Hey everyone! So we’re starting off real simple with the first two chapters. Why do you think DFW decided to start the book this way? How do you like it as an opening? Any other thoughts?

Let’s discuss!

Hey everyone, I wrote this essay on a FlixBus trip I took. I tried to emulate the style of DFW so thought this community might appreciate it. Check it out and let me know what you think!

https://open.substack.com/pub/charlietrenorden/p/the-12-hour-flixbus-affair?r=4p86z7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

In this novella DFW uses an expression... "It was like I was dead or asleep without even being aware of it, as in the Wisconsin expression 'didn't know enough to lay down.'"

Anyone from Wisconsin know what "Didn't know enough to lay down" means, exactly? Or anyone? Any ideas? The story at this juncture is taking place in the 1970's.

The date that the narrator in Good Old Neon commits suicide is smack dab in the middle of a failed soviet coup d’etat executed to block radical reform measures that eventually lead to the collapse of soviet communism.

I’m probably reading too far into it but that seems to mirror the nature of the narrators own conflictions and his orientations towards them. Who knows.

Hi all. I'm writing my honors thesis on Infinite Jest and really want to include a quote from The End of the Tour. Obviously I'm not keen on including a fictional quote/account... Here's the line I like:

 “The technology is just gonna get better and better. And it's gonna get easier and easier… and more and more convenient and more and more pleasurable... to sit alone with images on a screen, given to us by people who do not love us but want our money. And that's fine in low doses, but if it's the basic main staple of your diet, you're gonna die.”

I've been re-reading Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself trying to find where this quote comes from. Any general idea if Wallace actually said this somewhere in the transcript? Or do we think it was more script-writers interpretation?

Any help is appreciated!! Deadline is approaching and it's not the greatest detail in my essay, but definitely one I'd like to use if I can.

Hello,

Working my way through TPK. Last night I read subsection 8 and it had a bit on the old woman with two teeth charging “no tarrif on the terms of the fear…” she had from the eye in a rolled magazine (I am paraphrasing here, the book isn’t in front of me), and for the life of me I can’t figure out what that means or what the cards and table with white ash is referring to. Can anyone help break down that paragraph and explain its structure?

Sorry, a few more questions:

1. Could it be that the narrator's childhood nightmares (about homogeneous men working away in ordered lines of desks) are the reason he compulsively daydreams as a coping mechanism in the classroom, which shares an obvious resemblance? And why do the dreams (plus his reading issues) stop recurring after the incident?

2. Is there any significance to the war motif?

Did DFW ever meet the philosopher Richard Taylor? Apparently he wrote a thesis on Taylor. I only ask because Taylor was a fantastic philosopher with a beautiful style. His work is also more relevant now that ever.

Hi everyone! I’m aware this question has been asked many times and is probably a rather banal one for this sub, so I apologize for that.

I finished Infinite Jest yesterday, and I think I understood most of it, but I can’t figure out what the meaning of the 28 Os is. I’ve looked at elegant complexities interpretation, Carlisle’s interpretation on howling fantods, and many theories on this sub (like the theory that it relates to endnote 24).

I’m not convinced by any of these theories, and while I have mapped out all the places where there are Os in the book, I haven’t figured out a satisfactory meaning behind them. It seems like it may deal with introducing new characters/environs (this is my best theory thus far because the Os get less frequent later in the book) but there are a couple sections (like the Marathe steeply sections) that kind of nix that theory. If anyone has a really convincing theory I’d love to hear it, as this has been bothering me all day.

Edit: I’m aware Wallace told Pietsch that “They’re just supposed to be circles. Decoration. Maybe suggesting tennis balls, heads,annular defloration cycles, etc. Maybe just me amusing myself,” but this is clearly a classic Wallace wink wink there’s hidden meaning but y’all have to figure it out for yourself response.

Side note: if anyone wants to talk about anything in IJ please dm me because I have no one to talk about this book with.

1. I don't understand the usage of the headings. These are all self contained pieces of information in themselves rather than proper headings. Why distinguish them from the rest of the text? Are they more objective or subjective? Which version of the narrator is speaking them and when?

2. What's with the digression concerning The Exorcist?

3. Also, why end the story on a rundown of the classroom and the memory of a seemingly unrelated skit, and why drop the twin bombshells of a "Rhodes administration" and Ruth Simmons being his classmate?

Who among the climber and the UAF is Britton's "stressor"? If the former, why does he have a firearm? If the latter, why is he in contact with the Police?

(or Ololiuqui or ... Bufotenine (a.k.a 'Jackie-O.')

No, that first parenthesis never closes. Unless of course, it's canon that the rest of the book is an elaboration on I.V. ingested DMT. Had to get this off my chest.

Can you relate?

I read A Visit from the Goon Squad earlier this year and found it pretty refreshing. I’m reading The Candy House now and it feels like she’s channeling a lot of DFW’s ideas, but filtered through a softer and impressionistic voice with far fewer words. The way she weaves characters throughout different timelines feels Wallace-esque.

I wrote an essay for my Substack where I argue that Something would make great recommended reading for high schoolers. Thought I'd share here as well. Hoping my fellow Wallace-heads enjoy it!

https://www.afailedcomedian.com/p/what-should-teenagers-be-reading

Decided to model my player on Wallace for the TopSpin tennis video game. Wish they had glasses that matched, but nothing fit the vibe.

As much as I love DFW’s writing, I find myself only being able to truly enjoy and appreciate it when it’s being read to me. Does anyone else relate? Why do you think this is? I’m not an audiobook fan in any other prose.

I'm about halfway through TBOTS and curious why some chapters break up with alphabetic sequences like /a/ /b/ /c/ /d/ etc... Some go as for as /i/ or further. And then it will end and start next chapter with /a/ again. Wondering if there was any significance to this. Spoiler free for ending if possible?

My guess is, it has something to do with telephone operators like the many different units, or maybe it represents the many rooms in Shaker Heights Nursing Home? Or maybe it has some connection to Wittgensteins note on language....? Or I'm over thinking this and it's just different sections of chapters to show a different train of thought/different character scene. It's trippy though cause he will start back at /a/ at the beginning of a new numerical chapter that feels like it could have been another scene change, and thus another alphabetical section in that chapter (especially when the majority of stuff happens in 1990 anyway, and the next chapter says 1990 again).

I think it would be fun to read a chapter a week and then discuss it. No one in my own personal life enjoys DFW.

Someone here inspired me to reread certain sections of The Pale King, a chunk related to what ails political society. Afterward, I reread section 6, published as Good People in the New Yorker. Damn, what a beautiful piece of writing.

Hey there, I need help finding a quote. I think it is from David foster wallace but I am not sure. It goes something like: a self obsessed person or a narcissistic person does not think of themselves out of admiration but the way a wounded animal does. They keep checking for their instactness. Please help. Idk if what I asked was coherent..🙂

Hello!

I know it sounds a bit whacky, but I was wondering if anyone had recommendations on media personalities who have a similar vibe to Joel's monologues on the radio in Infinite Jest. It lives rent-free in my head, and I have never encountered a podcaster/youtuber or whatever who is that well-spoken/eloquent/droll.

Thanks for hearing me out!