In Big Red Son, DFW refers in passing to "Barnum's axiom." I have been unable to track down an example of another person using those exact words. The "Barnum Effect" is the closest established phrase I've found, but it wouldn't make sense in context. Is it supposed to refer to the quote sometimes attibuted to Barnum, "No man ever went broke overestimating the ignorance of the American public," which Harold Hecuba revises into, "Nobody ever goes broke overestimating the rage and misogyny of the average American male" (35)? What gives?

I’m going on a short trip and need a quick book to take with me, it’s between “a supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again” and “something to do with laying attention”

I wanna know which you’d recommend, if at all, for a quick read

So far I’ve read infinite jest, consider the lobster, and both flesh and not, and have loved them all, so I’d like to know if anyone can help me decide

It strikes me that this film is pretty polarizing among DFW’s adherents, and while it’s very natural for us book lovers to be rightly skeptical of live action adaptations, I honestly really liked this movie. I know a chunk of it is dramatized, but I thoroughly enjoyed Jason Segel’s depiction of David. His mannerisms, personality, and relatable flaws felt really on point, all of which were easily my favorite parts of the movie. David himself probably wouldn’t have approved of a full length biopic about him in his own time, but in my opinion, I thought it was a really moving and intimate portrait of our favorite midwest baby boomer. 8/10 would recommend 👌

I know absolutely nothing about David Lipsky beyond what was shown in The End of the Tour. If he is a giant POS, I think Jesse Eisenberg did a fantastic job. But I don't know how accurate the portrayal was.

The entire movie felt like Lipsky's weirdly jealous attempt to latch on to DFW's fame and success. Like trying to hook up with DFW's grad school friend, getting pissed at his girlfriend when she wanted to talk to DFW on the phone, confronting DFW about suicide and rumored heroin use. Every interaction made Lipsky seem like a "woe is me I'm a misunderstood and underappreciated artist" vibe when he sees how acclaimed Infinite Jest was becoming. His whole persona just seemed gross.

And then I learn that Lipsky never did anything with the interview until AFTER DFW's suicide when he was in the news again?

I've been reading Chuck Klosterman lately, and just got into his book about the Nineties. I really like his writing and commentary, and he reminds me of DFW. Not sure if this has already been mentioned in this sub, curious if people have read him and agree with my comparison?

I got curious what the subscribers of Gourmet magazine thought after the essay was originally published. I ended up picking up the October 2004 edition off eBay recently.

For anyone else that might also be curious…

A challenging book on a number of levels.

We've all read the Roger Federer piece. But was it from a perspective of a one-handed backhand player, or two-handed?

I've always thought it says a lot about a person the way they play sports. When he was a junior the two-handed backhand was becoming more popular. Did he adapt to the new style or did he hold onto the old ways of the one-handed backhand?

This isn't really too much, but I think one of the more interesting things about IJ is that the guy who instigates this titanic shift in world politics is one of those weird, ornery, eccentric, mad-genius types.

Modernism and Post-Modernism (whatever the hell they are) have been incredibly influential to world culture, but they were pioneered by people — Woolf, Joyce, Duchamp, Nabokov, Rothko, Picasso, Pynchon, Gaddis, whatever (this is ignoring the theorists like Derrida and Foucault and so on) — whose work is rarely seen or read.

It's kind of like that thing of how very insular groups (4chan, for example, or the LGBTQ scenes in cities where homosexuality was a crime) created a lot of the new slang that is widespread and mainstream, and though they're small groups, they're enormously influential to modern vocabulary. We live downstream of the weirdos, and we drink whatever they're putting in the water.

James Incandenza is weird as hell, and pretty lonely, and does not fit into American society, really, at all. His work is inaccessible, seen rarely, and liked even less. And yet, with Infinite Jest V, he has become one of the most important men in the world. The world of Infinite Jest lives in his shadow.

This book is crazy.

https://deadword.com/site1/habit/wallace/dfwtrans.html

Just wanted to let everyone know! I’ve had this audiobook on my wishlist for a while and just discovered it tonight. Couldn’t believe my eyes so I quickly bought it. I had waited around 40 weeks for a library copy on Libby before my library removed the audiobook for some reason.

A friend and I who’ve recently been getting into DFW visited the Mall of America today and visited the spot where the MoA scene takes place

And as a bonus I picked up Wallace’s Everything and more at Barnes and noble

The power of DFW’s writing and the pain he reveals as he describes the plight of “Poor Tony,” pages 302-303. I was compelled to reread what I had at first thought too intolerable to read the first time. First time to get this far in IJ. Just gotta take a breath to cool this level of involvement Wallace has summoned with these pages.

Hi,

I was wondering if there were any papers / resources / analysis' of Wallace's fiction in relation to OCD. I have OCD and I can't help but read works like The Pale King as directly representing obessesive layers of thought and spiralling optimisation.

I also wonder if anyone else believes that Wallace might have any experience with OCD (I read somewhere that Wallace spent 1 hour a day writing and 10 hours panicking and thinking about writing). I know it's wrong to armchair diagnose, but I would find comfort in anything related to OCD and his fiction.

Thanks.

My main question is: is the book always going to be completely disorienting or am I eventually going to learn to “navigate” the book more?

Also is it the intended experience that I literally don’t know what’s going on? Not just that I don’t understand why orin is talking about why he is scared of cockroaches but sometimes i literally don’t understand what’s going on in a passage and it looks like word soup.

Any help would be appreciated

My favorite passage this reading in the second slide. Loved Schtitt’s philosophizing on tennis. Definitely felt it could especially apply to any competitive endeavor. Kind of funny it’s delivered to Mario who is the least tennis inclined of the Enfield residents. But it does make sense Mario would induce that kind of erudition.

Shout out to the Mapping the Zone podcast. I found it after being about half way through this go around. That slowed progress down significantly due to going back over the parts they covered so far in the pod.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3QG0mWb2PpCcAUBHTIYzpL?si=4LLI9hJHSsuS85vqOe2D6g

So, finishing again definitely makes me want to go immediately into my 3rd, but I’ve got a neglected stack that needs attending. Definitely want to focus on John Wayne and the theory he’s an A.F.R agent:

www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend

Other questions: What’s the deal with Mlle. Luria P_____ ? Why is Steeply dressed as an (ill-disguised) woman when meeting with Marathe? Speaking of Marathe, do you think he and the A.F.R. Attack Ennet House too along with E.T.A after the novel’s end? My pet theory is Gately becomes the House Manager after Pam M.’s absence at the end (973).

Highly enjoyed Hal and Orin’s dialogues. They really endeared the reader to their characters.

My favorite end note was 304, about Struck’s research into the nature of the disabled A.F.R. and him wondering if it would seem conspicuous to use his name as a verb describing the collision between the trains and Canadian boys leaping across the tracks. Such a clever way of filling in backstory and world-building.

At the end of the book I felt there was a cathartic release with the episodes between the A.D.A’s dialogue with Pat M. regarding the aftermath of one of Gately’s pranks and Mickey’s wrenching account of his apology to his family. Seemed DFW was expressing how a kind of radical forgiveness could act as a self defense against cyclical toxic behaviors.

I could go on with praise for DFW’s wry mix of wit and pathos. Such great writing. Definitely the most re-readable of any book I’ve ever read.