What the absolute fuck am I reading?

I have to consult a reading guide for every chapter I read because the book is completely incomprehensible.

THERE ARE NOTES WITHIN THE NOTES, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT? HOUSE OF LEAVES?

I have only read 68 pages and I have no idea what's going on. Who the fuck are all these characters? Why is this shit over 1000 pages? What am I supposed to keep an eye on when none of the chapters are in chronological order? Who am I supposed to care about? Absolute clusterfuck of a book.

The only thing I've enjoyed reading so far is the chapter about that guy who smokes a fuck ton of weed. The rest is complete gibberish to me.

Did I fall for a meme when I got reccomend this pile of dogshit of a book?

Is it called Infinite Jest because the joke is whoever got tricked into reading this shit?

What am I supposed to see in this book?

  • boardbyboard [comrade/them]
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    edit-2
    1 year ago

    it's funny you mentioned House of Leaves. Because I thoroughly enjoyed IJ and did not enjoy HoL. I appreciated what HoL did well in terms of presentation but I don't think the writing itself was strong to keep me hooked. IJ had the benefit of DFW being an extremely meticulous and hilarious author. Imo he has a way of writing intelligently that doesn't come off as smarmy or pretentious or whatever, (he's the opposite of what you might find in your average NYT article). He also claimed to have physically attended AA meetings and the like before trying to put certain scenes in the book which, at the time, was felt by me (it's been years since I've read the book).

    If u don't want to power all the way through IJ I recommend reading DFW's short stories or the various articles/essays that he had published.

    oh and I should also add that I read the book over the course of at least 3-4 months.