In a pre-LLM world, this kind of word waffling nonsense would seem impressive, but as someone who picked it up to see what it’s about in a post-LLM world… I have few good things to say about this style of pointless writing.
It’s something that I used to excel at too: a long litany of rhythmically satisfying prose that showcased your penchant for picking out the perfect words to soothe the literary soul whilst saying absolutely nothing at the same time.
Then I learned how to write to clear English, and realised that I valued plot over filler most of all in a story.
I’m sorry, Mr Wallace, I just can’t read your book any more.
I took a crack at Infinite Jest maybe 10-12 years ago and found it extremely tedious to get through the first few hundred pages before I put it down. I’m weirdly edified that LLMs have taken the wind out of this sort of literary masturbation.
I’d argue that Infinite Jest is more relevant than ever. Perhaps its boring how much his prescient world resembles our own, with its everlasting entertainment feeds, overwhelming sponsorship of every aspect of life, nuclear proliferation, quiet desperation, and quieter hope.
The out-of-order telling definitely obscures the plot(s), but they are there. And like many of the author’s choices, this structure stands in stark contrast to an LLM’s output. While an LLM always outputs the most likely next token, Infinite Jest refuses to be predictable. While a slop feeder just slurps whatever shows up in the trough, a Jest reader cannot idly consume, but must actively interact to receive any fulfillment.
Far from wankish performatism, the book deals with heavy themes including depression, drug addiction/recovery, and suicide. These were sadly demonstrated to be very personally familiar themes to the author.
And it’s an interesting, colorful world with bits that just stick with you, from “cartographic rearrangement” to the game of eschaton, to those crazy French Canadians jumping tracks at the last moment (and their leader chosen because he timed his jump so perfectly he lost his legs but lived).
I’m not sure the juice is worth the squeeze, and wouldn’t recommend it to someone who doesn’t want to read an esoteric 1000-page tome with chapter-long endnotes-of-endnotes-of-endnotes. But those who labor to crack this pomegranate will still enjoy many a plump pip.
I finished it in my year of 52 books. I remembering having two bookmarks running to move between the footnotes references and the main novel. You need it for the 30+ page footnotes references. I think I enjoyed it?
I tried reading Infinite Jest for the first time.
In a pre-LLM world, this kind of word waffling nonsense would seem impressive, but as someone who picked it up to see what it’s about in a post-LLM world… I have few good things to say about this style of pointless writing.
It’s something that I used to excel at too: a long litany of rhythmically satisfying prose that showcased your penchant for picking out the perfect words to soothe the literary soul whilst saying absolutely nothing at the same time.
Then I learned how to write to clear English, and realised that I valued plot over filler most of all in a story.
I’m sorry, Mr Wallace, I just can’t read your book any more.
I took a crack at Infinite Jest maybe 10-12 years ago and found it extremely tedious to get through the first few hundred pages before I put it down. I’m weirdly edified that LLMs have taken the wind out of this sort of literary masturbation.
Yes, same, and well described
I’d argue that Infinite Jest is more relevant than ever. Perhaps its boring how much his prescient world resembles our own, with its everlasting entertainment feeds, overwhelming sponsorship of every aspect of life, nuclear proliferation, quiet desperation, and quieter hope.
The out-of-order telling definitely obscures the plot(s), but they are there. And like many of the author’s choices, this structure stands in stark contrast to an LLM’s output. While an LLM always outputs the most likely next token, Infinite Jest refuses to be predictable. While a slop feeder just slurps whatever shows up in the trough, a Jest reader cannot idly consume, but must actively interact to receive any fulfillment.
Far from wankish performatism, the book deals with heavy themes including depression, drug addiction/recovery, and suicide. These were sadly demonstrated to be very personally familiar themes to the author.
And it’s an interesting, colorful world with bits that just stick with you, from “cartographic rearrangement” to the game of eschaton, to those crazy French Canadians jumping tracks at the last moment (and their leader chosen because he timed his jump so perfectly he lost his legs but lived).
I’m not sure the juice is worth the squeeze, and wouldn’t recommend it to someone who doesn’t want to read an esoteric 1000-page tome with chapter-long endnotes-of-endnotes-of-endnotes. But those who labor to crack this pomegranate will still enjoy many a plump pip.
I finished it in my year of 52 books. I remembering having two bookmarks running to move between the footnotes references and the main novel. You need it for the 30+ page footnotes references. I think I enjoyed it?
This is me and gravitys rainbow rn