being Not For Me - I read one excerpt (I think from IJ) which rightly or wrongly gave me a strong sense of a hyper-intelligent guy self-consciously doing "humour" with dreadful results.

If you're at all interested, I'd give some of his first-person essays a shot. He actually is quite funny.

[Urinal Cake]

DFW making lobsters cool before Jordan Peterson.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Can you explain?

It's a bizarre meme to me because quite literally 90% of canonical 20th century literature is openly misogynistic, whereas Infinite Jest is decidedly not.

i was gonna ramble on this but i didnt like IJ enough to finish it so it wouldnt have been an honest criticism

the usual serious critique of DFW as a masculine writer (in contrast to Gass, Pynch, Gaddis, Delillo and all the rest) is that he might treat things like misogyny or race or addiction critically as objects in his work but he always using them as the object for discussion or for narrative. the criticism goes that he doesn't incorporate a critical posture towards those into his style or his thinking, which is didactic or patronising to any "marginal" topic that comes up. when male writers are considered to deal with these things well, they not only treat them as object or discussion points, but absorb critique into their own styles reflexively. he maintains an aloof position emulating his philosophical sources, looking down on things from above. (counter argument to this could be thats a copy paste of a common criticism of all writers whose work shows an influence from analytical philosophy - even female ones) compare to how Pynchon incorporates his own weirdness around women and the misogyny of his earliest work into part of the joke, Pynchon is well aware that he is terrible at writing women and makes it part of the satire. even if its clunky and off-putting, you couldn't say it showed no reflection on his part.

i wont make this argument myself, better just reference the negative commentary on Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (which I haven't read) where others have expressed the same view with more knowledge of DFW. my personal view is that DFW is indeed more passively misogynist than other writers in the same group but this a very different criticism to the meme of him being a "bro" writer

[Noodle Lizard]

Funny this thread should appear now as I'm currently on my third attempt at reading this, having recently watched/read End Of The Tour/Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself. I get the feeling I like Wallace more as a cultural figure and critic than his actual literary output, as I've never made it further than 100-200 pages into Infinite Jest before putting it down and not finding the strength to pick it up again until I decide to start over a matter of years later. I want to like it more than I actually do, I think. Perhaps it doesn't help that I grew up (and grew out of) reading Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk, so returning to long stretches detailing that kind of middle/upper class ennui or obsessive dives into niches just isn't all that interesting to me anymore (no fault of Wallace, though).

It might also be a case of its reputation preceding it a little too much. It's almost certainly one of the most hyperbolised books of the generation, and I think I'm always subconsciously waiting for the "game-changing genius" of it to hit me as I'm reading rather than just enjoying it for what it is. At any rate, I haven't come far enough to know for certain. Having this thread will at least remind me to pick it back up every now and then.

[Pranet]

The only thing I've read of his is A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, which I quite liked but I'm quite sure that it will forever retain its status as the only thing of his I've read.

Actually is the title also supposed to refer to the book? Seems like the sort of thing he'd do.

[wrec]

If you're at all interested, I'd give some of his first-person essays a shot. He actually is quite funny.

Noted! Any in particular?

[convulsivespace]

Noted! Any in particular?

These may not be the consensus classics, but as a Lynch-head his article from the set of Lost Highway is a personal favorite, and I remember his article from the 1998 Adult Video News Awards ("Big Red Son") being particularly funny. (Here's a somewhat dubious copy somebody posted to RapGenius (?): https://genius.com/David-foster-wallace-big-red-son-annotated)

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I think I'm out. It's not even bad or anything, I just can't be arsed