Paperback, 524 pages
English language
Published Nov. 30, 2007 by SSMG Press.
Clearly I'm missing something here... This is a well-regarded book, right..?
...we get it, you looked up a lot of facts.
All of the self-congratulatory (onanistic, ha) garbage I hated in Murakami, but at least Murakami had some interesting stories to tell. This feels like it could have been a fun collection of short stories one one-hundredth the length.
Well worth it the two months it took me to get through it. It’s not a difficult read ... the moment to moment brilliance of the sentences, and some unforgettable human episodes, easily make up for the inconsistency of it all.
Favorites:
* Don Gately
* Alcoholics / narcotics anonymous
* Lenz and the dogs
* JOI’s father’s monologue
* “Bob Hope”, “unmapped”, and other terms invented by DFW
* The Hal/Stice tennis match description
Not so good
AFR, ONAN, the Gentle administration and everything else to do with politics
Marathe and Steeply
And the fact that The Decemberists staged an eschaton for a music video makes them the coolest/nerdiest band of all time. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJpfK7l404I
animal farm
Fucking FINALLY.
Das Buch fängt anstrengend an, mit unsympathischen Angeberelementen wie Protagonisten, die Wörterbücher auswendig können, dabei gleichzeitig voller Unordentlichkeiten, als sei der Autor selbst zu eitel, irgendwas nachzusehen, das alte Bröckengespenstphänom. Aber dann, ach, so viel Großartiges.
I just finished this book 20 seconds ago and I am still dizzy. Beautiful. I think. Just. Wow. Glug.
Well.
Dave Eggers once wrote that he spent an entire month reading this when it was released. And added that it's impossible to mutter an "eh" when finished with it, saying the book will change your life for the better.
I think he's right about it changing things.
The first 15 pages stormed me. Then, I felt David Foster Wallace was merely trying to impress and masturbate onto pages in some self-loving way that Jonathan Franzen can be prone to coming close to; after appx. 150-200 pages, however, that went away.
This book is filled with subjects and words and places but it's coherent, funny, inspiring and disgusting, bewildering, simple and complex. At times it felt like a drag, but mostly it's really, really good.
Every sentence feels thoughtful and sincere, and at the same time, I got the feeling (which is still in-place) that's simple; all you need is …
Well.
Dave Eggers once wrote that he spent an entire month reading this when it was released. And added that it's impossible to mutter an "eh" when finished with it, saying the book will change your life for the better.
I think he's right about it changing things.
The first 15 pages stormed me. Then, I felt David Foster Wallace was merely trying to impress and masturbate onto pages in some self-loving way that Jonathan Franzen can be prone to coming close to; after appx. 150-200 pages, however, that went away.
This book is filled with subjects and words and places but it's coherent, funny, inspiring and disgusting, bewildering, simple and complex. At times it felt like a drag, but mostly it's really, really good.
Every sentence feels thoughtful and sincere, and at the same time, I got the feeling (which is still in-place) that's simple; all you need is genius.
