Great review, Joshua. I havn't read Infinite Jest but I own it and it's on my list to read - I'm a bit daunted by it (along with the 1,000+ page Don Quixote I also own). I'll make sure to double back and check your review again once I do read it. Re: doing things out of a "sense of obligation, rather than enjoyment", at least for me it's a mix: I'll read a book even if it's painful if I've getting some important spiritual, psychological or other insights out of it (such as Solzhenitsyn's three volume Gulag Archipelago - a hard read), but I won't force myself through something even if it's famous if I feel like I'm not getting anything out of it. The harder the book is to read, the more I need to be getting out of it to force myself to continue (and the flip is true; if I'm only gaining a little but it's an easy read, I'll probably continue).
Yes good point NLF! The juice has to be worth the squeeze. For some of my friends in the book club who didn’t finish the book or didn’t find it spoke to them, I think there was a very real sense that they had been cheated out of something (namely their time). It’s hard to know where the line at which you should give up is.
Please find an essay which begins with a paragraph on the significance of Postmodernism and introduces a unique critical Understanding of the World Mummery in the 21st century.
Great review, Joshua. I havn't read Infinite Jest but I own it and it's on my list to read - I'm a bit daunted by it (along with the 1,000+ page Don Quixote I also own). I'll make sure to double back and check your review again once I do read it. Re: doing things out of a "sense of obligation, rather than enjoyment", at least for me it's a mix: I'll read a book even if it's painful if I've getting some important spiritual, psychological or other insights out of it (such as Solzhenitsyn's three volume Gulag Archipelago - a hard read), but I won't force myself through something even if it's famous if I feel like I'm not getting anything out of it. The harder the book is to read, the more I need to be getting out of it to force myself to continue (and the flip is true; if I'm only gaining a little but it's an easy read, I'll probably continue).
Yes good point NLF! The juice has to be worth the squeeze. For some of my friends in the book club who didn’t finish the book or didn’t find it spoke to them, I think there was a very real sense that they had been cheated out of something (namely their time). It’s hard to know where the line at which you should give up is.
Please find an essay which begins with a paragraph on the significance of Postmodernism and introduces a unique critical Understanding of the World Mummery in the 21st century.