The author pulled a troll job. He took a crappy novel he wrote, and disorganized it. The result is a Novelist TURD.
The author pulled a troll job. He took a crappy novel he wrote, and disorganized it. The result is a Novelist TURD.
Moby dick sucks wrote:
I will admit, even after several attempts, I’ve never been able to finish Moby Dick. I wonder if it gets better, but I can never get though the description of the various whales.
The reason Moby Dick is such a slog is that in the 1800s publishers wanted novelist to include other information in their books. Publishers want to sell books that offered more than one thing. In Moby Dick's case it is a novel, plus a very technical book about whaling. Other authors, like Jules Verne, did the same thing. And some famous novelists, like Victor Hugo, included historical information about the current events (the French Revolution) -- many people first learned about what transpired during the revolution by reading novels with historical facts added in.
gdm wrote:
sounds like Michael Crichton is more up your alley.
Fiction is for mentally weak people
[.[/quote]
Don't think I ever wrote that I didn't like the book. I liked it. But I just feel that some of the praise for the book is overblown.
.[/quote]
Overblown is a great description of the late, self-destructive and very fat David Foster Wallace.
So it goes.
As a result of this thread, I am going to read Moby Dick and be excessively disappointed.
this is a rare thread that does not go absolutely off the rails. im sure the subject matter has a lot to do with that.
sub sub elite local hobby jogger wrote:
So many people time and time again have said Infinite Jest is an absolutely must read, including this message board. You have to read it at least once in your life! You have to read the footnotes! You have to have a dictionary at hand! Maybe even one of those books dedicated to the novel as well!
No, just no.
I slogged through the book waiting for everything to tie together. For all the different story lines to intersect and maybe some of them reach a resolution. For the end of the book to tie in with the beginning of the book. For the side plots and long footnotes to taper off as we got to the meat of the action. But nothing of that sort. Barely anything happened. And as the book was reaching its conclusion, still going off on tangential stories not really related to the various subplots at all.
Perhaps I am less than enthused because we do live a drug-addicted and entertainment-addicted society today, which we use to escape from various ills. Our government and society nearly as cartoonish today as depicted in the novel. Maybe those elements of the novel don't have the same force as they did back in the 1990s.
Yes, DFW is a genius and Infinite Jest is a literary behemoth and perhaps worthy of its own encyclopedia. It is an impressive piece of literature. But as for doing what a novel is supposed to do, which is tell a story and entertain the reader? No, just no. It was a slog. I don't want to read novels that are slogs all the way through. Maybe it will come together more for me if I read it again but I don't want to dedicate the time.
Maybe your being sarcastic, if not then this book was way over your head. What a novel should be isn’t up to you. The fact that having read the book and now all you can think about is how you feel the book should have been easier to read and should have tied together Better is a fact you might want to reflect on. But you probably won’t.
I’m imagining a situation where you are giving this critique to DFW directly, he responds with a smirk.
slripe111 wrote:
sub sub elite local hobby jogger wrote:
So many people time and time again have said Infinite Jest is an absolutely must read, including this message board. You have to read it at least once in your life! You have to read the footnotes! You have to have a dictionary at hand! Maybe even one of those books dedicated to the novel as well!
No, just no.
I slogged through the book waiting for everything to tie together. For all the different story lines to intersect and maybe some of them reach a resolution. For the end of the book to tie in with the beginning of the book. For the side plots and long footnotes to taper off as we got to the meat of the action. But nothing of that sort. Barely anything happened. And as the book was reaching its conclusion, still going off on tangential stories not really related to the various subplots at all.
Perhaps I am less than enthused because we do live a drug-addicted and entertainment-addicted society today, which we use to escape from various ills. Our government and society nearly as cartoonish today as depicted in the novel. Maybe those elements of the novel don't have the same force as they did back in the 1990s.
Yes, DFW is a genius and Infinite Jest is a literary behemoth and perhaps worthy of its own encyclopedia. It is an impressive piece of literature. But as for doing what a novel is supposed to do, which is tell a story and entertain the reader? No, just no. It was a slog. I don't want to read novels that are slogs all the way through. Maybe it will come together more for me if I read it again but I don't want to dedicate the time.
Maybe your being sarcastic, if not then this book was way over your head. What a novel should be isn’t up to you. The fact that having read the book and now all you can think about is how you feel the book should have been easier to read and should have tied together Better is a fact you might want to reflect on. But you probably won’t.
I’m imagining a situation where you are giving this critique to DFW directly, he responds with a smirk.
Maybe next time you could just get to the point and call me an idiot.
This book deserves a proper review. I read it five times. This novel got everything, thank Foster, brilliant. I would say this, but not. This book must be read at least once in our life but it's too complex. For teenagers I would recommend something else. There are novels not so complex but you can find here, humor, adventure, sci-fi, romantic and so on. It's for entertainment but also serious topics. There are a lot of chapters but actually short once, even so, the vocabulary is easy and the illustrations give you a kind of orientation. Give it a try! You won't regret. Best regards.
wiseman007 wrote:
This book deserves a proper review. I read it five times. This novel got everything, thank Foster, brilliant. I would say this, but not. This book must be read at least once in our life but it's too complex. For teenagers I would recommend something else. There are novels not so complex but you can find here, humor, adventure, sci-fi, romantic and so on. It's for entertainment but also serious topics. There are a lot of chapters but actually short once, even so, the vocabulary is easy and the illustrations give you a kind of orientation. Give it a try! You won't regret. Best regards.
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