INFINITE JEST: Common enemies, common suffering
Talk Le Salon Littéraire du Peuple pour le Peuple
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2QuentinTom
it also mirrors the section later in the book which describes President Johnny Gentle swearing to find a new common enemy to unite America once again - common enemy number 1: CANADA!!!!!
It's a fabulous parody of the War on Terror and the whole Bush thang.
with regard to what you said above, pyrocow, on the other hand, suffering can also isolate individuals. Tennis is an interesting choice coz it's not a team sport, but makes you compete against yourself.
It's a fabulous parody of the War on Terror and the whole Bush thang.
with regard to what you said above, pyrocow, on the other hand, suffering can also isolate individuals. Tennis is an interesting choice coz it's not a team sport, but makes you compete against yourself.
3absurdeist
Yeah that is some pretty awesome parody going on. Quebecois terrorists? I lol'd the first time I read that, and then the Wheelchair Assassins about killed me. Was DFW unintentionally commenting as well on Canada's meager military presence in the world?
And to pick on Canada, when Canadians are some of the (Warning: Stereotype Ahead!) politest people on the fricking planet is just so awesomely absurd! No nation in the world has more polite drivers. Why are Canadians so nice? I wonder if perhaps they are hiding something behind their niceness, after all.
And to pick on Canada, when Canadians are some of the (Warning: Stereotype Ahead!) politest people on the fricking planet is just so awesomely absurd! No nation in the world has more polite drivers. Why are Canadians so nice? I wonder if perhaps they are hiding something behind their niceness, after all.
4QuentinTom
Nice Canadians: last bastion of British gentlemanly behaviour combined with last traces of French politesse.
or perhaps its just that put next to 'Meruhcans everyone looks more polite......
(no offence intended to our dear Meruhcans)
or perhaps its just that put next to 'Meruhcans everyone looks more polite......
(no offence intended to our dear Meruhcans)
6Macumbeira
I could dwell on that " Quebecois terrorist" thingy but it will not amuse you.
I don't think DFW intented it as a joke...
I don't think DFW intented it as a joke...
7QuentinTom
enlighten us, Captain.
8dchaikin
In Oct 1995 Quebec voted down a referendum on sovereignty (away from Canada) by...50.6% NO to 49.4% YES (thanks wikipedia). IJ, of course, came out the next year.
Also, it's worth noting Quebec has not signed the Canadian constitution, and has French listed as the only official language.
Also, it's worth noting Quebec has not signed the Canadian constitution, and has French listed as the only official language.
9beardo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Crisis
"From 1963 to 1970 the Quebec nationalist group Front de libération du Québec had detonated over 95 bombs. While mailboxes– particularly in the affluent and predominantly Anglophone city of Westmount– were common targets, the largest single bombing was of the Montreal Stock Exchange on February 13, 1969, which caused extensive damage and injured 27 people. Other targets included Montreal City Hall, Royal Canadian Mounted Police recruitment offices, railroad tracks, and army installations. FLQ members, in a strategic move, had stolen several tons of dynamite from military and industrial sites, and, financed by bank robberies, they threatened the public through their official communication organ, known as La Cognée, that more attacks were to come."
Followed by the kidnapping of a British trade commissioner and the kidnapping/murder of a Quebec politician.
Interspersed between the murder and kidnappings, the Army was deployed and the War Measures Act invoked.
"From 1963 to 1970 the Quebec nationalist group Front de libération du Québec had detonated over 95 bombs. While mailboxes– particularly in the affluent and predominantly Anglophone city of Westmount– were common targets, the largest single bombing was of the Montreal Stock Exchange on February 13, 1969, which caused extensive damage and injured 27 people. Other targets included Montreal City Hall, Royal Canadian Mounted Police recruitment offices, railroad tracks, and army installations. FLQ members, in a strategic move, had stolen several tons of dynamite from military and industrial sites, and, financed by bank robberies, they threatened the public through their official communication organ, known as La Cognée, that more attacks were to come."
Followed by the kidnapping of a British trade commissioner and the kidnapping/murder of a Quebec politician.
Interspersed between the murder and kidnappings, the Army was deployed and the War Measures Act invoked.
10absurdeist
So Canada's had a short history, forty-plus years ago, of rebel separatists committing terrorist acts within its own borders. DFW undoubtedly embellished some of these scenarios to whatever ends it would fit with his fiction. His embellishment has the Quebecois terrorists infiltrating the U.S.A. and causing much havoc and crime and death down here in the States (but we know that's all fiction, fabrication) because the real Quebecois terrorists and separatists from the 1960s targeted only Canadiains, with a few exceptions made to foreigners who happened to be already in Canadian borders at the time.
Important distinction to make: DFWs Quebecois terrorists invade the U.S.A. with great success. While, conversely, in real life, Quebec terrorists have never invaded the U.S., and that's what I found so laughable: DFW satirizing the idea of Canada as being a danger and on the brink of invading the U.S.A.; and DFW parodied also an American mindset "worried" that Canada is indeed perceived by the U.S.A. as a terrorist threat. That's funny, that America should ever perceive Canada as a "threat".
Whatever Quebecois terrorists have done to their fellow Quebecois citizens nearly half a century ago really isn't all that relevant to what DFW is describing going on in his book, and that's why his idea of Candadian terrorist organizations coming down here to America to take what they want-the entertainment-by force, is so funny. Because it's based on the absurd idea that Canadian terrorists ever would or could engage the U.S.A. with violent, terrorist measures inside U.S. borders so covertly and so efficiently. (Maybe in fiction, they could; extremely doubtful in reality). Canada invade the U.S.A.? Uh, how bout Taiwan invades China? Not going to happen in real life. But when DFW makes it happen in the "real life" of Infinite Jest, that's where he's employing satire and parody and humor, because what he's suggesting is so backwards-unbelievable as to be ridiculous (Canada invade and infiltrate the U.S.A.? yeah right, so I LOL).
Maybe not all Canadians are as polite as perceived over history, and even though they rebelled and did some terrible things from 1963-1970, I don't see the the Quebecois uprisings as being pertinent to understanding the novel or even in understanding the fictional Quebecois separatists in the novel either, as they are driven, like Marathe, by a complex set personal dealings and double-dealings all designed to get his wife the medical help she needs.
Important distinction to make: DFWs Quebecois terrorists invade the U.S.A. with great success. While, conversely, in real life, Quebec terrorists have never invaded the U.S., and that's what I found so laughable: DFW satirizing the idea of Canada as being a danger and on the brink of invading the U.S.A.; and DFW parodied also an American mindset "worried" that Canada is indeed perceived by the U.S.A. as a terrorist threat. That's funny, that America should ever perceive Canada as a "threat".
Whatever Quebecois terrorists have done to their fellow Quebecois citizens nearly half a century ago really isn't all that relevant to what DFW is describing going on in his book, and that's why his idea of Candadian terrorist organizations coming down here to America to take what they want-the entertainment-by force, is so funny. Because it's based on the absurd idea that Canadian terrorists ever would or could engage the U.S.A. with violent, terrorist measures inside U.S. borders so covertly and so efficiently. (Maybe in fiction, they could; extremely doubtful in reality). Canada invade the U.S.A.? Uh, how bout Taiwan invades China? Not going to happen in real life. But when DFW makes it happen in the "real life" of Infinite Jest, that's where he's employing satire and parody and humor, because what he's suggesting is so backwards-unbelievable as to be ridiculous (Canada invade and infiltrate the U.S.A.? yeah right, so I LOL).
Maybe not all Canadians are as polite as perceived over history, and even though they rebelled and did some terrible things from 1963-1970, I don't see the the Quebecois uprisings as being pertinent to understanding the novel or even in understanding the fictional Quebecois separatists in the novel either, as they are driven, like Marathe, by a complex set personal dealings and double-dealings all designed to get his wife the medical help she needs.
11slickdpdx
I enjoyed my one and only trip to Quebec City and highly recommend it, especially to others in the U.S.
12rainpebble
Back on topic:
Infinite Jest: Common Enemies
I can only think of one. Me!~! This book put a hole in my door, I threw it so hard!~! Didn't like what I was reading at all. Didn't get what I was reading at all. Didn't understand what I was reading at all. But the most important thing to me was that I wasn't learning anything at all nor was I enjoying the book at all. So, at about 80 or 90 pages in...........I nixed it.
Hope the rest of you enjoy it. I am back with The Count of Monte Cristo and loving it after all the pain of Infinite Jest and half of Midnight's Children. That one sucked too!~!
That is just this girl's opinion.
Too fat to fly & too dumb to try!~!
Infinite Jest: Common Enemies
I can only think of one. Me!~! This book put a hole in my door, I threw it so hard!~! Didn't like what I was reading at all. Didn't get what I was reading at all. Didn't understand what I was reading at all. But the most important thing to me was that I wasn't learning anything at all nor was I enjoying the book at all. So, at about 80 or 90 pages in...........I nixed it.
Hope the rest of you enjoy it. I am back with The Count of Monte Cristo and loving it after all the pain of Infinite Jest and half of Midnight's Children. That one sucked too!~!
That is just this girl's opinion.
Too fat to fly & too dumb to try!~!
13absurdeist
You should try Gravity's Rainbow next, Belva.
14QuentinTom
good for you belva! why waste time on stuff you hate! at least you gave it your best shot!
personally, Im still loving it. I read the visit of Helen Steeply to the academy last night, and the match between Stice and Hal. DFW is a great at juggling so many balls in the air. there was so much going on in that scene.
personally, Im still loving it. I read the visit of Helen Steeply to the academy last night, and the match between Stice and Hal. DFW is a great at juggling so many balls in the air. there was so much going on in that scene.
15Macumbeira
Belva ! Enrique ! look at the review I found on Infinite Jest ! : )
...
I loathe Infinite Jest the way that most sensible folks loathe the very existence of Bernie Madoff. It's an all encompassing and consuming loathing leaving no room for mercy. In fact, if I were The Blob or a Killer Tomato on the attack, I'd consume every volume of Infinite Jest extant (and Bernie Madoff) with my acidic, dissolving loathing. I wish the book were still banned and my access to it summarily and arbitrarily denied me by Big Brother, so that I wouldn't have wantonly wasted my precious, irreplaceable time and energy reading it, is how deep my Infinite Jest loathing goes.
Yes, it's true, reading Infinite Jest (even just half of this poo poo) feels like being disemboweled (or at least like having bad, painful gas; and that's bad, painful gas when you're stuck inside somewhere with other people and it would be too impolite and embarassing - even as painful as it is holding it in - to let it rip. Oh yeah?! You think that's tacky and tasteless? Well, if the "genius," DFW, can make fart jokes in Infinite Jest left and right, why can't anybody else do the same in describing his flatulent, nauseating tome?
Worse, reading Infinite Jest leaves one feeling like they've been had, scammed, rused, abused, conned, pawned, Ponzi'd, cheated, excreted, duped, nuked, swindled, swizzled, diddled, belittled, hustled, hoaxed, stiffed, tricked, taken to the cleaners or taken for a ride, ripped off royally of everything you've worked hard for your whole life and hold dear. Just like Madoff! How you like that list, DFW, you MOTHERF%$#!R?
Less painful indeed, having your wisdom teeth extracted with pliers by an orang-utang...and without novocaine, than trying to read Infinite Jest first page to last.
...
I loathe Infinite Jest the way that most sensible folks loathe the very existence of Bernie Madoff. It's an all encompassing and consuming loathing leaving no room for mercy. In fact, if I were The Blob or a Killer Tomato on the attack, I'd consume every volume of Infinite Jest extant (and Bernie Madoff) with my acidic, dissolving loathing. I wish the book were still banned and my access to it summarily and arbitrarily denied me by Big Brother, so that I wouldn't have wantonly wasted my precious, irreplaceable time and energy reading it, is how deep my Infinite Jest loathing goes.
Yes, it's true, reading Infinite Jest (even just half of this poo poo) feels like being disemboweled (or at least like having bad, painful gas; and that's bad, painful gas when you're stuck inside somewhere with other people and it would be too impolite and embarassing - even as painful as it is holding it in - to let it rip. Oh yeah?! You think that's tacky and tasteless? Well, if the "genius," DFW, can make fart jokes in Infinite Jest left and right, why can't anybody else do the same in describing his flatulent, nauseating tome?
Worse, reading Infinite Jest leaves one feeling like they've been had, scammed, rused, abused, conned, pawned, Ponzi'd, cheated, excreted, duped, nuked, swindled, swizzled, diddled, belittled, hustled, hoaxed, stiffed, tricked, taken to the cleaners or taken for a ride, ripped off royally of everything you've worked hard for your whole life and hold dear. Just like Madoff! How you like that list, DFW, you MOTHERF%$#!R?
Less painful indeed, having your wisdom teeth extracted with pliers by an orang-utang...and without novocaine, than trying to read Infinite Jest first page to last.
16absurdeist
No longer are you my favorite Belgian from Ghent.
What is this?! Review-by-numbers? THE BOOK TITLES AND AUTHORS ARE NOT INTENDED FOR SLEIGHT OF HAND INTERCHANGEABLE EDITORIAL JESTING PURPOSES!!! BAD MAC BAD MAC!
Ohhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What is this?! Review-by-numbers? THE BOOK TITLES AND AUTHORS ARE NOT INTENDED FOR SLEIGHT OF HAND INTERCHANGEABLE EDITORIAL JESTING PURPOSES!!! BAD MAC BAD MAC!
Ohhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
17anna_in_pdx
I somehow remember reading that... oh wait. OK, I am slow.
:) It sounds like it was written BY DFW... that would be meta, wouldn't it.
But so I am scared I am starting to talk like he writes...
:) It sounds like it was written BY DFW... that would be meta, wouldn't it.
But so I am scared I am starting to talk like he writes...
18Macumbeira
THE FRIENDS OF JAMES JOYCE RULE !!!!!!!!!!!!!
19absurdeist
THE FRIENDS OF JAMES JOYCE HAVE HALITOSIS !!!!!!!!!
This thread is now closed. Anyone continuing to post here on this thread, including crazy, Jack London obsessed Belgians, will be severely disciplined.
Go here to continue the discussion in Infinite Jesters.
This thread is now closed. Anyone continuing to post here on this thread, including crazy, Jack London obsessed Belgians, will be severely disciplined.
Go here to continue the discussion in Infinite Jesters.
