Thank you for covering Infinite Jest. Your succinct description is soooo good! I struggle DAILY to explain to people what it is about, why it is relevant, I am telling you: people in my town cross the street when they see me coming hahahaha ....
With The Recognitions I had a similar experience, though there were enough chapters and scenes that were amazing and top notch to make it worth it, even if it's the hardest and most frustrating book I've read. Though I haven't read JR yet, I'm really hopeful that that's the book that'll stick the complete landing with me as to vibe with the Gaddis praise as equally as with Wallace with IJ or Pynchon with Against the Day. For what it's worth, for anyone looking for a long Pynchon book after starting with Lot 49, Inherent Vice or similar, I think Against the Day is a good place to go to. Pretty biased since it became one of my favorite books of all time, but for every part that was overwhelming or hard or confusing, there was a lot of brilliant characters and scenes and chapters that were an absolute joy to read. For as long as it is, I think it's way more fun than for example V., which is half its length but more obtuse (still really like it btw). Good video, eager to start with Levin soon!
#1 at age 76 on my novel goat list is Musil's Man Without Qualities--Pynchon without the.nonsense.#2 Daniel Deronda, #3 Against the Day. #10 Mason and D. although on my reread of Bleeding Edge I wonder if this is Pynchon's best. Thought it a Vineland 1st read. On reread where u know what's going on, BE is brilliantly written, first sentence to last.
Gaddis's 'A Frolic of His Own' is a great read. I couldn't get on with 'The Recognitions'; I was unable to finish it. A good introduction to his work - and especially to the style of 'JR' - is 'Carpenter's Gothic'. It's much shorter. Another big novel you may wish to explore ('big' as in 'important', as well as size) is Georges Perec's 'Life - A User's Manual'. I would also give a shout out to the work of William T Vollmann. 'You Bright and Risen Angels' is a superb first novel. These days I mostly read short stories, but I do return every now and then to re-read Pynchon or Foster-Wallace. Pynchon's masterpiece might be GR, but my absolute favourite is M&D. (Incidentally, I thought your description of IJ was very good indeed.)
I've read both Infinite Jest and The Instructions. I liked them both very much, but I found Levin's book more accessible and would feel more comfortable recommending it than DFW's monster. My hot take is that Foster Wallace's nonfiction is better than his fiction. Infinite Jest is a fine work, but his essays are superior, in my opinion.
of all the authors mentined I have only read pynchon's 'Inherent Vice'. That was mad fun. In big books have read chabon's 'Kaveliar & Clay', liked it and 'Lord of the Rings' , if you consider that a single novel.
Pynchon and Gaddis are in a different league than Wallace and Levin. DFW gets lumped in with P and G sometimes purely because he wrote a big book. IJ is amusing, fun, and has its moments, but it doesn’t touch anything Pynchon has done, nor Gaddis
I actually started Pynchon with GR. ( probably not a good idea for most )understood most of it? I am now 1/3 into Against the Day. The most unique author I have ever encountered and I know I am not alone in that thought.
His definitely unique and can pick up its Pynchon by reading a few sentences. I found Samuel Beckett to be unique in that way too. Just read them and thought how do you come up with a style like this
I think Mason and Dixon is a masterwork. It's pretty different from the Inherent Vice/Bleeding Edge/Vineland/CoL49 books. But as a historical novel and meta-commentary on the act of storytelling, you can't beat it.
I got Thomas Pynchon's _V_ after a classmate recommended him to me. I read it twice and really enjoyed it. Next, I picked up _The Crying of Lot 49_ and _Gravity's Rainbow_ at a used bookstore. I read _Lot 49_ and found it lacking the depth and magnetism, the same sort of allure _V_ had and considered it rather bland. Years and years passed me by and recently I finally decided to sink my teeth into _Gravity's Rainbow_ . I got about 100 pages in and decided it was unutterable trash. I had absolutely no interest. I suppose at the end of the day, authors like Hemingway, Faulkner, and most prominently Cormac McCarthy spoiled me and turned me away from Pynchon. I have a couple more by him and figured they'd end up in library somewhere for someone else, but now with your quick synopsis of _Against the Day_ I think I might give it a shot. I just think the pretentious babbling and incessant innuendo that is _Gravity's Rainbow_ is simply not for me. I'd rather read another Neal Stephenson novel in the spirit of _Cryptonomicon_ rather than try _GR_ again. Too trashy for me. I am eager to read _Infinite Jest_ and have that on queue after _Brother's Karamazov_ and I'm intrigued by _The Instructions_ . Thanks for the video!
Gravity's Rainbow has some of the most beautiful moments in literature, but they're absolutely buried under several dozens of pages of rambling and sudden introductions of minor characters, long asides and meaningless passages that even Pynchon admitted to a friend that he was so stoned and confused about what he was writing that he couldn't even remember what he was trying to say. He even wrote a letter to his editor proclaiming, like one of his heroes James Joyce, to be writing a work which would keep literary scholars debating what he meant for decades (see Writing Absolute Nonsense In The Middle Of His Book). It's a mashup of extremely clever literary allusions and excellent writing which demonstrate his depth of knowledge, but it's buoyed by shallow sh*t-eating (literally) segments which were deemed so obscene and unnecessary to the plot that the Pulitzer board refused to grant the 1973 award to him despite the unanimous opinion of the judges for fiction that year. It's transgressive and deliberately attempts to sink literature to its absolute smutty depths, while simultaneously making itself undeniable as a masterpiece for the handful of passages which stick with the reader long after putting the book down. I don't know if understanding what Pynchon was trying to do makes reading it any more bearable, as he's a very acquired taste for people who enjoy more straightforward 'manly' prose like the aforementioned Hemingway and McCarthy, who do everything to draw readers into their world, while Pynchon repeatedly sucks them in with some of the most profound writing he's capable of, and then spits them back out by following it up with the trashiest attempts at offensive humor written by someone who isn't Chuck Palahniuk, but he's definitely worth the acclaim, even if it's only for 50% of what he's written, as the other 50% is stuff you'd shake your head at.
David’s writing feels like he’s aware of the symptoms that come with late stage capitalism but doesn’t see the root cause. His takes on McCain were painfully naive and uncritical. I think David is what happens when a genius is trapped in a maze they can’t see.
DFW wasn't politically minded. To see the all-encompassing malaise only within the realm of socio-economic power structures can only get you so far. On the other hand, he wasn't spiritually minded neither. David was a great diagnostician who could tell you what's eating you away, but wouldn't know what to do with jt. Trapped in a maze indeed. Perhaps, that's why his life ended the way it did...
@@user-cq5sg9cb4t where do you think this all encompassing malaise comes from? The isolation, the alienation, these are byproducts of our current system. He suffered like the rest of us from the soul crushing reality of capitalism and our material conditions but have been taught and conditioned into thinking that we suffer from some existential, abstract problem of the human experience when our problems are both real and addressable. He was trapped in this same prison. Born of privilege and spending a career in academia DFW had and undeniably sheltered life. He writes about addiction, but from the perspective of a pampered college boy. Even the statement that he wasn’t politically is extremely naive. Everything comes back to the political. We are a social society and politicals is how we shape that. He was basically a mental shut in that couldn’t figure out why the world around him sucked but could report on how it sucked. He also couldn’t write black characters without doing a minstrel show, so he also obviously never ventured far from his sheltered life of academia. It’s ironic how the most educated people are the most ignorant.
The Recognitions by William Gaddis is a stone-cold masterpiece, one of the greatest novels ever written, the other 3 are meh, especially Infinite Jest, one of the most over-hyped books of all-time. And FYI, David Foster Wallace was a real tool, read Mary Karr and her experience with Wallace, a terrible person.
Thank you for covering Infinite Jest. Your succinct description is soooo good! I struggle DAILY to explain to people what it is about, why it is relevant, I am telling you: people in my town cross the street when they see me coming hahahaha ....
Read both 'Infinite Jest" and 'The Recognitions." The Recognitions is my favorite novel. Well, after 1984.
i love infinite jest so much. favorite book of all time. i got so much out of it, i miss the characters.
How long did it take you to read?
@@muratisik6956 about two months. But i'm a fast reader and i read for at least an hour almost everyday.
With The Recognitions I had a similar experience, though there were enough chapters and scenes that were amazing and top notch to make it worth it, even if it's the hardest and most frustrating book I've read. Though I haven't read JR yet, I'm really hopeful that that's the book that'll stick the complete landing with me as to vibe with the Gaddis praise as equally as with Wallace with IJ or Pynchon with Against the Day.
For what it's worth, for anyone looking for a long Pynchon book after starting with Lot 49, Inherent Vice or similar, I think Against the Day is a good place to go to. Pretty biased since it became one of my favorite books of all time, but for every part that was overwhelming or hard or confusing, there was a lot of brilliant characters and scenes and chapters that were an absolute joy to read. For as long as it is, I think it's way more fun than for example V., which is half its length but more obtuse (still really like it btw).
Good video, eager to start with Levin soon!
#1 at age 76 on my novel goat list is Musil's Man Without Qualities--Pynchon without the.nonsense.#2 Daniel Deronda, #3 Against the Day. #10 Mason and D. although on my reread of Bleeding Edge I wonder if this is Pynchon's best. Thought it a Vineland 1st read. On reread where u know what's going on, BE is brilliantly written, first sentence to last.
Gaddis's 'A Frolic of His Own' is a great read. I couldn't get on with 'The Recognitions'; I was unable to finish it. A good introduction to his work - and especially to the style of 'JR' - is 'Carpenter's Gothic'. It's much shorter. Another big novel you may wish to explore ('big' as in 'important', as well as size) is Georges Perec's 'Life - A User's Manual'. I would also give a shout out to the work of William T Vollmann. 'You Bright and Risen Angels' is a superb first novel. These days I mostly read short stories, but I do return every now and then to re-read Pynchon or Foster-Wallace. Pynchon's masterpiece might be GR, but my absolute favourite is M&D. (Incidentally, I thought your description of IJ was very good indeed.)
I've read both Infinite Jest and The Instructions. I liked them both very much, but I found Levin's book more accessible and would feel more comfortable recommending it than DFW's monster. My hot take is that Foster Wallace's nonfiction is better than his fiction. Infinite Jest is a fine work, but his essays are superior, in my opinion.
Great video. Having only read infinite jest from the books you have covered I have just ordered bubblegum and JR 👍
Awesome video as usual 🙂
of all the authors mentined I have only read pynchon's 'Inherent Vice'. That was mad fun. In big books have read chabon's 'Kaveliar & Clay', liked it and 'Lord of the Rings' , if you consider that a single novel.
Pynchon and Gaddis are in a different league than Wallace and Levin. DFW gets lumped in with P and G sometimes purely because he wrote a big book. IJ is amusing, fun, and has its moments, but it doesn’t touch anything Pynchon has done, nor Gaddis
I actually started Pynchon with GR. ( probably not a good idea for most )understood most of it? I am now 1/3 into Against the Day. The most unique author I have ever encountered and I know I am not alone in that thought.
His definitely unique and can pick up its Pynchon by reading a few sentences. I found Samuel Beckett to be unique in that way too. Just read them and thought how do you come up with a style like this
Mailers “harlots ghost”…. Yes and yes
DFW was a game changer for me. Especially IJ, which haunts the reader as you think about how he died and what an absolute waste that was.
Whats your opinion of Mason and Dixon? I’ve read GR and inherent vice. Lot 49 maybe isn’t for me. I’ll pick it up again at some point though
Would you read bleeding edge or mason and dixon first
I think Mason and Dixon is a masterwork. It's pretty different from the Inherent Vice/Bleeding Edge/Vineland/CoL49 books. But as a historical novel and meta-commentary on the act of storytelling, you can't beat it.
Thank you for the video. I will give a try for J R... and let me recommend a real masterpiece: Parallel Stories by Péter Nádas.
I recommend Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts as your next long read. ❤
Selecting books by their weight seems like a dumb idea.
MATT FRADD?
I got Thomas Pynchon's _V_ after a classmate recommended him to me. I read it twice and really enjoyed it. Next, I picked up _The Crying of Lot 49_ and _Gravity's Rainbow_ at a used bookstore. I read _Lot 49_ and found it lacking the depth and magnetism, the same sort of allure _V_ had and considered it rather bland.
Years and years passed me by and recently I finally decided to sink my teeth into _Gravity's Rainbow_ . I got about 100 pages in and decided it was unutterable trash. I had absolutely no interest.
I suppose at the end of the day, authors like Hemingway, Faulkner, and most prominently Cormac McCarthy spoiled me and turned me away from Pynchon. I have a couple more by him and figured they'd end up in library somewhere for someone else, but now with your quick synopsis of _Against the Day_ I think I might give it a shot. I just think the pretentious babbling and incessant innuendo that is _Gravity's Rainbow_ is simply not for me. I'd rather read another Neal Stephenson novel in the spirit of _Cryptonomicon_ rather than try _GR_ again. Too trashy for me.
I am eager to read _Infinite Jest_ and have that on queue after _Brother's Karamazov_ and I'm intrigued by _The Instructions_ .
Thanks for the video!
Gravity's Rainbow has some of the most beautiful moments in literature, but they're absolutely buried under several dozens of pages of rambling and sudden introductions of minor characters, long asides and meaningless passages that even Pynchon admitted to a friend that he was so stoned and confused about what he was writing that he couldn't even remember what he was trying to say. He even wrote a letter to his editor proclaiming, like one of his heroes James Joyce, to be writing a work which would keep literary scholars debating what he meant for decades (see Writing Absolute Nonsense In The Middle Of His Book). It's a mashup of extremely clever literary allusions and excellent writing which demonstrate his depth of knowledge, but it's buoyed by shallow sh*t-eating (literally) segments which were deemed so obscene and unnecessary to the plot that the Pulitzer board refused to grant the 1973 award to him despite the unanimous opinion of the judges for fiction that year. It's transgressive and deliberately attempts to sink literature to its absolute smutty depths, while simultaneously making itself undeniable as a masterpiece for the handful of passages which stick with the reader long after putting the book down. I don't know if understanding what Pynchon was trying to do makes reading it any more bearable, as he's a very acquired taste for people who enjoy more straightforward 'manly' prose like the aforementioned Hemingway and McCarthy, who do everything to draw readers into their world, while Pynchon repeatedly sucks them in with some of the most profound writing he's capable of, and then spits them back out by following it up with the trashiest attempts at offensive humor written by someone who isn't Chuck Palahniuk, but he's definitely worth the acclaim, even if it's only for 50% of what he's written, as the other 50% is stuff you'd shake your head at.
@@harrisonmccartney4878great comment! Didn’t know this about Pynchon.
David’s writing feels like he’s aware of the symptoms that come with late stage capitalism but doesn’t see the root cause. His takes on McCain were painfully naive and uncritical. I think David is what happens when a genius is trapped in a maze they can’t see.
DFW wasn't politically minded. To see the all-encompassing malaise only within the realm of socio-economic power structures can only get you so far. On the other hand, he wasn't spiritually minded neither. David was a great diagnostician who could tell you what's eating you away, but wouldn't know what to do with jt. Trapped in a maze indeed. Perhaps, that's why his life ended the way it did...
@@user-cq5sg9cb4t where do you think this all encompassing malaise comes from? The isolation, the alienation, these are byproducts of our current system. He suffered like the rest of us from the soul crushing reality of capitalism and our material conditions but have been taught and conditioned into thinking that we suffer from some existential, abstract problem of the human experience when our problems are both real and addressable. He was trapped in this same prison. Born of privilege and spending a career in academia DFW had and undeniably sheltered life. He writes about addiction, but from the perspective of a pampered college boy. Even the statement that he wasn’t politically is extremely naive. Everything comes back to the political. We are a social society and politicals is how we shape that. He was basically a mental shut in that couldn’t figure out why the world around him sucked but could report on how it sucked. He also couldn’t write black characters without doing a minstrel show, so he also obviously never ventured far from his sheltered life of academia. It’s ironic how the most educated people are the most ignorant.
What did DFW say about McCain?
The Recognitions by William Gaddis is a stone-cold masterpiece, one of the greatest novels ever written, the other 3 are meh, especially Infinite Jest, one of the most over-hyped books of all-time. And FYI, David Foster Wallace was a real tool, read Mary Karr and her experience with Wallace, a terrible person.
I hope you're not suggesting that we don't read work by 'objectionable' writers; that would seriously narrow the field.
Nope, just DFW was a despicable person, should be more well known at this point.@@carltaylor6452