RE> Infinite Jest

[ChrisO at fieldschool.com]

RE> Infinite Jest
2/24/96
To Curt Gardner <gardner at haas.berkeley.edu>, pynchon-l at sfu.ca




Oboy, I said. Oboy.
The same passage you disliked b/o it's repetitiveness and
thoroughness I liked for the same reason - kind of like
sitting with your very smart friend after several beers and
hashing through some topic like "what would be the perfect
USA national dish ie., the best composite of all component
cuisines?  (Best answer so far - pumpkin ravioli in some
japanese rice sauce, can't really remember, I was drunk). He
is like the sometimes insufferable Tom Robbins in this, but
way more sufferable because he doesn't love his precious
smart-ass voice so much and justshoots the breeze, while
still tossing in the occasional Pynchoniac modern idiom or
structure.
Basically, I just like listening to him. OK if you didn't
buy it - more for the rest of us!

chris osmond

--------------------------------------
Date: 2/24/96 3:46 AM
To: ChrisO
From: Curt Gardner <gardner at haas.ber

I saw D.F. Wallace in San Francisco tonight, just thought
I'd add my two 
cents.  He read three passages: one on a drug addict robbing
a home in 
Brookline, MA; one on a perspiration-licking fitness guru;
and the last 
on the history of people's responses to videophony (video
phones).  On 
the last bit especially--while it was often quite funny, it
struck me as 
needlessly repetitive and drawn-out; it was a over-blown
take on every 
angle of the concept, leaving nothing to the imagination. 
P.K.Dick hit 
on many of the same ideas thirty years ago, but just dropped
them into 
his books like gold nuggets.

So anyway, while I'm sure there are some very good bits, I
decided 
not to buy this 1000 page book.

Curt Gardner
gardner at haas.berkeley.edu


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From: 	Curt Gardner <gardner at haas.berkeley.edu>
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Subject:  Infinite Jest
To: 	pynchon-l at sfu.ca
Date:	 Fri, 23 Feb 1996 22:10:45 -0800 (PST)
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