Read for the second time in February 2013.
I read "Breakfast of Champions" for the first time about 12 years ago in the midst of a Vonnegut reading frenzy. Elements stuck out for me over the years. In this one, Vonnegut relays one of my favorite aborted stories of his about two yeast cells, consuming sugar and shitting out alcohol, slowly killing themselves in the process. The talk to each other about why they are doing this, neither one with the imagination to realize that they are making champagne. I also remembered the main plot about a mentally ill man coming to believe he was the only person with free will in the universe thanks to a book by Kilgore Trout.
A lot of it, I did not remember at all though. It did not completely hold up for me as among one of Vonnegut's best works. he flaws are more apparent to me now, than they were those many years ago, speed-reading through Vonnegut without digesting. I think things I think are flaws now, I might've thought were strengths back then. Back then I was in awe of Vonnegut's crazy imagination. Now, I think maybe he was a frustrated short story writer, shoehorning aborted ideas into novels where they might not have really fit.
Of course, Vonnegut is still funny. He's still entertaining. His ideas should be read more broadly. I still firmly believe that America would be a better place if more people read and took Vonnegut seriously. In "Breakfast of Champions," which I read in order to take a break from Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zararthustra" (which is great but slow going for me), Vonnegut wrestles in his accessible way with materialism (In the Hegelian philosophical sense) and his cheery nihilism finds itself at battle with his humanism.
To Vonnegut, the line between inanimate machines and animate ones is a very thin one. Vonnegut, here, wrestles with the implications that human actions are involuntary responses to chemical reactions. That human beings behave very much like machines. There is also quite a bit of presenting the absurdity of the world we live in by conveying the world we live in as if it were a strange world in a science fiction novel. That is, he is writing in a style of fantastic science fiction, but about the mundane world we live in and recognize, not a fantastic one. At its best it satirizes human folly. At its worst, it's a little bit too cute, and almost as bad as some of the whimsical bullshit that would follow in Vonnegut's wake.
Vonnegut also tries to strike some personal notes in this. I'm not sure the story isn't better without them. I'm not sure the story isn't better without Vonnegut in it either. And certainly, I don't think this book ends on a strong note. Nonetheless, Vonnegut is almost always entertaining and he's almost always interesting as well. "Breakfast of Champions" is no exception, despite some apparent flaws, it is still a work worthy of great admiration.
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
God Bless You Mr. Rosewater - Kurt Vonnegut
Read for the first time in January 2013.
"God Bless You Mr. Rosewater" is one of Vonnegut's weaker efforts. It is still much better than his least works "Timequake" and "Player Piano." The common thread here is a smug self-righteousness that undermines his schtick. Speaking of schtick, it is one of those occasions when you are conscious of an author doing his schtick which is something you usually enjoy, but in this instance actually grates for some reason. My biggest complaint though is the tone of condescension Vonnegut takes toward "the masses." It's also my biggest problem with "Timequake" and "Player Piano."
It's not quite that I find his embrace of socialism and charity either wrong or insincere, but it seems done with a phony admiration that is tired and hackneyed. In today's world you can see right-wingers use the same kind of romance to sell tax-cuts for the very rich and demonize a guy like Vonnegut as not a real American, which was probably true enough in Vonnegut's time too. And this itself is no fault of Vonnegut's. What I object to is the cheapness of the tactic.
The fact that I came to use the word tactic, I think speaks volumes about this work. I don't think I would that word while discussing Vonnegut at his best. A tactic is used by someone with an argument to make. And though I would never say Vonnegut is not making an argument in his works - He is a deeply moral author with something to say about how we should live - I would say that the body of his arguments are not so nakedly evident in his best work.
No Vonnegut's pedanticism is hidden in his best works behind his wild creativity, entertaining characters, and brilliantly funny humor. This work does have its share of entertaining characters and at times the humor is as legitimately funny as anything in literature. But again, there are moments when the Vonnegut schtick grates. And again, it often feels as though Vonnegut is a little too smug about the whole thing. And there's that creepy feeling you get where someone seems to be showing their respect for the "working man," but you get the sense, not exactly that Vonnegut doesn't respect them, but that the respect is misapplied and that there is a fundamental disrespect congruent with the sincere respect. Like he respects the working man, but also knows that he could never be one, and lurking in his mind is the belief that this is so because he is in small but important ways better.
That's the charge at its most naked with minimal dancing around. I hate to put it that baldly, but I try to put plainly what I find off-putting in the tone of Vonnegut's writing at times like these and it is the best I can do. Nonetheless, this is one of those Vonnegut books that should be read like some people read the Bible. The world would be a better place if more people read this book. It's just not among his best.
"God Bless You Mr. Rosewater" is one of Vonnegut's weaker efforts. It is still much better than his least works "Timequake" and "Player Piano." The common thread here is a smug self-righteousness that undermines his schtick. Speaking of schtick, it is one of those occasions when you are conscious of an author doing his schtick which is something you usually enjoy, but in this instance actually grates for some reason. My biggest complaint though is the tone of condescension Vonnegut takes toward "the masses." It's also my biggest problem with "Timequake" and "Player Piano."
It's not quite that I find his embrace of socialism and charity either wrong or insincere, but it seems done with a phony admiration that is tired and hackneyed. In today's world you can see right-wingers use the same kind of romance to sell tax-cuts for the very rich and demonize a guy like Vonnegut as not a real American, which was probably true enough in Vonnegut's time too. And this itself is no fault of Vonnegut's. What I object to is the cheapness of the tactic.
The fact that I came to use the word tactic, I think speaks volumes about this work. I don't think I would that word while discussing Vonnegut at his best. A tactic is used by someone with an argument to make. And though I would never say Vonnegut is not making an argument in his works - He is a deeply moral author with something to say about how we should live - I would say that the body of his arguments are not so nakedly evident in his best work.
No Vonnegut's pedanticism is hidden in his best works behind his wild creativity, entertaining characters, and brilliantly funny humor. This work does have its share of entertaining characters and at times the humor is as legitimately funny as anything in literature. But again, there are moments when the Vonnegut schtick grates. And again, it often feels as though Vonnegut is a little too smug about the whole thing. And there's that creepy feeling you get where someone seems to be showing their respect for the "working man," but you get the sense, not exactly that Vonnegut doesn't respect them, but that the respect is misapplied and that there is a fundamental disrespect congruent with the sincere respect. Like he respects the working man, but also knows that he could never be one, and lurking in his mind is the belief that this is so because he is in small but important ways better.
That's the charge at its most naked with minimal dancing around. I hate to put it that baldly, but I try to put plainly what I find off-putting in the tone of Vonnegut's writing at times like these and it is the best I can do. Nonetheless, this is one of those Vonnegut books that should be read like some people read the Bible. The world would be a better place if more people read this book. It's just not among his best.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski
Read for the first time in November 2012.
My favorite thing about “House of Leaves” is the conceit, which is extraordinarily clever. An old guy having written a criticism of a supposed documentary about a strange house dies. The writing is discovered by an aspiring tattoo artist who adds his own journalistic thoughts to the proceedings.
One aspect of this that I don’t like is how it can make it difficult for me to level certain criticisms. This gets difficult to talk about, for there are conceits within conceits operating in this novel. But to try, for example, the notion that Zampano’s purported work is a commentary on “The Navidson Project” completely falls apart due to his excessive summarizing of the on-screen events. This is acknowledged within the novel, but even still, it is too much. Second how long does this “Navidson Project” purport to be? 20 hours? 40 hours? It’s obvious that there is no film at all, but that Zampano is merely telling the fictional Navidson story through the use of a creative conceit.
And of course, by saying this, I’m criticizing Zampano, but I don’t know if I’m criticizing Danielewski. We know outright that even within the fictional world that Zampano and Johnny Truant live in, that this film does not exist. Danielewski creates a character who creates a successful but not entirely convincing conceit. I just feel like the whole thing would have worked even better if every element of the conceit within a conceit was believable in every way. If we really could believe that Zampano’s work was in fact the commentary it purports to be.
I don't know if a third person is capable of untangling those preceding two paragraphs. But I give up on it.
Nonetheless, Zampano’s description of what happens in that film is the best part of the book. This is basically a very good Stephen King story, and I think it’s interesting that we care more about this fake family and what happens in this fake story than we do about the purportedly “real” characters, like Johnny Truant and Zampano. And of course this is absurd because they aren’t any more real than the Navidsons just a step removed. I also especially enjoyed reading Johnny Truant’s letters from his mother. Those were a highlight for me.
The structure is something I have some ambivalence about. There are times when I think putting three lines of text on a whole page enhances the experience of reading that novel. It enhances the suspense of some of the most suspenseful moments. Some of the details about crossing things out or words or pages lost to ink splots or whatever enhances a kind of fake authenticity, as well. And I think it also does a good job of reflecting structurally the mental deterioration of both Zampano and Johnny Truant. But it also is annoying at times, especially all of the footnote games around the most boring part of this thing and also, basically all of exploration number five.
I also don’t know how I feel about Johnny Truant as a character. I don’t know that I ever fully bought into him. Except to say, he’s made to be an exceptionally good liar/story-teller and that creates another layer of question for this thing in my mind. Also the portrayal of his mental deterioration was some goddamned good writing in my opinion. But outside of that, he lacked charisma to me, and I don’t know how to take his lack of education on one hand and his sometimes exceptional vocabulary on the other. I definitely feel like the Navidson’s story is the one that draws our affinities and creates suspense.
One other neat trick, I thought was how everyone goes crazy. Zampano says in his work, people who thought about and wrote about the Navidson project developed mental problems. He apparently develops them himself. Johnny Truant starts to read Zampano’s work and writes about it himself. Then we see him go crazy, too. And of course, here we are reading it ourselves, book in hand. Do we take the admonition not to think about it? Do we dare write about it? Shall we start down that spiral staircase or turn back?
It’s a cool trick. This is a pretty cool book. Like I said, it’s like a good Stephen King novel, but with experimental flourishes. I don’t call it a gimmick. But I am curious as to where in terms of writing Danielewski’s passions lie.
My favorite thing about “House of Leaves” is the conceit, which is extraordinarily clever. An old guy having written a criticism of a supposed documentary about a strange house dies. The writing is discovered by an aspiring tattoo artist who adds his own journalistic thoughts to the proceedings.
One aspect of this that I don’t like is how it can make it difficult for me to level certain criticisms. This gets difficult to talk about, for there are conceits within conceits operating in this novel. But to try, for example, the notion that Zampano’s purported work is a commentary on “The Navidson Project” completely falls apart due to his excessive summarizing of the on-screen events. This is acknowledged within the novel, but even still, it is too much. Second how long does this “Navidson Project” purport to be? 20 hours? 40 hours? It’s obvious that there is no film at all, but that Zampano is merely telling the fictional Navidson story through the use of a creative conceit.
And of course, by saying this, I’m criticizing Zampano, but I don’t know if I’m criticizing Danielewski. We know outright that even within the fictional world that Zampano and Johnny Truant live in, that this film does not exist. Danielewski creates a character who creates a successful but not entirely convincing conceit. I just feel like the whole thing would have worked even better if every element of the conceit within a conceit was believable in every way. If we really could believe that Zampano’s work was in fact the commentary it purports to be.
I don't know if a third person is capable of untangling those preceding two paragraphs. But I give up on it.
Nonetheless, Zampano’s description of what happens in that film is the best part of the book. This is basically a very good Stephen King story, and I think it’s interesting that we care more about this fake family and what happens in this fake story than we do about the purportedly “real” characters, like Johnny Truant and Zampano. And of course this is absurd because they aren’t any more real than the Navidsons just a step removed. I also especially enjoyed reading Johnny Truant’s letters from his mother. Those were a highlight for me.
The structure is something I have some ambivalence about. There are times when I think putting three lines of text on a whole page enhances the experience of reading that novel. It enhances the suspense of some of the most suspenseful moments. Some of the details about crossing things out or words or pages lost to ink splots or whatever enhances a kind of fake authenticity, as well. And I think it also does a good job of reflecting structurally the mental deterioration of both Zampano and Johnny Truant. But it also is annoying at times, especially all of the footnote games around the most boring part of this thing and also, basically all of exploration number five.
I also don’t know how I feel about Johnny Truant as a character. I don’t know that I ever fully bought into him. Except to say, he’s made to be an exceptionally good liar/story-teller and that creates another layer of question for this thing in my mind. Also the portrayal of his mental deterioration was some goddamned good writing in my opinion. But outside of that, he lacked charisma to me, and I don’t know how to take his lack of education on one hand and his sometimes exceptional vocabulary on the other. I definitely feel like the Navidson’s story is the one that draws our affinities and creates suspense.
One other neat trick, I thought was how everyone goes crazy. Zampano says in his work, people who thought about and wrote about the Navidson project developed mental problems. He apparently develops them himself. Johnny Truant starts to read Zampano’s work and writes about it himself. Then we see him go crazy, too. And of course, here we are reading it ourselves, book in hand. Do we take the admonition not to think about it? Do we dare write about it? Shall we start down that spiral staircase or turn back?
It’s a cool trick. This is a pretty cool book. Like I said, it’s like a good Stephen King novel, but with experimental flourishes. I don’t call it a gimmick. But I am curious as to where in terms of writing Danielewski’s passions lie.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
A cool Million - Nathaneal West
Read for the first time in October 2012.
Nathaneal West is in my opinion one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century based on the strength of “Dear Miss Lonelyhearts” and “The Day of the Locust.” “A Cool Million” is a lesser work. A sometimes clever and occasionally funny satire, it is of its time. It’s part “Candide” spoof and part Horatio Alger spoof that works to indict the American dream. It retains some resonance today, particularly in these times of economic woe, but the humor and the politics are unfortunately dated. The phrase, “International Jewish Bankers,” for example, is funny only for its quaintness as an opinion to ridicule. That paranoia has been replaced by different paranoias.
But how good might this have been in its own day? Probably not as good as Sinclair Lewis’s “Babbitt,” but nonetheless certainly darker. This is filled with straight up black comedy that makes Sinclair Lewis’s anti-Americanisms seem downright wholesome. Rape, forced prostitution, racism and mutilation are played for jokes here. And that might be something I would frown upon in a different context, but here ambition and reputation meet the method of ironic distance in an equilibrium that does not trouble me.
There’s one very good line where the main character’s mentor tells him “My boy, I believe I once told you that you had an almost certain chance to succeed because you were born poor and on a farm. Let me now tell you that your chance is even better because you have been to prison.” Another is the exchange where the main character expresses his innocence to a crime and the prosecutor responds “So was Christ and they nailed him.” Those were probably the two memorable laugh out loud moments for me.
All in all, this is an entertaining novella, if a bit slight, but nonetheless indicative of the potential West would later reveal. The darkness of some of the content is probably the most notable thing about it though.
Nathaneal West is in my opinion one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century based on the strength of “Dear Miss Lonelyhearts” and “The Day of the Locust.” “A Cool Million” is a lesser work. A sometimes clever and occasionally funny satire, it is of its time. It’s part “Candide” spoof and part Horatio Alger spoof that works to indict the American dream. It retains some resonance today, particularly in these times of economic woe, but the humor and the politics are unfortunately dated. The phrase, “International Jewish Bankers,” for example, is funny only for its quaintness as an opinion to ridicule. That paranoia has been replaced by different paranoias.
But how good might this have been in its own day? Probably not as good as Sinclair Lewis’s “Babbitt,” but nonetheless certainly darker. This is filled with straight up black comedy that makes Sinclair Lewis’s anti-Americanisms seem downright wholesome. Rape, forced prostitution, racism and mutilation are played for jokes here. And that might be something I would frown upon in a different context, but here ambition and reputation meet the method of ironic distance in an equilibrium that does not trouble me.
There’s one very good line where the main character’s mentor tells him “My boy, I believe I once told you that you had an almost certain chance to succeed because you were born poor and on a farm. Let me now tell you that your chance is even better because you have been to prison.” Another is the exchange where the main character expresses his innocence to a crime and the prosecutor responds “So was Christ and they nailed him.” Those were probably the two memorable laugh out loud moments for me.
All in all, this is an entertaining novella, if a bit slight, but nonetheless indicative of the potential West would later reveal. The darkness of some of the content is probably the most notable thing about it though.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner
Read for the second time in October 2012.
I’ve long held this, along with “The Sound and the Fury” as my two favorite Faulkner novels, though “The Sound and the Fury” is the one which I have found myself re-reading with periodic frequency. This is possibly because so much of the first half of the “The Sound and the Fury” is difficult to comprehend. I still don’t quite know where Benji gets castrated for example, and I’ve read the book probably five times.
“Absalom, Absalom!” is just as difficult it turns out. Faulkner’s prose, which has no equal that I am aware of, frequently ascends into some kind of exalted gibberish, more difficult to parse than anything in “The Sound and The Fury.” I don’t try to parse it all. I somehow absorb the story and relish in the beauty of his writing and let my incomprehension evaporate into the ether.
But what I love about Faulkner, at his best, is the way real human suffering is imposed from real human character’s attempts to assert control over a universe in which they have none. There is, from the onset, a palpable sense of fated doom. This is Shakespeare brought to the South. One parallel between “Absalom, Absalom!” and “The Sound and the Fury” which may account for the reverence for which I hold each, is the ineffectual internal indecisiveness of Henry Sutpen and Quentin Compson (in “The Sound and The Fury” specifically though he appears in both). Faulkner does an exceedingly good job of depicting internal struggle and anguish in his novels, of characters torn by internal conflict.
I’m also impressed by Faulkner’s mockery of manifestations of human vanity, things like honor and glory. He writes a nice soap opera, and the richness of the southern background. Of pride mixed with the humiliation of defeat. Of a way of life that he criticizes bitterly and yet still will not fully repudiate. Faulkner’s depiction of the human condition is so focused and honest, it’s jaw-dropping. He’s never swayed by sentimentality or misplaced anguish, but seems to always be endeavoring for the truth despite the futility involved.
With a keen eye, Faulkner grapples with and depicts the truth as honestly as he possibly can, and yet despite that truth, human emotion and suffering are still treated with importance. He does not take the god’s eye view of humanity where nihilism is taken to its most logical end and suffering is a source of lighthearted diversion. He gives us the world as it is, lack of meaning and futility and all, and allows us to feel the self-created anguish of real characters without ironic distance, and thus all the more poignant because we know just how futile it is.
This is why Faulkner is the best to me, and why the post-modernists with their educated references and empty intellectualism and comic-book tones are only entertainment. I distinguish between literature for intellectuals and literature as art. And, to me, Faulkner is literature as art, and the very best of it at that.
I’ve long held this, along with “The Sound and the Fury” as my two favorite Faulkner novels, though “The Sound and the Fury” is the one which I have found myself re-reading with periodic frequency. This is possibly because so much of the first half of the “The Sound and the Fury” is difficult to comprehend. I still don’t quite know where Benji gets castrated for example, and I’ve read the book probably five times.
“Absalom, Absalom!” is just as difficult it turns out. Faulkner’s prose, which has no equal that I am aware of, frequently ascends into some kind of exalted gibberish, more difficult to parse than anything in “The Sound and The Fury.” I don’t try to parse it all. I somehow absorb the story and relish in the beauty of his writing and let my incomprehension evaporate into the ether.
But what I love about Faulkner, at his best, is the way real human suffering is imposed from real human character’s attempts to assert control over a universe in which they have none. There is, from the onset, a palpable sense of fated doom. This is Shakespeare brought to the South. One parallel between “Absalom, Absalom!” and “The Sound and the Fury” which may account for the reverence for which I hold each, is the ineffectual internal indecisiveness of Henry Sutpen and Quentin Compson (in “The Sound and The Fury” specifically though he appears in both). Faulkner does an exceedingly good job of depicting internal struggle and anguish in his novels, of characters torn by internal conflict.
I’m also impressed by Faulkner’s mockery of manifestations of human vanity, things like honor and glory. He writes a nice soap opera, and the richness of the southern background. Of pride mixed with the humiliation of defeat. Of a way of life that he criticizes bitterly and yet still will not fully repudiate. Faulkner’s depiction of the human condition is so focused and honest, it’s jaw-dropping. He’s never swayed by sentimentality or misplaced anguish, but seems to always be endeavoring for the truth despite the futility involved.
With a keen eye, Faulkner grapples with and depicts the truth as honestly as he possibly can, and yet despite that truth, human emotion and suffering are still treated with importance. He does not take the god’s eye view of humanity where nihilism is taken to its most logical end and suffering is a source of lighthearted diversion. He gives us the world as it is, lack of meaning and futility and all, and allows us to feel the self-created anguish of real characters without ironic distance, and thus all the more poignant because we know just how futile it is.
This is why Faulkner is the best to me, and why the post-modernists with their educated references and empty intellectualism and comic-book tones are only entertainment. I distinguish between literature for intellectuals and literature as art. And, to me, Faulkner is literature as art, and the very best of it at that.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
The Dwarf - Par Lagerkvist
Read for the first time in September/October 2012.
It took me over 4 weeks to read the first hundred or so pages of this book, not because they were difficult to read, but because the book failed to engage or interest me in that time. I then, finally, just knocked out the last hundred or so pages late last night in a couple of hours.
My thoughts on the book are a lot different upon finishing it than what I was thinking during the first hundred pages or so, where I was bored by this evil little dwarf ‘s thoughts. He was at times funny in an over the top way, but the book felt more like an exercise than a work of literature. The downside was that I felt like George R.R. Martin, of all people, had created a more interesting character. The upshot was that I ruminated a little bit about what it even means to be evil.
What does “evil” mean in the real world? Or is this only a concept that exists in comic books and cartoons? Can we appropriate it into a real life concept in a more nuanced fashion? If we do, is it basically, practically speaking, a word we use to describe people who are not like we are and who are a threat to us in some material way?
This is an idiosyncratic response I suppose. There is nothing in this book intended to take you on this route. Instead, the dwarf is evil in a comic book way, but also in a realistic human way. If you took every negative human impulse and refused to balance it with any sense of human empathy or charity, then you would get the dwarf. There’s a quote on the cover that says “The evil in the dwarf’s nature is in ours, too-is universal.” And that is true. I think it does a good job of giving us that half of our own story.
The last hundred or so pages are far better than the first hundred or so though. Things start to actually happen. There is war and intrigue and murder. The dwarf is a lot funnier as well. Also, was no longer quite so convinced that Tyrion Lannister was a more complicated and engaging character. There are some scenes where the dwarf paints human beings as misanthropically as anything Swift did. Especially his revulsion at watching them indulge their appetites. The novel is justified on the back end, but it’s weakness remains the fact it seems to have been conceived as a writing exercise.
It took me over 4 weeks to read the first hundred or so pages of this book, not because they were difficult to read, but because the book failed to engage or interest me in that time. I then, finally, just knocked out the last hundred or so pages late last night in a couple of hours.
My thoughts on the book are a lot different upon finishing it than what I was thinking during the first hundred pages or so, where I was bored by this evil little dwarf ‘s thoughts. He was at times funny in an over the top way, but the book felt more like an exercise than a work of literature. The downside was that I felt like George R.R. Martin, of all people, had created a more interesting character. The upshot was that I ruminated a little bit about what it even means to be evil.
What does “evil” mean in the real world? Or is this only a concept that exists in comic books and cartoons? Can we appropriate it into a real life concept in a more nuanced fashion? If we do, is it basically, practically speaking, a word we use to describe people who are not like we are and who are a threat to us in some material way?
This is an idiosyncratic response I suppose. There is nothing in this book intended to take you on this route. Instead, the dwarf is evil in a comic book way, but also in a realistic human way. If you took every negative human impulse and refused to balance it with any sense of human empathy or charity, then you would get the dwarf. There’s a quote on the cover that says “The evil in the dwarf’s nature is in ours, too-is universal.” And that is true. I think it does a good job of giving us that half of our own story.
The last hundred or so pages are far better than the first hundred or so though. Things start to actually happen. There is war and intrigue and murder. The dwarf is a lot funnier as well. Also, was no longer quite so convinced that Tyrion Lannister was a more complicated and engaging character. There are some scenes where the dwarf paints human beings as misanthropically as anything Swift did. Especially his revulsion at watching them indulge their appetites. The novel is justified on the back end, but it’s weakness remains the fact it seems to have been conceived as a writing exercise.
Monday, September 17, 2012
The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
Read for the second time in September 2012.
Upon finishing Palm Sunday, I decided to embark on a reread of Vonnegut’s works. I chose Sirens of Titan, because although I didn’t remember it as the best, I found the idea behind the story the most compelling. That idea being that the whole purpose of the human race was to deliver a replacement part for a spaceship to a stranded messenger from another galaxy, stuck on one of Saturn’s moons. I recall fondly the playful way Vonnegut told this tale with a nihilistic whimsy and I remain impressed by it.
Vonnegut also invents a new religion here. I think this is something he was fond of doing early in his career. The gist of this religion is that god is indifferent to human beings. You take care of each other and I’ll take care of myself is the message of this religion’s god. As presented by Vonnegut, it seems like an inarguably great religion, an improvement for humanity if we had the ability to embrace it. But I lack Vonnegut’s talents, and it sounds depressing in my own words.
Another thing about this religion is that people handicap their advantages, and this leads to people forgoing the desire to take advantage of others. I’m not 100% enthused by the invented religion in execution, but I’d prefer if it, and not scientology, had succeeded into having real world converts.
There seems to be a strange breach of logic when one character tells another character to pay attention to his future son’s good luck object, and then that same character sees to it that that character’s memory is erased. That conversation must be their for the reader’s benefit. Tsk Tsk.
I remain convinced that the world would be a better place if everyone read and studied Vonnegut. But I also realize that human nature being what it is, people would still be shitty to each other. It’s not as easy as making up a new religion. It’s not religion’s fault that people are shitty to each other; religion is merely an excuse or a pretext. Everything has a material explanation.
That’s what religion blamers don’t really understand. Religion isn’t even really a comfort for people, but a coping mechanism, and probably one is as good as another. The human mind needs something with which it can negotiate for control over all of those things it can’t control. I don’t think Vonnegut understood this at this point in his career or that he ever would. But that’s okay. It’s not really a flaw.
But Vonnegut’s great strength is in recognizing the perspectives that makes human beings do tiny small-minded things that increase the unhappiness in the world. He tries to shift our perspective, so that we might recognize them ourselves and behave in a way that increases the happiness in this world. I think with this book about man’s search for meaning and usefulness, Vonnegut is at his very best in this regard. It’s probably Vonnegut’s most ambitious book in terms of big ideas and probably his most underrated. It belongs on the same tier as Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle.
Ultimately,I think nobody has written more useful parables for the human race since Jesus Christ himself. And let’s face it, a whole lot of Jesus’s parables aren’t really that useful once you realize that the kingdom of god isn’t a real thing.
Upon finishing Palm Sunday, I decided to embark on a reread of Vonnegut’s works. I chose Sirens of Titan, because although I didn’t remember it as the best, I found the idea behind the story the most compelling. That idea being that the whole purpose of the human race was to deliver a replacement part for a spaceship to a stranded messenger from another galaxy, stuck on one of Saturn’s moons. I recall fondly the playful way Vonnegut told this tale with a nihilistic whimsy and I remain impressed by it.
Vonnegut also invents a new religion here. I think this is something he was fond of doing early in his career. The gist of this religion is that god is indifferent to human beings. You take care of each other and I’ll take care of myself is the message of this religion’s god. As presented by Vonnegut, it seems like an inarguably great religion, an improvement for humanity if we had the ability to embrace it. But I lack Vonnegut’s talents, and it sounds depressing in my own words.
Another thing about this religion is that people handicap their advantages, and this leads to people forgoing the desire to take advantage of others. I’m not 100% enthused by the invented religion in execution, but I’d prefer if it, and not scientology, had succeeded into having real world converts.
There seems to be a strange breach of logic when one character tells another character to pay attention to his future son’s good luck object, and then that same character sees to it that that character’s memory is erased. That conversation must be their for the reader’s benefit. Tsk Tsk.
I remain convinced that the world would be a better place if everyone read and studied Vonnegut. But I also realize that human nature being what it is, people would still be shitty to each other. It’s not as easy as making up a new religion. It’s not religion’s fault that people are shitty to each other; religion is merely an excuse or a pretext. Everything has a material explanation.
That’s what religion blamers don’t really understand. Religion isn’t even really a comfort for people, but a coping mechanism, and probably one is as good as another. The human mind needs something with which it can negotiate for control over all of those things it can’t control. I don’t think Vonnegut understood this at this point in his career or that he ever would. But that’s okay. It’s not really a flaw.
But Vonnegut’s great strength is in recognizing the perspectives that makes human beings do tiny small-minded things that increase the unhappiness in the world. He tries to shift our perspective, so that we might recognize them ourselves and behave in a way that increases the happiness in this world. I think with this book about man’s search for meaning and usefulness, Vonnegut is at his very best in this regard. It’s probably Vonnegut’s most ambitious book in terms of big ideas and probably his most underrated. It belongs on the same tier as Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle.
Ultimately,I think nobody has written more useful parables for the human race since Jesus Christ himself. And let’s face it, a whole lot of Jesus’s parables aren’t really that useful once you realize that the kingdom of god isn’t a real thing.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Journey to the End of the Night - Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Read for the first time in September 2012.
“Journey to the End of the Night” was a slog to get through. There is so very much scene setting and so very little story. I wish that Celine’s protagonist nihilistically ranted less and narrated more. The book seems to span around 15 years for no particularly good reason. Why flit from WWI to Africa To Detroit and back to France, constantly setting the scene at each place for thirty pages or so and then leaving without ever telling a story about it. This book should either be 2000 pages or it should be 200, as it is, it’s a bloated 430 some odd pages, most of them tedious in their unrelenting air of soliloquy.
Beside yourself, long after having given up on enjoying this meandering bloat, but driven to finish it in an eat-your-vegetables state of mind, you find yourself briefly immersed in a flash of story. The business with the old lady and Robinson and Madelon is legitimately engaging. You wish that Celine had spent 200 pages just telling this story, fleshing it out, giving us more brilliant bits like that argument in the taxi-cab. Eh, but no, we get the book Celine has given us… like life itself… amusing at times… even playful… but filled with wretchedness and misery… and ultimately unbearable… though we bear it anyway due to our own sorry vanity.
Even Celine’s dour outlook is too much, once you’ve accepted his point of view. How many pages and different ways do you need to read the man rant about the misery and suffering and out-and-out wretchedness of humanity. It gets tedious after a while. And I want to like it more than I do for purely ideological reasons, if nothing else. Americans are essentially taught to laugh at guys like Celine before we ever even encounter them, so that they’re rendered harmless lest we seriously consider their ideas. At most an adolescent gothic phase is perhaps indulged and seen as something to be grown out of before we put on a cheery costume of being a great big money-making success of material comfort. A person like me wants so very much to like Celine, but he spends the whole novel saying and not showing, to reference what is considered a maxim of good writing.
An interesting thought is that the one decent character in the story, a sergent Alcide, spends his life in sacrifice for the benefit of his niece. This is the only example of a positive view of humanity capable of generosity and compassion in the entire book. I wonder if it is a coincidence that its basically an inversion of Dostoevski’s hypothetical of making a community of people happy at the cost of torturing an innocent child. I think, either way, Celine has the better and truer to life formulation. In a world where everyone is miserable and suffering is inevitable, a selflessness to the benefit of the innocent is the only noble path available to a person. Celine says to Dostoevski that his formulation is silly. We can’t be happy, but maybe the children can be.
One can imagine how this book filled not only with fatalism and excretions might have been received upon publication. I bet well-bred people found it thoroughly unpleasant. And there must have been great value in that. Though it hasn’t aged usefully. In a similar vein, I feel as though the viciousness and the pettiness and the misery and the suffering has not translated across the decades and the culture into America in 2012 either. People are still mean and unhappy, I suspect, but “Journey to the End of the Night” does not speak to today’s miseries and pettiness and cruelty. Not in my opinion.
It’s anyway, a relief to be finished.
“Journey to the End of the Night” was a slog to get through. There is so very much scene setting and so very little story. I wish that Celine’s protagonist nihilistically ranted less and narrated more. The book seems to span around 15 years for no particularly good reason. Why flit from WWI to Africa To Detroit and back to France, constantly setting the scene at each place for thirty pages or so and then leaving without ever telling a story about it. This book should either be 2000 pages or it should be 200, as it is, it’s a bloated 430 some odd pages, most of them tedious in their unrelenting air of soliloquy.
Beside yourself, long after having given up on enjoying this meandering bloat, but driven to finish it in an eat-your-vegetables state of mind, you find yourself briefly immersed in a flash of story. The business with the old lady and Robinson and Madelon is legitimately engaging. You wish that Celine had spent 200 pages just telling this story, fleshing it out, giving us more brilliant bits like that argument in the taxi-cab. Eh, but no, we get the book Celine has given us… like life itself… amusing at times… even playful… but filled with wretchedness and misery… and ultimately unbearable… though we bear it anyway due to our own sorry vanity.
Even Celine’s dour outlook is too much, once you’ve accepted his point of view. How many pages and different ways do you need to read the man rant about the misery and suffering and out-and-out wretchedness of humanity. It gets tedious after a while. And I want to like it more than I do for purely ideological reasons, if nothing else. Americans are essentially taught to laugh at guys like Celine before we ever even encounter them, so that they’re rendered harmless lest we seriously consider their ideas. At most an adolescent gothic phase is perhaps indulged and seen as something to be grown out of before we put on a cheery costume of being a great big money-making success of material comfort. A person like me wants so very much to like Celine, but he spends the whole novel saying and not showing, to reference what is considered a maxim of good writing.
An interesting thought is that the one decent character in the story, a sergent Alcide, spends his life in sacrifice for the benefit of his niece. This is the only example of a positive view of humanity capable of generosity and compassion in the entire book. I wonder if it is a coincidence that its basically an inversion of Dostoevski’s hypothetical of making a community of people happy at the cost of torturing an innocent child. I think, either way, Celine has the better and truer to life formulation. In a world where everyone is miserable and suffering is inevitable, a selflessness to the benefit of the innocent is the only noble path available to a person. Celine says to Dostoevski that his formulation is silly. We can’t be happy, but maybe the children can be.
One can imagine how this book filled not only with fatalism and excretions might have been received upon publication. I bet well-bred people found it thoroughly unpleasant. And there must have been great value in that. Though it hasn’t aged usefully. In a similar vein, I feel as though the viciousness and the pettiness and the misery and the suffering has not translated across the decades and the culture into America in 2012 either. People are still mean and unhappy, I suspect, but “Journey to the End of the Night” does not speak to today’s miseries and pettiness and cruelty. Not in my opinion.
It’s anyway, a relief to be finished.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Despair - Vladimir Nabokov
Read for the second time in August 2012.
The first time I read Despair was about 12 years ago, and I was an undergraduate taking a course in 20th Century Russian literature in translation. For some while over the next twelve years, if asked to make a list of my favorite 5 or 10 books, I would invariably include Despair on that list. I approached this rereading, expecting to enjoy it, but nonetheless also expecting to remove it from that heightened place in my own personal canon.
This is for many reasons. I began to doubt the person who I was when I had initially read it. I put almost no other Nabokov that I’ve read including Lolita on such an exalted plane. The haze of my memory of it seemed to render it a work of less and less substance. There were other reasons that are difficult to articulate as well.
To my surprise then, upon re-reading it, I did confirm its greatness. While I confess that I probably will no longer place it among the 10 or so best novels that I have ever read, it is legitimately great, and it is the best and funniest Nabokov that I have encountered. It reminds me of something like Camus’ "L’etranger," though not quite as good, which to be honest, is probably the book I wanted to put in that slot in the first place, but felt self-conscious about being that guy.
The first time I read it, I loved the tone and the style, and I think those were it’s main charms to me. I don’t think I even understood the concept of an unreliable narrator yet. Now it jumps right out at me. The whole thing is spent trying to read between the lines to figure out what really happened. It’s a fun game, and engaging. I’m amazed to look back at myself many years ago enjoying this on a superficial level, but not really “getting” it at all.
I pull this great line for special emphasis: “…because a combination of decency and sentimentality is exactly equal to being a fool.” Of course as used, it turns out not to be true. As of course, the narrator is wrong about just about everything. He’s a small-minded and vulgar bourgeois who fancies himself an intellectual, a genius, an artist, et cetera, a purveyor of the perfect crime.
We’re left to ruminate on the notion that the vulgar notice the similarities between things, while the artist notices the differences, as the artist Ardalion notes at some point. It seems then exceptional, that the narrator sees such striking similarities between himself and another, when to other people they bear no resemblance at all. It’s an apparent absurdity that he would even pass this supposed double off as himself, though shocking to the narrator that it does not work. It’s a funny thing. And the whole structure upon which this misapprehension is built and then demolished is entertainingly laid out within.
The first time I read Despair was about 12 years ago, and I was an undergraduate taking a course in 20th Century Russian literature in translation. For some while over the next twelve years, if asked to make a list of my favorite 5 or 10 books, I would invariably include Despair on that list. I approached this rereading, expecting to enjoy it, but nonetheless also expecting to remove it from that heightened place in my own personal canon.
This is for many reasons. I began to doubt the person who I was when I had initially read it. I put almost no other Nabokov that I’ve read including Lolita on such an exalted plane. The haze of my memory of it seemed to render it a work of less and less substance. There were other reasons that are difficult to articulate as well.
To my surprise then, upon re-reading it, I did confirm its greatness. While I confess that I probably will no longer place it among the 10 or so best novels that I have ever read, it is legitimately great, and it is the best and funniest Nabokov that I have encountered. It reminds me of something like Camus’ "L’etranger," though not quite as good, which to be honest, is probably the book I wanted to put in that slot in the first place, but felt self-conscious about being that guy.
The first time I read it, I loved the tone and the style, and I think those were it’s main charms to me. I don’t think I even understood the concept of an unreliable narrator yet. Now it jumps right out at me. The whole thing is spent trying to read between the lines to figure out what really happened. It’s a fun game, and engaging. I’m amazed to look back at myself many years ago enjoying this on a superficial level, but not really “getting” it at all.
I pull this great line for special emphasis: “…because a combination of decency and sentimentality is exactly equal to being a fool.” Of course as used, it turns out not to be true. As of course, the narrator is wrong about just about everything. He’s a small-minded and vulgar bourgeois who fancies himself an intellectual, a genius, an artist, et cetera, a purveyor of the perfect crime.
We’re left to ruminate on the notion that the vulgar notice the similarities between things, while the artist notices the differences, as the artist Ardalion notes at some point. It seems then exceptional, that the narrator sees such striking similarities between himself and another, when to other people they bear no resemblance at all. It’s an apparent absurdity that he would even pass this supposed double off as himself, though shocking to the narrator that it does not work. It’s a funny thing. And the whole structure upon which this misapprehension is built and then demolished is entertainingly laid out within.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Palm Sunday - Kurt Vonnegut
Read for the first time in August 2012.
This is a collection of Vonnegut’s essays, speeches, short stories and other artifacts with some original writing tying everything together. It’s not a whole lot dissimilar to his later novels but without an overarching plot. It mostly covers the period 1974 - 1979 or so. It is very good.
It’s not even terribly dated. Not even the cold war stuff. It doesn’t feel like an artifact at all. It also reminds me of the importance of Vonnegut. He is not my favorite author really, though I do think he is really great. I read most of his novels about ten years ago and loved all of them except for Player Piano (run-of-the-mill dystopia, tedious read) and Timequake (weird small-mindedness; bitterness and cynicism pervades).
I don’t believe that Vonnegut is necessarily among the greatest novelists as producer of novels as a literary art form, but I do believe his ideas about how to be a human being are hugely important. If there is any author that I think people should read, it is Vonnegut. Even more so than people who I think wrote better novels.
People should read Vonnegut the way some people read the Bible, as a source of moral instruction.
There’s a lot of powerful stuff in here, including a non-religious passion play about Jesus that is a total highlight. A lot of great thoughts and a lot of great quotes. And just really a lot of great thoughts on how to be a human being.
His entire oeuvre (with exception of Timequake and Player Piano) should be studied and read and inculcated in children by good liberal parents everywhere.
This is a collection of Vonnegut’s essays, speeches, short stories and other artifacts with some original writing tying everything together. It’s not a whole lot dissimilar to his later novels but without an overarching plot. It mostly covers the period 1974 - 1979 or so. It is very good.
It’s not even terribly dated. Not even the cold war stuff. It doesn’t feel like an artifact at all. It also reminds me of the importance of Vonnegut. He is not my favorite author really, though I do think he is really great. I read most of his novels about ten years ago and loved all of them except for Player Piano (run-of-the-mill dystopia, tedious read) and Timequake (weird small-mindedness; bitterness and cynicism pervades).
I don’t believe that Vonnegut is necessarily among the greatest novelists as producer of novels as a literary art form, but I do believe his ideas about how to be a human being are hugely important. If there is any author that I think people should read, it is Vonnegut. Even more so than people who I think wrote better novels.
People should read Vonnegut the way some people read the Bible, as a source of moral instruction.
There’s a lot of powerful stuff in here, including a non-religious passion play about Jesus that is a total highlight. A lot of great thoughts and a lot of great quotes. And just really a lot of great thoughts on how to be a human being.
His entire oeuvre (with exception of Timequake and Player Piano) should be studied and read and inculcated in children by good liberal parents everywhere.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
The Man in The High Castle - Philip K. Dick
Read for the first time in August 2012.
"The Man in the High Castle" gets too on the nose at the end. The final conversation between the novelist and the Juliana character is kind of bad in a didactic way and yet should have been fleshed out more. The pacing, as a storytelling matter seemed off as well. A lack of suspense. A lack of build. It was an enjoyable read nonetheless. But at the end, a lot of it seemed unresolved. A lot of the characters arcs just stopped with no resolution.
I really liked the way some of the white characters spoke in stilted Japanese English. It was inventive and imaginative, and fun. I also really liked his depiction of being what it’s like to not be the dominant culture. This is the first Philip K Dick work that I’ve read. Based on this read alone, I wouldn’t go out of my way to explore his catalogue further. I think he’s behind Vonnegut as a writer, but maybe slightly better overall than Ursula K Leguin, though I think she never does anything as bad as that final conversation in this book.
"The Man in the High Castle" gets too on the nose at the end. The final conversation between the novelist and the Juliana character is kind of bad in a didactic way and yet should have been fleshed out more. The pacing, as a storytelling matter seemed off as well. A lack of suspense. A lack of build. It was an enjoyable read nonetheless. But at the end, a lot of it seemed unresolved. A lot of the characters arcs just stopped with no resolution.
I really liked the way some of the white characters spoke in stilted Japanese English. It was inventive and imaginative, and fun. I also really liked his depiction of being what it’s like to not be the dominant culture. This is the first Philip K Dick work that I’ve read. Based on this read alone, I wouldn’t go out of my way to explore his catalogue further. I think he’s behind Vonnegut as a writer, but maybe slightly better overall than Ursula K Leguin, though I think she never does anything as bad as that final conversation in this book.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Read for the first time in August 2012.
DFW is clearly very smart and has clearly a top-notch liberal arts education. He writes well, oftentimes better than well, willing to break so-called stylistic rules, and succeeding, which to me is sort of the defining demonstration of mastery of the written word. On the other hand, some of his stylistic tics do provoke annoyance, though only occasionally.
Nonetheless, I think, that of all the works of all the authors I have read, DFW is, in my estimation, the closest to a genius in the traditional Einsteinian unfathomably high IQ scientist capable of great discovery sense. This only serves to underscore my irritation with the use of the word genius to describe every Thom, Stanley, and Lenny who writes a great song or tells a great joke. Because I would suspect that actual genius in service of a creative artistic endeavor produces work very much like Infinite Jest. This is both its strength and weakness, as literature.
If there is one word I would use to describe Infinite Jest, that word would be clever. It is terrifically clever. It is a terrific book. It’s amazingly inventive, smart, and intimidatingly educated. It’s funny too. Huge swathes of it are aesthetically wonderful.
It took about 300 pages before I realized how good it was. At around page 800, I assumed that as soon as I finished I was going to immediately start over and read it again. But by the end I had changed my mind, as I realized that nothing would be gained from a reread. Anything I missed the first time around was as inconsequential as that which I had already processed.
This is fine. I am not complaining. Excepting intermittent bits of DFW’s sadistic noise, this is mostly a fun book to read. I can’t help but admire DFW. He’s so smart. He’s so educated. And Infinite Jest is so very clever.
But that’s all it is.
I wish I could convey my sense of unadulterated true admiration for Infinite Jest and simultaneous disappointment at its failure to achieve what literature is capable of without it being a criticism. Without the critical arrogance of it having unmet an expectation that no work should have the burden of bearing, that of being “great.” DFW was a ridiculously smart guy and he wrote a good book. Multiply that times ten.
I have to acknowledge the Don Gately stuff and how that is at least an attempt to get at the stuff that I love about literature, whereas the precocious Hal Incandenza stuff, while often enjoyable, doesn’t ever attain the necessary sincerity to be taken as a real human being with struggles or emotions we can care about.
However, if I want to put a finger on why Don Gately’s humanity doesn’t provide salvation for the twee unreality of O.N.A.N.* circa Y.D.A.U., I think it’s because Don Gately isn’t really that compelling, either on his own, or exacerbatedly relative to the intrigues of Quebecois separatists and O.N.A.N. Agents of Unspecified Services. Parts of his story are fascinating to read, of course. And perhaps, the struggle of a recovering addict’s resistance to narcotics and his eventual redemption, through violence and pain, should be compelling. But in DFW’s hands it’s not, at least not completely. Maybe I should just say it’s not enough. The pathos of one real guy’s pain is just not enough to counterbalance the aura of playful inconsequence of this staggering colossus of a book’s tour de unreality as imagined by a brilliant hyper-educated academic type.
Or maybe I should just give in to the temptation and say that Infinite Jest only goes to show the limited though not insignificant authorial value of brains and education. An interesting comparison on that point would be John Kennedy O’Toole’s “Confederacy of Dunces,” which I think does achieve the greatness that Infinite Jest is on the cusp of.
*The acronym O.N.A.N. is a good joke I think.
DFW is clearly very smart and has clearly a top-notch liberal arts education. He writes well, oftentimes better than well, willing to break so-called stylistic rules, and succeeding, which to me is sort of the defining demonstration of mastery of the written word. On the other hand, some of his stylistic tics do provoke annoyance, though only occasionally.
Nonetheless, I think, that of all the works of all the authors I have read, DFW is, in my estimation, the closest to a genius in the traditional Einsteinian unfathomably high IQ scientist capable of great discovery sense. This only serves to underscore my irritation with the use of the word genius to describe every Thom, Stanley, and Lenny who writes a great song or tells a great joke. Because I would suspect that actual genius in service of a creative artistic endeavor produces work very much like Infinite Jest. This is both its strength and weakness, as literature.
If there is one word I would use to describe Infinite Jest, that word would be clever. It is terrifically clever. It is a terrific book. It’s amazingly inventive, smart, and intimidatingly educated. It’s funny too. Huge swathes of it are aesthetically wonderful.
It took about 300 pages before I realized how good it was. At around page 800, I assumed that as soon as I finished I was going to immediately start over and read it again. But by the end I had changed my mind, as I realized that nothing would be gained from a reread. Anything I missed the first time around was as inconsequential as that which I had already processed.
This is fine. I am not complaining. Excepting intermittent bits of DFW’s sadistic noise, this is mostly a fun book to read. I can’t help but admire DFW. He’s so smart. He’s so educated. And Infinite Jest is so very clever.
But that’s all it is.
I wish I could convey my sense of unadulterated true admiration for Infinite Jest and simultaneous disappointment at its failure to achieve what literature is capable of without it being a criticism. Without the critical arrogance of it having unmet an expectation that no work should have the burden of bearing, that of being “great.” DFW was a ridiculously smart guy and he wrote a good book. Multiply that times ten.
I have to acknowledge the Don Gately stuff and how that is at least an attempt to get at the stuff that I love about literature, whereas the precocious Hal Incandenza stuff, while often enjoyable, doesn’t ever attain the necessary sincerity to be taken as a real human being with struggles or emotions we can care about.
However, if I want to put a finger on why Don Gately’s humanity doesn’t provide salvation for the twee unreality of O.N.A.N.* circa Y.D.A.U., I think it’s because Don Gately isn’t really that compelling, either on his own, or exacerbatedly relative to the intrigues of Quebecois separatists and O.N.A.N. Agents of Unspecified Services. Parts of his story are fascinating to read, of course. And perhaps, the struggle of a recovering addict’s resistance to narcotics and his eventual redemption, through violence and pain, should be compelling. But in DFW’s hands it’s not, at least not completely. Maybe I should just say it’s not enough. The pathos of one real guy’s pain is just not enough to counterbalance the aura of playful inconsequence of this staggering colossus of a book’s tour de unreality as imagined by a brilliant hyper-educated academic type.
Or maybe I should just give in to the temptation and say that Infinite Jest only goes to show the limited though not insignificant authorial value of brains and education. An interesting comparison on that point would be John Kennedy O’Toole’s “Confederacy of Dunces,” which I think does achieve the greatness that Infinite Jest is on the cusp of.
*The acronym O.N.A.N. is a good joke I think.
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