DFW would be happy to know that there are people who see the goal of IJ as entering into a conversation or a relationship with the author

This is probably the most informative and truly exciting video I’ve seen on infinite jest, congratulations

@CalebSmith3

3 жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

The amazon reviews are wild man. One review said it’s worst than second grade writing and another said it’s a magnum opus, classic in American literature.

@bluegregory6239

8 ай бұрын

Some people have better taste than others, or are able to recognize greatness when they read it. I would tend to doubt that those who call it 'second grade writing' have a reading level higher than second grade.

This video has been added to my re-re-re-re-watchable videos cause it absolutely slaps

@CalebSmith3

3 жыл бұрын

That is does

@aedelus

3 жыл бұрын

Mega Dittos!

I was in AA for a decade, saved my life, but there is a anti making friends vibe there (this isn't a social club, it's a place to save your life); didn't really get help outside meetings (rides to the air port or flowers while in hospital). There's also a lot of transience. I think AA during Bill W.'s time was much more social like in IJ. Now it's just as flaky feel good as the rest of society. This was in San Francisco, btw. So there you go.

@JRInnes

Жыл бұрын

Agreed!

Best video on the book I’ve been able to find! Thank you for your sharp insight!

@CalebSmith3

3 жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

You're crushing it here. Thank you, Theophile!

This video was very helpful! I’m a 13 year old looking to read books of this nature, this video certainly convinced me to read it!

@itsallgoodman4108

Жыл бұрын

Get more life experience then try this

@ftlbaby

9 ай бұрын

Also try: The Crying of Lot 49

I would love a similiar brakdown of Alan Moore's "Jerusalem"

Great video. But where did DFW say you have to be a better person by reading my book? It just doesn't sound that it comes from him, in all way he is just so humble and self-conscious.

Man this book is hunting me. I've been watching a lot of wallace interview and he really was a very interesting human being... Great video!

You explain your thoughts so well. Thank you!

Thank you for helping me to understand this incredible book which blew my little mind. The book definitely makes more sense to me now. Keep it up 👍

Thank you so much for what you do sir! The wisdom and analyses you share is such a privilege to consooom.

Really interesting! I'm going to put it somewhere on my 'to read' list, after I read Silence by Shusaku Endo. Also, looking forward to your video on the Confessions (the only book I have already read haha). Keep up with both cultural and theological videos, great presentations and commentaries.

@CalebSmith3

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks, glad you enjoy them!

I’ve read IJ more than a few times. I love the book for many reasons but more than anything else it’s the humor and the insight into the mindsets of such seemingly diverse types of people. But one thing that “bugs” me, and if I’m being picayune or pedantic, just tell me and I’ll shut up. But I can’t seem to wrap my head around all the “pretends”. Pretending to sniffle. Pretending to fall over. Pretending to pretend to sneeze. I see how it ties in to Marathe’s double/triple agent storyline (and the more you read this book the more you see how many things do tie into each other brilliantly). But these seem to me things that you either do or don’t do. As in no middle ground. You can sniffle unnecessarily, but I don’t see how you can FAKE that. I’d love to hear anybody else’s thoughts on this. Thanks very much.

I’m enjoying your explanation as much as the book and I’m cool with that

Wow! I'm sold, You got me with the predictions. I rarely if ever read fiction. But a mind capable Of accurately predicting What's coming for human society is of great interest to me. This is reminding me of the unibomber manifesto........ Having a deep understanding of both culture and psychology, It's very impressive to me.

Great video. I'll never read a 1,000+ page book again, but the style of this reminds me of 'The Big U'

Wow, so excellent. Deserves another listen.

amazing content. thanks

Awesome video. Thanks.

What the hell are you talking about? Just kidding. Great video! Very inciteful and helpful. I’m reading IJ for the first time after roughly a dozen starts, where I read the first 100 or so pages and then gave up. I’ve had the same experience with Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow”. Would love to get your thoughts on that. All the best!

I can say most people I served with in the navy reacted to suicide very similarly with no compassion or empathy I personally was not suicidal but I can say I had never meet so many people who wanted to kill themselves I would help someone if they needed it and I was close to them but most people were heartless monsters who would do anything to get ahead I remember talking to a friend of mine before I left who was suicidal and he told me that I was the most caring and helpful person to talk to about his problems everyone else didn't care or had some unhelpful thing to say to him when he would vent to them and he would tell me some of the things other people would say to him and I would say their just stupid they re-enlisted and they hate there life's being here why would they want to stay here longer and id also tell him that most of the people he talks to aren't true to themselves or others they are just an image of what they want other people to see them as for example the main other person he was talking to would appeal to authority on everything and he stabbed me in the back when he first got to the ship and I told him "is that really someone you can trust who only portrays what other people want him to be and lies to make himself look better and is that someone whos opinion matters when he does things like that." he eventual stopped talking to him as much because he wasn't really making his situation any better and on top of that he was pretty much using that experience of "helping him" as something to brag about to girls or other people who didn't know him well enough to know he was full of $h1t. I also never meet so many scumbags and idiots in my life. I guess what he had said had really resonated with me and my situation

Holy Shit! You nailed that review man, thanks

Infinite Jest is labor and it wants you to cherish the act of expending labor for reward. You spend the labor to read this (even from the authors point of view) very technically difficult book and walk away rewarded by 1.having accomplished reading the actual thing and more importantly 2. By applying the value of that spent time/labor to the words you read, giving them MORE value and meaning than others words have. This realization is supposed to simply be that expending labor to accomplish a task is what makes us human, and when we eliminate that journey with technological means, well, we stop caring about what those tasks meant. We stop caring about labor. Do you understand boo-boo?

Great video!! ❤️

@CalebSmith3

3 жыл бұрын

Glad you liked it!!

My take is DFW is explaining the only way someone will be satisfied who has had something taken from them is when the thing is taken away. It means an eye for an eye.

new fav channel

"Revolution isn't sexy."-------------> "Clean you room."

19:09 kinda sorta off topic but I’m what you might call a “secularist” (really I’m more like an agnostic deist but whatever) and I’d just like to say that this approach would not work IF the evangelist simply dismissed my answer to his question about the coming storm. I just imagine thinking it over in front of him and then giving a verbose yet thoughtful answer, only to then be shot down with “Nah, I don’t like your answer. How’s about Jesus??” Yeah, I’m closing the door right in his face after that one lololol

Thanks for the review about this book. So good. Now, would you mind writing a Cliff Notes or Spark Notes for this book as I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get through it.

@CalebSmith3

3 жыл бұрын

That's a good suggestion, I think that would be fun to try and summarize the plot!

Audible dropping Infinite Jest on the 23rd.

great great great video

The best character in Infinite Jest is far and away Stavros Lobokulus, the second is Lyle though. Caleb, I will sub if you tell me Stavros' dream, and his motivation.

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I never hated it because it was cool. I hated it because of all the run-on sentences, and plot threads that go absolutely nowhere.

Deep without making it seem deep(dark)

Could you recommend some introductory or less intimidating DFW material? I’d like to read him, but 1000 pages seems like a lot to undertake right now.

@kvstw

3 жыл бұрын

The broom of the system

@christopherhamilton3621

Жыл бұрын

A supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again. Essay’s. ‘Broom’ is a great start…

You don't like the writing in Dune or the premise? The language was so beautiful in that book, imo.

@ftlbaby

2 ай бұрын

Disagree. Frank Herbert did not write beautiful prose, at least not in Dune. It's mediocre at best. IMO ; ) I was only able to listen to it after Dune Part 2 grounded me in the emotions of the characters. Before that I attempted reading it many times since becoming a voracious SF reader around 1984. Now Infinite Jest, that is beautiful language.

“genera”??? you mean ‘genre’ you goliath shrimp lmao

Hyper-realist speculative fiction.

Why don't you stop talking about what everyone is writing and start teaching the lost? Obedience to the words of Christ is the same as God's words.