/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2871931]

[Anonymous No.2871937]

Great book. Terrible thread.

[Anonymous No.2871943]

Interesting statement.

[Anonymous No.2872261]

>oversalivating and other physical withdrawal symptoms because you're detoxing from marijuana

I don't think DFW has ever smoked "Bob Hope"...

[Anonymous No.2872262]

>>2872261

I go through some pretty bad withdrawal symptoms when I stop smoking Bob

[Anonymous No.2872268]

>>2872262
Do bostonites really call it that?

And not being able to sleep, I get. Everything else and treating it the same as coke and dope? Fucking no way

[Anonymous No.2872266]

>>2872261
Have you even met a stoner?

[Anonymous No.2872275]

>>2872268

insomnia, anxiety, deep depression, cold sweats, the list goes on.

I've never done coke or anything heavy, so I can't really make the comparison. But quitting weed is far from easy for some people

[Anonymous No.2872277]

>>2872266
Yeah I was one for ten years. DFW nailed the psychological stuff; why people depend on it, the smoking in secret, the ritual being more revered than the high. But rehab? physical detox symptoms? equating it to harder drugs? As someone who was also an ex opiate addict, that's a joke.

[Anonymous No.2872278]

>>2872268
>>2872275

And I don't know what Bostonites call weed, I was just using DFWs term

[Anonymous No.2872284]

>>2872275
Cold sweats?

I don't think that means what you think it means if you'r ereferring to something that happens from weed withdrawal.

[Anonymous No.2872286]

>>2872277
For sure, weed doesn't compare with opiates e.g. I think DFW only meant to compare the structure of weed addiction (or habit, or ritual, or whatever) to the structure of opiate addiction.

[Anonymous No.2872289]

>>2872284

Sorry, probably a misnomer

[Anonymous No.2872290]

>>2872286
Yeah, but he also straight made up symptoms, such as salivating so much you need a spitcup, I guess in his mind as a polar swing against the dry mouth weed causes?

[Anonymous No.2872295]

>>2872277
I could kind of accept the extremeness of the symptoms because they were outright discussed as being exceptionally bad, rather than DFW acting like that's the average reaction to not smoking.

[Anonymous No.2872316]

>>2872290
Do you feel cheated? That book is... not quite reality.

[Anonymous No.2872911]

>>2872261
i only smoke once in a while, but i get that too. oversalivating, i mean.

[Anonymous No.2872914]

>>2872295
yes, i think hal was more psychologically addicted than physically.

[Anonymous No.2872922]

Ahahahaha.

Really, is this book about someone who gets "addicted" to marijuana?

Hilarious.

I'm gonna write a lengthy novel about a girl who gets addicted to aspirin.

[Anonymous No.2872936]

>>2872922
yes, one of the many narrative threads is about an anhedonic, latently unhappy person with an unhealthy interior life who becomes dependent on marijuana as a means to escape himself and dull the pains of everyday life.

[Anonymous No.2872946]

>>2872922

As a heavy marijuana user, the book is surprisingly honest and accurate about dependence

[Anonymous No.2872951]

>>2872946
Haha, sure, man.

"Hello, Police. Help, I'm addicted to caffeine! It's ruining my life!"

Get a real drug addiction, pissant.

[Anonymous No.2872957]

>>2872951
It's more prevalent and has worse withdrawal symptoms than cocaine. It's just socially acceptable to have a caffeine addiciton.

[Anonymous No.2872958]

>>2872951

I can't quit weed without pretty severe withdrawal symptoms. I grant that most people aren't in a similar position, but it doesn't mean weed isn't habit-forming for some and tough to kick

[Anonymous No.2872961]

>>2872957
lol

[Anonymous No.2872963]

>>2872951
>boasting about taking drugs on /lit/

can't get much lamer than that, my man.

[Anonymous No.2872966]

>>2872958
>>2872957

What's it feel like to be "addicted" to something so hilarious?

You guys must have no will power whatsoever.

[Anonymous No.2872967]

>>2872966

Why doesn't it cite the actual survey, rather than a book that, I assume, is citing the survey?

[Anonymous No.2872971]

>>2872967
The website it's from cites the study directly:

Daniel Perrine, Chemistry of Mind-Altering Drugs (1996).

[Anonymous No.2872974]

>>2872966
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2807%2960464-4/fulltext#article_upsel
l

[Anonymous No.2872973]

>>2872966

Some people are just wired to be more susceptible to certain substances.

[Anonymous No.2872979]

>>2872973
It's probably closer to the truth that you're all a bunch of white, privileged suburbanites who want to think of your toking as more bad-ass and serious than it actually is.

No wonder DFW appeals to you losers. "I had to sell an X-Box game to feed my pot addiction. My life is a shambles!"

[Anonymous No.2872981]

>>2872979

All I have is my experience. I can't convince you of anything.

[Anonymous No.2872986]

>>2872979

Can we conclude now that you are the edgiest motherfucker on this site who does drugs all day without any withdrawal symptoms?
Man you are so cool.

[Anonymous No.2872988]

>>2872986
I'm not addicted to any drugs.

Nor is anyone else in this thread.

[Anonymous No.2873041]

Am I on /jp/, what is this autism?
The book had overgrown limbs, heads, hamsters and infants; projectiles of trash being flung into Canada, wheelchair assassins, recitals of dictionaries from memory, mindbreaking cinematics, a cast of fucking thousands of characters, run-on sentences, boston ebonics and transvestites dying on trains on seizures from cough medicine to list few of the absurdities off the top of my head and you have a problem with exaggerated weed withdrawal symptoms.

[Anonymous No.2873050]

>this thread

[Anonymous No.2873053]

Keep in mind the story conceit is that there's some unique biological reason marijuana affects Hal the way it does. It's NEVER posited in the book that any of the symptoms described are normal, or that anyone else could be expected to have the same trouble coming off the stuff that Hal does. When he stops using it he literally loses all control of his language and body.it's just a story conceit.

That story is also set parallel to Gately's story, which is one of opiates and much more dire than Hal's first world problems.

Enjoyable book, overall. Good writing awful plotting.

It's not a

[Anonymous No.2873283]

In all of the hundreds of threads I've seen about this book and DFW, this is the first time I've seen any semblance of a discussion about the book. Usually threads on these subjects read as follows:

"PRETENTIOUS, DFW, PRETENTIOUS, PRETENTIOUS, HIPSTERS, PRETENTIOUS, committed suicide because he was too PRETENTIOUS, PRETENTIOUS, PRETENTIOUS, EDGY HIPSTER PRETENTIOUS PSEUDO-INTELLECTUAL, PRETENTIOUS."

I just started reading this shit. I'm only about 60 pages in because it's incredibly difficult to read. I had no idea what to expect and now I have no fucking idea what's going on. I don't understand if there's supposed to be a plot of if he's making some kind of social commentary. I only manage to catch small glimpses of an actual story - some guy REALLY likes tennis and goes to a tennis academy where drugs are a huge deal and talking like an intelligent person with a large vocabulary will make old men think you're insane.

I don't understand what the ebonics part was about. I don't really understand anything. The book reads slightly like a dictionary with a tiny amount of narrative about tennis and drugs thrown in. Am I supposed to get what the fuck is happening? No one - NO ONE ever actually talks about this book, and maybe now I can see why. No one has any idea what the fuck is going on and there isn't actually a plot.

[Anonymous No.2873291]

>>2873283

I actually found it remarkably easy to read - especially in comparison to other contemporary postmodern works. It's a bit dense and choppy in the beginning but it gets better as you go along. The plot isn't that hard to follow once you get the rhythm he's going for.

[Anonymous No.2873296]

>>2873283

There is a plot, there are about four big storylines. The lack of any real discussion on /lit/ (at least the /lit/ since 2012) is because of ironic shitposting and people resenting the fact that IJ is kind of a big thing (not only in the USA mind you, even in Germany where the book was translated 3-4 years ago and there were big reading tours and recently a stage adaptation). It's cooler to shitpost than to say something meaningful.

[Anonymous No.2873301]

>>2873283
I also want to add that I gave up on the endnotes after the 9th or 10th one. When I'm investing so much energy into trying to decipher this shit that makes less sense than archaic English, the last thing I want to do is to flip 900 pages back and forth to read some pointless comment and then re-read 500 lines until I can find where I left off again. Why the hell couldn't he just make them endnotes? I got sick of this shit with House of Leaves too. I fucking hate footnotes and endnotes but if you're make a book over 1,000 pages, then have the courtesy of not requiring me to flip such a huge chunk of pages.

There are more endnotes than there are periods. So far, it seems like every chapter is one sentence that goes on for about 15 or 20 pages. I'm intrigued but I really don't understand this shit.

[Anonymous No.2873310]

>>2873301
you missed a significant amount of the story if you didn't read endnotes.

I'm sorry, man, but you're a fucking pussy

[Anonymous No.2873312]

>>2873301
>I gave up on the endnotes

no wonder you're not understanding anything. the footnotes are full of important plot points and background info. the physical act of switching between the main part and the footnotes gets annoying, yeah, but just stick a second bookmark in there and deal with it. also, flick to page 223 for the chronology of the subsidised years.

[Anonymous No.2873320]

>>2873283
>No one - NO ONE ever actually talks about this book, and maybe now I can see why. No one has any idea what the fuck is going on and there isn't actually a plot.
just wait until this kid's done with the entry level stuff

[OP No.2873326]

>>2873301

I had the same feeling when I started the book. It was rather annoying when I started reading it, but I got used to it pretty fast.
The next thing is, like others have said before, there are a lot of important information in the endnotes. The time when I never thought about leaving the endnotes be was, when I read the filmography of Hal's father. It was fucking amazing. Seriously the amount of retardedness that I found there, made me laugh out loud a lot.

[Anonymous No.2873330]

>>2873291
I find that incredibly difficult to believe. I'm not the smartest person alive but I have an okay vocabulary, I did well in college, and I'm looking to go to med school. I love challenging, intelligent literature. However, every other word DFW uses is one that I wasn't even aware of. The sentences have no end so it makes it tough to collect my thoughts and process what I just read. The writing isn't poor, it just puts me in some kind of mental stupor where I zone out and just keep asking what the fuck I'm reading.

>>2873312
I'm only 60 pages in. I skipped maybe like 5 or 6 endnotes so far. The ones I read made less sense than the main text. It didn't really seem important to me that a class XVIII drug or whatever had about as much potency as mom's kiss on the forehead. He has maybe like 2 endnotes for the first 40 pages, and then he drops about a million in one sentence. It's incredibly hard to understand what he's saying, and to interrupt the text by flipping 900 pages back and forth every other word makes it a million times harder.

[Anonymous No.2873336]

>>2873330
>looking to go to med school

that explains a lot about your deficient vocabulary.

[Anonymous No.2873335]

>>2873330

>I find that incredibly difficult to believe

Are you a new, or relatively new, reader? Have you read much literature? Because Infinite Jest is pretty smooth sailing in comparison to many, many works I've read, contemporary and classic.

[Anonymous No.2873334]

>>2873326
For me, the endnotes came into their own during the wheelchair french revolutionaries getting their backstory fleshed out. It was so unexpected and funny.

[Anonymous No.2873340]

>>2873335

Such as?

[Anonymous No.2873342]

>>2873330
tbh, the plot doesn't even really begin until about two- or three-hundred pages in. he's still introducing characters and world building. i dunno man, you've just got to enjoy yourself. it's a very fun book. the vocab is a bit jargony, but i found i could gloss over most of the polysyllabic medicinal terms and chemical compounds without resorting to a dictionary. the other big/esoteric words you just have to look up. a dictionary app on a smartphone is handy. also, comparing the potency of a hard drug to a mother's kiss on the forehead is pretty funny imo.

[Anonymous No.2873345]

>>2873340

V., Gravity's Rainbow, The Recognitions, Ulysses, To The Lighthouse, The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, etc etc etc

[Anonymous No.2873346]

>>2873053
Hal loses his control of language because Pemulis spiked his toothbrush with the incredibly potent DMZ, which is able to permanently alter one's perspective.

>>2873301
Don't give up on the endnotes. The first few are just small elaborations and bits of data, but as the book gets going they become a lot more integral to the plot. Many of the events in the novel are explained in the endnotes and the overall plot structure is harder to figure out if you skip the notes.

[Anonymous No.2873351]

>>2873296
Why would anyone give a shit that a book is a big deal? As much as I'm struggling with it, I still find it pretty interesting. I already think it has plenty of literary merit. I recently made the mistake of reading Stephen King and I think if anything, people should be upset that his shit is so insanely popular because his writing is awful.

It just gets really annoying when nobody says a fucking word about the actual story. I never saw a single post that says anything specific about the book. I've seen more posts on here about DFW than almost any other specific topic and every single one is just focused on discussing how allegedly pretentious he is and how he killed himself, which apparently needs to be said about 500 times in every thread about him as if it's breaking news.

[Anonymous No.2873354]

>>2873351
>It just gets really annoying when nobody says a fucking word about the actual story
Word up, that's called spoilers. Nobody talks about the plots of any other book here either.

[Anonymous No.2873358]

>>2873346
> Pemulis spiked his toothbrush with the incredibly potent DMZ, which is able to permanently alter one's perspective.

been a while since I read it -- is that actually shown or just hinted at? (if the latter, could you tell me when?)

also, doesn't the dmz react with the fungus that hal ate as a child or something?

[Anonymous No.2873365]

>>2873354
It's possible to discuss a book without using spoilers. Discussions can go beyond "DFW is pretentious and IJ is pretentious hipster garbage." No one every asks questions or discusses any philosophy. No one ever says anything about the book that's worth discussing or that doesn't have to do with the fact that he killed himself.

Also, am I the only fucking person on this site who is aware that spoiler tags exist for a reason other than hiding stupid fucking buzzwords? Every just uses spoilers for words like "fun," "edgy," "hipster," and so forth. They only use spoiler pictures for posting porn. It's like how no one actually uses green text for quoting either. The fucking function is there for you to use it for what it was designed for.

You announce that your post contains spoilers and you put the information in spoiler tags. That way you avoid ruining the book for people who haven't read it and you can say shit other than "DFW is a pretentious hipster you pretentiously committed a pretentious suicide because he wrote a pretentious book."

[Anonymous No.2873372]

>>2873365
infinite jest used to be discussed regularly and with gusto, then a bunch of hunger games kiddies took over /lit/ at the start of 2012 and it's been impossible to get a civil discussion going ever since.

[Anonymous No.2873376]

>>2873346
Wait, isn't it Hal's father who is hinted at as spiking Hal with DMZ? Because he's worried about his lack of interior life and thinks it might "wake him up" to himself and all that? I'm sure the DMZ is stolen from Pemulis towards the end of the book.

[Anonymous No.2873377]

>>2873365
I find your teenager attitude and prose disgusting so I will now stop responding seriously. You're so fucking new too. Shut up and go read the god damn book.

[Anonymous No.2873380]

>>2873377
Nobody cares.

[Anonymous No.2873384]

>>2873380
I agree with that person. Go back to /b/ or whatever, that post was straight up shit

[Anonymous No.2873385]

>>2873377
Forget to put a spoiler over your picture? Do you also take pride in having wasted more time on here than me?

"You haven't spent a full year posting on /lit/ instead of actually reading books so you don't deserve to post at all."

Cool philosophy.

[Anonymous No.2873388]

>>2873380
cared enough to post :D

[Anonymous No.2873391]

>>2873385
yes
thanks

[Anonymous No.2873394]

>>2873384
You agree with some douche calling me "edgy" while saying he doesn't approve of my prose, you assume that post was me, and you tell me I need to go back to /b/ for explaining that spoiler tags exist for when you post ACTUAL spoilers. That's some fucking irony.

[Anonymous No.2873401]

>>2873377
>>2873380
>>2873384
>>2873385
>>2873388
>>2873391
>>2873394
>>2873400

a wild shitposter appears!

[Anonymous No.2873400]

>>2873394
You want me to read the book for you and spoonfeed it to you on /lit/. That's what you are saying for asking a discussion over the book's plot before having read it.

[Anonymous No.2873412]

>>2872988
HAHAHA OH WOW

[Anonymous No.2873416]

>>2872958

I'm a behavioral health tech at a drug rehab.

Seriously, you dont know what serious is. Every now and then we get a patient who's parents sent him to us because they smoke weed.

They chill; it's a fucking vacation for them.

REAL addicts and alcoholics cant sleep for weeks on end, go through horrible pain and even cocaine (few if any physical withdraws) addicts have their mind fucking with them 24/7. When I occasionally work the night shift, I pretty much do suicide intervention for 10 hours.

It's beyond silly to compare that with pot.

[Anonymous No.2873421]

>>2873376
Does Hal ever watch The Entertainment?

[Anonymous No.2873423]

>>2873283
>I'm only about 60 pages in because it's incredibly difficult to read.

The structure of sentences makes reading a bit of a learning curve, I had this difficulty as well, but you get used to it and it gets much easier to read. And yeah, a lot of the plot you have to infer contextually, it's not all laid out for you like a Tom Clancy novel. You're mostly experiencing the world through the characters he's written.

>No one has any idea what the fuck is going on and there isn't actually a plot.

There's plenty of plot, and I found it compelling to see the different places and times characters intersected. You said you're only 60 pages in, why are you expecting to have full knowledge of the book so early? It's not like I read twenty pages of the Great Gatsby and come to /lit/ all flabbergasted like, "Oh my god guys this is so hard to understand what's going on there's no plot there's this guy Nick and he has a rich friend but I have NO IDEA what's going to happen next I'm lost help me."

>>2873301
Don't give up on them, they're often pretty funny. The J.O. Incandenza filmography was a riot.

>there are more endnotes than there are periods
No there aren't, now you're just being dramatic. The book is quite easy to read and comprehend compared to Pynchon, Faulkner, Gaddis, or Burroughs. Even Toni Morrison, with her lyricism and artful prose, is more opaque than DFW.

[Anonymous No.2873426]

>>2873416
and DFW actually makes this exact comparison in Infinite Jest. The middle-class kids in the tennis academy with their first world problems (apathy, numbness, ennui, drug dilettantism, self-consciousness, etc.) versus the Ennett Halfway House residents who've experienced absurdly difficult lives and their personal battles to overcome that.

[Anonymous No.2873428]

>>2873426

Interesting. I may have to finally read this.