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Posts tagged ‘infinite jest’

Feb 22

screwtape
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David Foster Wallace’s 10 Favorite Novels

Yesterday, David Foster Wallace would’ve been 50. He’s one of the authors that I’ve slowly grown in appreciation for since I started this blog. And judging by my tag cloud on the home page, I’ve probably talked about him more than any other author.

When I think of an author like DFW, a guy who wrote the beastly novel that is Infinite Jest, I assume he must have been into heady novels like Ulysses, that his daily reading list probably consisted of Chaucer and Homer, that he would read Faulkner on his lunch break.

But maybe not. Before he died, DFW made a list of his top ten favorite books for a compilation of favorite books of famous writers. I’ve got to say—they aren’t quite what I expected from DFW, but that makes him all the more intriguing.

Here is his top 10:

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Dec 29

infinite_jest-300x4631
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Revisiting 2011: Book #16: Infinite Jest, Part 1

This week, I’m revisiting some of my favorite posts from 2011 while I take a one-week break from writing and simply focus on reading and spending time with my family. This post was originally published on May 11, 2011. 101 Books will return live on Monday January 2. See you then!

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What just happened?

That’s the first question I asked myself after reading the final word of Infinite Jest. And while that might seem like a bad question to be asking oneself at the end of a 1,000 page book, it wasn’t unexpected.

I’m not sure I could count how many times I asked myself “What just happened?” while reading David Foster Wallace’s masterpiece over the last six weeks. It happened, like, a bunch of times–enough to be qualified as a recurring theme in my head.

It happened enough for me to say Infinite Jest is supremely frustrating at times–the loose, non-linear plot, the $10 words, the pure effort that the book takes to read.

But is that the point? Is that what David Foster Wallace was after? Did he want to make you work your butt off to read this book?

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Dec 27

DFW

Revisiting 2011: How David Foster Wallace Brought Me To Tears

This week, I’m revisiting some of my favorite posts from 2011 while I take a one-week break from writing and simply focus on reading and spending time with my family. This post was originally published on April 13, 2011. 101 Books will return live on Monday January 2, 2012. See you then!

***

Since I started 101 Books, I recall tearing up only once while reading–that was during one dreadfully depressing passage in Rabbit, Run.

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Dec 9

ijvsgwtw-1
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Death Match: Gone With The Wind Vs Infinite Jest

What if the two weightiest books I’ve read so far on the Time list squared off in a death match? What would happen?

Oh, you don’t think books would ever get in vicious and violent death matches, do you? Well, you obviously don’t have my warped mind.

Gone With The Wind and Infinite Jest are obnoxiously large books. They’re leviathans, the sumo wrestlers of the literary kingdom. If they squared off in a fight to the death, here’s how I see it breaking down:

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Oct 31

640px-David_Foster_Wallace
16 Comments

David Foster Wallace: An Editor’s Nightmare

It’s been awhile since we talked David Foster Wallace on the blog, and I kind of miss it.

So, even though I’ve long since finished with Infinite Jest, I thought I’d revisit Mr. DFW today and take a look at an entertaining letter he wrote to an editor at Harper’s Magazine. His letter is in reference to an essay he wrote for Harper’s about Franz Kafka.

Remember the grammar quiz that DFW gave to his college students? He’s a grammar nazi if I’ve ever seen one, but DFW also proves that you have to know the rules to break the rules. And you also need to be able to explain your reasoning to your more-than-likely Grammar Nazi editor.

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Sep 12

800px-Decemberists_playing_live_daylight
4 Comments

The Decemberists Rock Infinite Jest

Have you ever heard of this thing called music videos?

I heard that they were a popular thing back in the 80s and 90s on a channel called MTV. Anyway, some bands still make these “music videos,” The Decemberists being one.

The band was so inspired by Infinite Jest that they made a video depicting one of the most memorable scenes in the book–the kids at the tennis academy playing Eschaton.

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Jul 15

11 Comments

3 Novels That Deserve The Harry Potter Treatment

So maybe you’ve heard that a little film about Harry Potter comes out today? Perhaps?

The interesting thing about  J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is that, at least in my view, it’s hard to say whether the books or the movies have been more successful. That’s rare. Usually, it’s easy to pick one or the other–and, often, it’s the book.

“The movie or the book?” is  one of those classic questions, like Coke or Pepsi (Coke), the Yankees or the Red Sox (the Red Sox), and hamburgers or hot dogs (definitely burgers).

I guess it’s not surprising that a majority of the books I’ve read on the Time list have been made into movies–some extremely successful, even moreso than their novel counterparts (e.g. Gone With The Wind and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest).

I mentioned this on Wednesday, but for every great novel turned into a movie, there’s still many that are waiting for some creative screenwriter and director to put them on the big screen

Three books from the first 21 that I would love to see get the “Harry Potter treatment”:

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Jul 12

6 Comments

Can Catch 22 Top To Kill A Mockingbird?

Time to justify my rankings.

I update them after each book, but after every five novels I feel the need to explain myself—otherwise, I’d be like a college football coach voting in the coach’s poll (If you get that joke, raise your hand.) As always, you can see how I’ve ranked all 20 on My Rankings page.

So here goes my nonsensical explanations for books 16-20:

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Jul 11

6 Comments

The First 20: A Look Back

The last 10 of the first 20.

Well, I’m back live today. Thanks for hanging around during the week of “reruns.”

I thought I’d start off this week by looking back on the first 20 books of this project, something I’ll do after each ten reads. If you need a reminder, here’s my look back on the first ten.

Now, for a few of my mostly subjective thoughts:

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Jun 3

17 Comments

Can Long Novels Hold You Captive?

Gravity's Rainbow: Still to come in the 101 Books.

Have you ever heard of The Stockholm Syndrome?

It’s the idea that some hostages become blindly devoted to their captors. They could be in the middle of awful circumstances, but the hostages think any sign of “kindness”—providing food or water, etc.—shows good on behalf of the captor. It’s a weird thing that the mind does under extreme stress.

Anyway, Mark O’ Connell wrote an interesting, and pretty funny, article about The Stockholm Syndrome as it relates to long novels (e.g. Infinite Jest). Earlier in life, O’ Connell despised long novels, choosing to read, say five 250 word novels, over a 1,000 page beast.

But things changed when he picked up Gravity’s Rainbow.

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