David Foster Wallace: The broom of the system (1987, Avon Books)
467 pages
English language
Published Jan. 6, 1987 by Avon Books.
There are some great parts here and some boring parts. I get that some the stories that the publisher tells are meant to be bad, but why go on. This book could be a 150 pages shorter and still get it across. I really liked the end.
Another reviewer pointed out that this novel, despite most of it not being set on a college campus, is actually a campus novel. I would concur - everyone is terribly intello and can quote at length, there are funny names for things and places as though nobody would notice, and there are strange arcane rituals which make sense in context.
It is possible to say what it's about - Lenore, a switchboard operator, and her adventures in search of her grandmother who has gone missing on the edge of the desert. Which is an order of difference to "What is 'Infinite Jest' about?" where the answer is "Addiction." - not what happens, but what is the theme.
DFW apparently disowned this novel later in his life (which sadly didn't have enough of a 'later') but many may feel this is unfair. The unique genius of DFW rests partly in his …
Another reviewer pointed out that this novel, despite most of it not being set on a college campus, is actually a campus novel. I would concur - everyone is terribly intello and can quote at length, there are funny names for things and places as though nobody would notice, and there are strange arcane rituals which make sense in context.
It is possible to say what it's about - Lenore, a switchboard operator, and her adventures in search of her grandmother who has gone missing on the edge of the desert. Which is an order of difference to "What is 'Infinite Jest' about?" where the answer is "Addiction." - not what happens, but what is the theme.
DFW apparently disowned this novel later in his life (which sadly didn't have enough of a 'later') but many may feel this is unfair. The unique genius of DFW rests partly in his ability to contrast deep intellectualism with down to earth straightforwardness - as Dave Eggers suggests in the intro to 'IJ', like the uncle or cousin who holds forth at great length on arcane topics but is sensible enough to drop in a lowbrow joke from time to time. And partly in his preference for describing the inner landscape of his characters rather than describing them from outside - he will follow someone's mind, which jumps about all over the place[1] between spatio temporal coordinates:
then (past or future) / now, there / here (those are not mathematical operators, just punctuation)
rather than following in a strictly linear fashion. The whole as a result has the weird logic of dreams which because they are occurring wholly within the mind have the jumping-around ability of the mind as well.
Then there's the fat man who wants to make a mark by eating until he is visible from space; the cockatoo that gains a whole new vocabulary; the background science-fictional plot that is in fact rather irrelevant (what happened about the baby food? Who cares? The characters don't seem to); and what seems to be the main story the two mismatched couples who sort out their difference.
[1] hence the footnotes in his work from c. 1996 on.
