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2013-09-14 10:38 4112683 Anonymous Infinite Jest or Gravity's Rainbow? (image.jpg 515x577 54kB)
3 min later 4112688 Anonymous
The Egyptian.
3 hours later 4112930 Anonymous
I prefer IJ. I think Wallace put more of himself into his art than Pynchon, who seems to treat it as just a bit of a lark.
3 hours later 4112933 God's Genes
Hamlet.
3 hours later 4112939 Anonymous
>>4112933
wow he completely eschewed the question and namedropped shakespeare instead so patrician so sophisticated
3 hours later 4112951 Anonymous
>>4112933
I see you're competing for lamest trip ever. keep it up. you're doing a great job there
3 hours later 4112958 Anonymous (1333370829188.jpg 308x307 18kB)
>>4112951
3 hours later 4112984 Anonymous
I like Pynchon's writing much more than DFW whom I find verbose as hell.
4 hours later 4113051 Anonymous
>>4112984
Just because he uses big words doesn't mean he's verbose. In fact, his diction is extremely precise. I have a feeling you're basing your opinion largely or entirely on the opening chapter of Infinite Jest, which is actually written in the 3rd person subjective and is not representative of DFW's style at all. It's basically a parody of verbosity. DFW's syntax and usage is actually a lot tighter than Thomas Pynchon's, who pretty much just lets it hang loose. I agree that Pynchon has the keener eye for imagery and figurative language, I just don't think your characterisation of DFW's prose is on the mark. Read his (brilliant) essay "Authority and American Usage" if you want to know how he feels about verbosity.
5 hours later 4113073 Anonymous
>>4113051
That's what I fucking hate about him: making fun of pretentious writing by writing even more pretentiously, it's so pretentious you can't even be sure it's an actual parody. Not to mention that he supposedly hates postmodern satire/irony.
5 hours later 4113076 Anonymous
>>4113051
That article made me truly realise how much of a nerd/genius DFW is. It was way above my leven, I'm not even a native speaker, but I still enjoyed it
And I enjoyed Infinite Jest more. Gravity's Rainbow felt like a huge chore. A brilliant one, but still: a chore.
5 hours later 4113081 Anonymous
>>4113073
Or maybe I kinda love him. Fucking ambivalence.
5 hours later 4113086 Anonymous
>>4113076
>That article made me truly realise how much of a nerd/genius DFW is.
It may actually be the best thing he ever wrote. It's expansive, exhaustive, and just as sneaky as Garner's Modern American Usage
5 hours later 4113088 Anonymous
>>4112683
>touching IJ
>ever
5 hours later 4113092 Anonymous
>>4113086
There's a lot of joy in reading something the author is clearly so passionate and well-informed about. I felt like DFW was really "in his elemelent". I guess it's something like watching a great athlete doing the thing he can absolutely kick ass at.
Same goes for his pieces on tennis, to a lesser extent.
5 hours later 4113100 Anonymous
>>4113092
Yeah, I also got the same impression from E Unibus Pluram. I certainly think reading his non-fiction helps you appreciate his fiction.
20 hours later 4114753 Anonymous
>>4112683
The thing is, Gravity's Rainbow doesn't speak for people; it, like pretty much all of Pynchon's works, speaks for an era. It's completely ineligible for the status of Great American Novel, because it's not about Americans and because Pynchon most certainly does not invite you to care or acknowledge that it's written with an American voice. It's painfully human and wonderfully adventurous, but, in concept, it's ultimately like any other novel with an adventure plot, only that it's written with extreme, nearly insurmountable, precision and talent. And while I'd much sooner recommend GR to a friend than I would IJ, it's nonetheless IJ that I can't seem to get out of my head, and the few quotes that I underlined and dog-eared that I can't stop repeating in a very much either 'zuckungzuckung' or 'I bet you never did...' fashion. I guess I just don't appreciate the cruelty of Wallace's work, ultimately, even if I can recognize its technical superiority.
20 hours later 4114769 Anonymous
>>4112683
>actually liking Infinite Drivel
20 hours later 4114797 Anonymous
>>4114769
>actually posting on 4chan
21 hours later 4114820 Simply the Best
>>4114797
>posting on 4chan in the actual world
>posting on 4chan in any possible world
>necessarily possibly on 4chan in the actual moment now
I kripky diggy
21 hours later 4114822 Anonymous
>>4112930
Pynchon is laughing because it's the only thing that stops people as aware as him from falling into a deep state of paranoia and sadness. There are definite moments of anxiety, horror, and depression in GR. It's just mixed in with the blackest of black humour, on a level of Funny with good ole Franz Kafka.
22 hours later 4114941 Anonymous (image.jpg 300x223 41kB)
>>4114820
>I kripky diggy
>in the year 2013
>? Why pls why can't no
23 hours later 4114991 Anonymous
>>4112683
Can someone who loves Infinite Jest tell me what other books they love? This seems like a pretentious sort of question, but I'm trying to decide if I should read it, it's a pretty big commitment to start it (life is short and I have other books in my backlog), so I want to know if people who have similar taste to me like it.
23 hours later 4115015 Anonymous
>>4114991
Well, I made both this post: >>4115002 , and this post: >>4114753 , if that helps.
23 hours later 4115022 Anonymous
>>4115015
Thanks. That definitely helps some.
25 hours later 4115217 Anonymous
>>4112683
Anthony Fantano
Infinite Jest
Forever.
26 hours later 4115264 Anonymous
They're both exceptionally good books. When I read Pynchon I feel like I'm experiencing the mind of genius. GR is rich in so many ways, on so many levels, and the writing is genuinely outstanding. I'd recommend it to anybody without reserve or qualification. Conversely, there is so much of DFW in IJ that I would still wholeheartedly recommend it to anybody but insist that they first familiarise themselves with the man and writing style. To understand DFW's background in tennis and of course his depression can only massively enhance the experience.
As for my favourite, I'll go with..... Infinite Jest.
26 hours later 4115289 Anonymous
>>4113051
lolno. DFW is verbose as all hell which has nothing to do with his use of 'big' words. Granted, it's usually an entertaining verbosity, like that uncle who talks for hours but who has some interesting shit to say, but he does go on for ages, just yakkin' away the pages. Pynchon doesn't skimp on length in his books as well, but it isn't sort of stream-of-consciousness rambling. It's dense, in a sort of focused way. In a similarly sized sentence Pynchon packs more into it than DFW does. In other words DFW sez less than Pynchon in a typical sentence, despite being as long. Am I making sense?
29 hours later 4115570 Anonymous
>>4114753
>the cruelty of Wallace's work
Elaborate? Cruel is the opposite of how I'd describe Wallace.
29 hours later 4115584 Anonymous
Killing yourself or committing suicide? So many choices, so little time...
29 hours later 4115588 Anonymous
>>4112688
5/5
30 hours later 4115608 Anonymous
>>4115570
This article is written by a mostly terrible person, but all the necessary citations are arranged there in convenient unity, so:
http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/this -should-not-be-a-love-story-reading -dt-maxs-biography-of-david-foster- wallace/
All it really demonstrates is that Wallace has a mean streak, even if that's not what I wanted to say when I said his work was 'cruel'. IJ is cruel because that's half the point of it: you never get to see the characters meet, you never get to know what secrets are alluded to in so many of the scenes, and you're hardly given any form of closure; Eschaton is as close to a satisfying arc as you come. The name was chosen in connection with this fact; a joke is being played on you, the reader; you are being tormented with dissatisfaction; as - Wallace explains - was what was actually so addictive about the actual Infinite Jest of the novel (the film); Himself had called it 'the entertainment' in irony; it had just meant to be excruciatingly baffling, but then its legend spread and all people assumed that, because someone was obsessed by something, that something had to have an allure, rather than just the very, very convincing promise of an allure (which is indeed all it had); it is a nearly purely cerebral work, and the point of it is to leave you feeling anguished and to instill in you a downright existential dissatisfaction. So it's cruel.
30 hours later 4115611 Anonymous
>>4115570
The lack of resolution in IJ.
30 hours later 4115630 Anonymous
>>4115608
the plot may not have been fully resolved but i felt that he fully got his message across (indeed the lack of resolution being part of the message) and provided enough emotional stimulation that i felt satisfactorily rewarded for my time and effort. it's about the journey more than the destination, to borrow a cliché.
re. the biographical stuff, i'm not really bothered. seems to me that dt max was reduced to sensationalising a bunch of fairly innocuous misdemeanours because wallace's life didn't contain enough real drama to sell a book.
30 hours later 4115636 Anonymous
>>4114991
Some favourites of mine besides Wallace: Sterne, Melville, Joyce, Woolf, Pessoa, Lowry, Mishima, Pynchon, Carver, DeLillo...
30 hours later 4115645 Anonymous
>>4115630
yeah i'm not really bothered by it, either, but it's worth noting that wallace had a genuinely epicaricatic spirit, and that that might have influenced some of his writing; he genuinely wrote once that he regarded his audience with 'a kind of hatred'. perhaps sometimes his works' intentions included the audience's simple, meaningless, not even educational, suffering? so i think about that.
30 hours later 4115679 OP IS A KIKE
>>4112683
>reading infinite shit
31 hours later 4115769 Anonymous
>>4114753
>it's not about Americans
do u even Berkshires?
32 hours later 4115784 Anonymous
>>4112688
I don't get why Pynchon gets so much respect from emulating 18th/19th century novel styles in M&D and AtD but not many people seem to remember or perhaps appreciate the way Waltari emulates Ancient Egyptian narrative structure, style and tradition.
32 hours later 4115786 Anonymous
>>4115784
Waltari isn't Pynchon.
32 hours later 4115791 Anonymous (knight[1].jpg 187x270 4kB)
>>4115608
>because someone was obsessed by something, that something had to have an allure, rather than just the very, very convincing promise of an allure (which is indeed all it had)
Neat, GR had this too
32 hours later 4115793 Anonymous
>>4115786
Pynchon emulates ye old timey texts (of time with a lot of material to emulate) -> Best novel of 90s
Waltari does the same for a period with very little material from -> Is mostly forgotten for some reason
32 hours later 4115797 Anonymous
>>4115793
Well, he isn't English for one...
32 hours later 4115802 Anonymous
>>4115797
The Egyptian was the most sold foreign book in US from 1949 to 1983
It has probably sold more copies than IF or Gravity's Rainbow. And for a reason.
32 hours later 4115807 Anonymous
>>4115793
That's like saying Dan Brown is equal to Umberto Eco because they wrote books about similar things. Pynchon is light years ahead of Waltari as a writer.
32 hours later 4115811 Anonymous
>>4115807
> Pynchon is light years ahead of Waltari as a writer.
Could you explain this position? Why is Pynchon ahead of him?
32 hours later 4115816 Anonymous (1359082419772.png 665x598 106kB)
>>4115811
32 hours later 4115828 Anonymous
>>4115816
Surely you would be able to tell why Pynchon is better than Waltari?
32 hours later 4115847 Anonymous
The one that won the Pulitzer P-...oh wait.
32 hours later 4115856 Anonymous
>>4115847
2lewd4me
32 hours later 4115857 Anonymous
>>4115828
Because Waltari is a damn, dirty, no-good Finn.
33 hours later 4115906 Anonymous
>>4115857
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIB4 PO4YS7o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4KM sVe_eJU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ziY B_73u2E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfmA eijj5cM
53 hours later 4117976 Anonymous
>>4115906
>this
65 hours later 4119190 Anonymous
>>4113088
>has touched IJ, and gives negative review
>hasn't touched IJ, so he should shut the fuck up
either way, your logic is corrupt
70 hours later 4119650 Anonymous
>>4119190
>kek
get back to gaia online feg
86 hours later 4121033 Anonymous (dfwwf.jpg 1935x2591 663kB)
>>4115679
>>4114769
>>4113088
86 hours later 4121039 Anonymous
>>4121033
IF YOU SMELL-EL-EL-EL-EL-EL-EL
86 hours later 4121057 Anonymous
>>4112683
>reading infintieshit
3.183 0.145