Comments on: Nick Maniatis: In Search of Firm Ground

By: HTMLGIANT

HTMLGIANT — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 01:16:27 +0000

[...] Maniatis, master of The Howling Fantods, remembers David Foster Wallace at Infinite Summer. Tags: david foster [...]

By: Doug

Doug — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:30:26 +0000

I put down my book yesterday getting a few pages ahead of the next milestone and I realized that I had read the last 35 pages almost twice as fast as I had read some of the more engrossing moments in the middle of the book. My head felt full, ruling out re-reading, but I felt a little distraught that I surely missed details of something I’ve grown to love so much.

That was when I realized I had no choice to reread this book at some point.

By: OneBigParty

OneBigParty — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 04:56:41 +0000

I hesitate to jump in here for obvious reasons but I’ve got to say that I can’t help but feeling that the difference in opinion has to do with some people seeing the book as more comic than anything else while I and perhaps others see various very serious themes overshadowing the comical ones. I’d be interested to know which it is for Nick. Please correct me if I’m wrong about this, but for most of the bloggers on IJ that I’m starting to read more of now that I’ve had time to first formulate my own opinions, it seems to be more of a serious book. Since I personally think books are life (and they mostly *are* *my* life), I will always agree that they can be life-changing. Still, if Brian sees IJ as “wickedly comic” (as one blurb says on the back of my copy) overall, rather than how I’ve been mostly seeing it, I can sort of understand the complexity inherent in his seemingly solipsistic–as Greg Carlisle pointed out–even contradictory sentiments. (Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any sympathy for the way he put them.)

Apropos of this, I recently thought that I’m taking, as a for-instance, say, the description of Marathe’s over-the-top hideous wife way too seriously, and it’s not, as some have said in response to a post I made about it, primarily a serious instructive example of how love/self-sacrifice can transcend even aesthetics in a relationship, it’s main purpose is to be “wickedly funny”.

Thank you for your great post, Nick. (Please, though, elaborate sometime perhaps in your blog, how IJ teaches you that “double binds make you stronger”, I’m not sure I understand that.)

By: Greg Carlisle

Greg Carlisle — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:58:15 +0000

Well, I responded because I had such a complex reaction to what Brian said. First, knee-jerk anger. Then, wait, is he saying we should get our heads out of the book and focus on people? That sounds like what the book is trying to get us to do. Then, the extra tag about laughing at AA seemed to negate that again. And I should have posted what I just wrote instead of my earlier post with the high-snark factor. In our postmodern philosophy (Wallace’s too) of the book being completed in the reader, we have to consider anyone’s reaction valid, even knowing what Wallace said about his authorial intentions in interviews. Granted it’s hard to see how what Brian said relates to the book, but that makes sense b/c he downplays the importance of books, but then IJ is his favorite book and he posted here. I find this to be a complex situation.

By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:44:59 +0000

can we just stop even acknowledging the brian-warden-type posts? if someone can’t see the value in seriously investing in difficult literature (or even respecting the investment), only one of us is wasting time by engaging in an argument about it.

Thank you Nick for the work you’ve done in keeping up howling fantods. You are dead on with your description of the last 200 pages.

By: Greg Carlisle

Greg Carlisle — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:19:29 +0000

The fact that the book changes someone’s life says something about the book’s ability to heighten a reader’s empathy for other people, which I believe was Wallace’s intent. The fact that you can laugh at AA after reading the book says more about your life than about the book and is an example of the solipsism decried by Infinite Jest and This Is Water.

By: brian warden

brian warden — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 03:24:35 +0000

And I still laugh at AA, especially because of IJ.

By: brian warden

brian warden — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 03:22:55 +0000

Get a life; the book -nay, any book- isn’t all that. That this book has that big an effect on your life says far more about your life, or lack thereof, than it says about the book. I’ve read Jest 2 and 1/3 times and would probably consider it my favorite book of all time, yet I would never consider it to be the life changer you describe.

By: Matt Mc

Matt Mc — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:38:52 +0000

I too found that the last 2 or 300 pages felt very much like running (or rolling, perhaps) full speed down a very steep hill. It took me some seven months or so to get to p. 600 (due to work-related reading), but it took a couple of weeks to finish it out from there. So much is thrown at you so quickly, and I think that by the time you’re at that point, you have “learned” how to read IJ. You’ve picked up on Wallace’s linguistic nuances and quirks enough that you’re not spending two days dissecting a paragraph. And again, the beauty of the book is that, once you hit that last half page, you immediately return to the Year of Glad. What an excellent jest on the part of Mr. Wallace.

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:01:31 +0000

Your verbal dexterity is once again a joy, Greg It turns out I am that Irish scholar you suspect. It’ll be a shame not to see you in New York.