wmhorne

> In many ways...

Can you list some?

> The bit in Infinite Jest written in (attempted) African American vernacular is truly awful, though. Peck is clearly right about that.

On this topic I certainly agreed with him. I found that section horribly out of tune and out of touch. Also---though maybe I'm forgetting something---I recall it played almost no role in the story or plot. It stuck out as easily the hardest part to get through during my second read.

wmhorne

7 年前議論

Funny, I found this book over a decade after it was published, having been exposed to almost none of this "hype" whatsoever---and I still liked it. I don't buy his thesis that its success was due only to the "hype machine." I suppose I respect his opinion---or at least his right to having it---but I simply do not agree with it or with many of the things he says.

> The novel has moved some 60,000 copies and racked up a stack of glowing reviews as thick as it is.

As far as I know, it wasn't nominated for a single major literary award that year (at the very least, it didn't win any), and I wouldn't remotely agree that the reviews were "glowing." A quick search finds two at best ambivalent reviews: [^1] [^2]. Though their comments came later, Harold Bloom and James Wood were highly critical of Wallace, the former declaring him to have "no discernible talent." It feels terribly one-sided to mention only the stack of positive reviews. IJ was by no means a universal critical success.

> ... both [The Broom of the System and Infinite Jest], most importantly, work up an elaborate – and elaborately digressive – plot which deliberately ends as unsatisfactorily as possible.

While I can't speak for Broom. which I didn't finish, I can say that my reading of IJ's ending was that it was not at all deliberately unsatisfactory. In fact, I felt it was the opposite: it's beautiful, and it marks the moment when Gately finally gets out of his recursive cycle of addiction. I think it's where the book (whose structure is itself fascinating---a circle and/or a Sierpinski Gasket) ought to have ended, and while some could say it was unsatisfactory for them, I don't think they could claim it was deliberately so.

> There is first of all Hal Incandenza, a teenage tennis prodigy and marijuana addict who during the course of the book plays tennis and gets high a lot, and then tries to stop getting high – that’s his plot.

Isn't there a bit more to Hal's story? What about the struggle the ghost of his dead father makes to connect Hal to the world and to feelings? To exit his head, as it were? What about Hal's finding that same dad dead in the house up the hill from his school dorm? What about his recession into himself and his dislocation from language, his Kafkaesque inversion?

> Then there’s Don Gately, a former housebreaker and narcotics addict who goes straight before the book even opens and merely attempts to stay that way throughout the course of the novel – that’s his plot.

Nothing of his struggles to pray daily to a God he doesn't believe in, simply in an effort to stay sober for another 24 hours? Nothing of his role as a leader and mentor at the Ennet halfway house, or the scenes where he transcends his identity as a witless muscle-for-hire criminal upon whose head friends would close elevator doors for a laugh to connect with and care for his community? (The scene where he, in a joke apron and chef's hat, he makes pasta for the housemates brought me to tears.) Still nothing of his falling in love with Joelle? Nor of his fight in the resident's defense, his hospitalization, and his transition into a vivid memoryscape of his days as a junkie and crook?

> All of which, I suppose, is just a polite way of saying that if the author of Infinite Jest shut off his word-processor and actually went to a wine-and-cheese party he might find out what the word ‘reading’ really means

He wrote it longhand and was a recovering alcoholic/addict. No word processors or wine parties for him.

Yes, I have in certain ways fallen out of love with Infinite Jest, but I still refute the claim that there was nothing there in the first place. There was something in it for me when I read it alone in rural Thailand over a summer in 2013, and there's been something in it for many other readers I know, too. This wasn't just because we were told something was there, but because we found something there.

IJ's not perfect. It deserves critique, and it is certainly flawed. (Parts of it do make me cringe.) But I admire it nonetheless. It took courage to write a novel that strived towards the real---more, I'm afraid, than it required for this LRB review.

[^1]: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/13/books/books-of-the-times-...

[^2]: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/03/news/infinite-jest.html

wmhorne

7 年前議論

> 2. Always work (note, write) from your own interest, never from what you think you should be noting, or writing. Trust your own interest. I have a strong interest, at the moment, in Roman building techniques, thus my notation above, taken down in the Cluny Museum in Paris. My interest may pass. But for the moment I follow it and enjoy it, not knowing where it will go.

> Let your interest, and particularly what you want to write about, be tested by time, not by other people—either real other people or imagined other people.

> This is why writing workshops can be a little dangerous, it should be said; even the teachers or leaders of such workshops can be a little dangerous; this is why most of your learning should be on your own. Other people are often very sure that their opinions and their judgments are correct.

It's great to see someone who's so often referenced within the institutions of creative writing note their inherent limitations. I think one ought to have healthy skepticism about the proposition that someone can teach you an art form. They can help facilitate your growth, I suppose, but not impart the skill.

wmhorne

7 年前議論

> The computer revolution was enabled, in large part, by a single invention: the transistor. Before transistors, we were stuck with failure-prone vacuum tubes. Yet vacuum tubes kind of, sort of worked: they translated abstract Boolean logic into electrical signals reliably enough to be useful. We don’t yet have the quantum computing version of the transistor — that would be quantum error correction. Getting there will surely require immense engineering, and probably further insights as well. In the meantime, though, the significance of Google’s quantum supremacy demonstration is this: after a quarter century of effort, we are now, finally, in the early vacuum tube era of quantum computing.

Seems a very humble but notable (if not necessary) development in the field of quantum computing. It shouldn't be praised as a transcendent gain, but neither should it be ignored or written off.

If quantum does develop into a viable technology, won't this have been a milestone? Scott Aaronson seems to think so.

wmhorne

7 年前議論

Why can't Tesla divorce their interest in producing electric vehicles from their agenda in producing autonomous ones? It seems there is so much call for the former and so little for the latter. I wonder why they've felt the need to fuse the two.

I, for one, wish there was an option for a cheaper Tesla without all the self-driving capabilities, much of which is useless now and will, I expect, become obsolete before any actual self-driving is commonplace.

wmhorne

7 年前議論

> Unlike writing, speech doesn’t require multiple drafts before it “works.” Uncertainty, anxiety, dread, and mental fatigue all attend writing; talking, on the other hand, is easy, often pleasant, and feels mostly unconscious.

While I like the article, this distinction feels overly anecdotal and subjective to me.

wmhorne

7 年前議論

Leveraging a skillset unconventional to this forum, I can contribute concise, accurate, and logical writing to almost any component of any project, though preferably one that addresses a social, educational, and/or environmental cause. I'm a fast learner with a strong technical sense and highly developed analytical writing and thinking skills. Essays can be provided on request.

  Location: Chicago
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: Not immediately
  Technologies: Analytical/technical writing, critical thinking, Linux, bash, git, html, Latex, SPSS, Salesforce (Languages: Lao, Sanskrit, Spanish, German)
  Résumé/CV: https://github.com/wmhorne/resume/blob/master/Horne-William_Resume.pdf
  Email: willmhorne a[t] gmail.com

wmhorne

7 年前議論

What do you like about them?

wmhorne

8 年前議論

What does this mean? And how would you transliterate it?

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