What do non-americans think about Infinite Jest?

I'm from New Zealand and I enjoyed it.

Its mediocre.

Well according to a NYT writer it makes up a part of pretentious bourgeoisie culture that excludes other Americans based on whether they have access or time to read this book and other esoteric cultural touchstones.
He’s also a huge faggot so whatever

I prefer Jennifer Government

a lot of the book seems to be describing psychological/philosophical/narcotic struggles that are most relevant in the US, although some of it is universally applicable. i find it a pretty good description of why the US is so fucked but i cant relate to it the same way i imagine some burgers might.

>In the novel's future world, the United States, Canada, and Mexico together compose a unified North American superstate known as the Organization of North American Nations, or O.N.A.N. (an allusion to onanism).[10]

>Corporations are allowed the opportunity to bid for and purchase naming rights for each calendar year, replacing traditional numerical designations with ostensibly honorary monikers bearing corporate names. Although the narrative is fragmented and spans several "named" years, most of the story takes place during "The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment" (Y.D.A.U.).

>On the orders of U.S. President Johnny Gentle (a "clean freak" who campaigned on the platform of cleaning up the USA while ensuring that no American would be caused any discomfort in the process), much of what used to be the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada has become a giant hazardous waste dump, an area "given" to Canada and known as the "Great Concavity" by Americans due to the resulting displacement of the border.

Holy fuck, is this really the setting of Infinite Jest? This shit is idiocracy-tier retardation.

A genuinely enjoyable read. Top-tier when it touches upon discussing depression, everything else only saved by personality of the writing.

Like Pynchon, his attempts at wacky ironic humour don't land, watching Americans try that is like watching a dog dancing. Otherwise a good writer

I identified with some of the characters far too much

I always tell my students there are three books one must read early in life, as soon as possible, with no exceptions. Ininite Jest, Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow. reading infinite jest for school, started Ulysses, and bought gravity's rainbow. Ulysses should be done by the end of the summer but Gravity's Rainbow is probably not getting done until 2020.
In Estonia nobody has heard of it btw, everyone is amazed when I bring it up.

I'm currently reading it as a 3rd world slav,150 pages in.Favorite part so far is hal's essay on videophones and how they failed,unironically my favorite few pages of any book in the last year of reading.I've heard it gets so much better after 200 pages and i'm already liking it

No translations into Estonian?

Irishman here, there's nothing in it that I didn't understand from a cultural perspective. My own opinion wouldn't reflect some sort of national character, and that opinion is, it's a fucking meme, but I enjoyed it. I wonder what it's like for non-Irish to read Ulysses, having been to everywhere in the book by accident and knowing a lot of the cultural and language references.

i unironically read the whole of ulysses thinking it was set in the us

I'd only read it till the part with Papa Incandenza's filmography. The novel wasn't impressing me already, but this particular endnote made me realised that I'm wasting life on a feature length shitpost, so I stopped

Yeah, it's a mind fuck if you live in rural Australia

i found the short descriptions of each of the movies funny/interesting and it gets much better

Eurocuck here. I finished IJ last month, it wasn't that bad but was definetely a waste of time (took me 2 months to read it). It's a pseud book, the only positive side about reading it is that you can tell you read it.

German here, waste of time

Finnish here. It's juvenile book but I'm a simple man, I liked it a lot. Read it twice.

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Who said that?

Brit here, I enjoyed it and am considering rereading it in the future

Wardine Be Cry

youre speaking english mate

>I always tell my students there are three books one must read early in life, as soon as possible, with no exceptions. Ininite Jest, Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow. reading infinite jest for school, started Ulysses, and bought gravity's rainbow.
You're telling people to read books you haven't read yourself?

>In Estonia nobody has heard of it btw, everyone is amazed when I bring it up.
Why would they be amazed by something they don't know about?

Jesus Christ you think ESLs only seem retarded due to their grammar but then they whip this kind of bullshit out

USA pomo is not that popular in Europe. Pynchon and DFW are mostly unknown.

rocks on the planets of distant galaxies are non-american

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They don't get it.

They don't. Infinite Jest is very little known outside of the Anglosphere. The only non-yanks I met who knew about IJ did because of Yea Forums/reddit. Personally, I think the book is decent, but Americans wouldn't be so obsessed with it if their literary canon was stronge and if they had better taste in literature.

It's 90s Po-mo. that's what it is.

>American
Cringe

Not true. Here in Germany the translations were all reviewed on national TV and newspapers - glowingly. Fucking hell, last year an essay compilation of his actually got street billboards in my city.

I hope that America gets invaded by a real life AFR agents because it would be hilarious watching your idiot president get on his podium about 'bad wheelchair people who must be stopped'

Things like the CUSPs would in incomprehensible to the backwards parliamentarian countries of Yurop.

Brazilian here.

Read it in five days in 2014. Loved it very much and made three other people start loving DFW.

When it was translated here in Brazil it made a lot of success. True, the vast majority of Brazilians can't read, but all of those who can heard about the book, and read the reviews, which were very positive. It was treated as some sort of editorial phenomenon, which sometimes happens with translations of important books here - War and Peace, Canterbury Tales, Homer etc.

Austrian here
There weren't any cultural discrepancies large enough for me to feel estranged at any point, but I do interact with American culture all the time so yeah. Marathe made some good points

Are you from the U.K. by any chance?

why even state an opinion just to disagree with it? all you've done is bring more attention to it

So what just happened is that a girl and me just lifted you all from the absolute depths of hell and you like it there, which is why you continually try to stay depressed but I don’t like you there and neither do others

:3.

Someone post the screenshot of the girl who collects copies of Infinite Jest that men give her

Amazing. Please somebody have it.

American

You type like you're from a Carolina.

Read until the part with the junkie where everything was written in his style of speech. Annoying to read so I took a break and read Siddhartha. Now I'm back and I have a gorillion pages to go.

It's actually quite amusing.
I personally wished it had something like an ending - instead it just stops which is a little unsatisfying.

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I would never call it a masterpiece, but it's sure as shit a work of genius.
the setting as a whole doesn't REALLY land, I'll admit, but the things that occupy it, the characters and E.T.A and Ennet House are so lovingly and sincerely rendered that you forget the pretense of it being a cold postmodern brick and realize that Infinite Jest really just wanted to communicate how fuckin' starkly difficult it is to be a human being in the modern era.

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I can't tell whether you're talking about like the second fucking chapter or about L's "yrstruly" chapter, either way both are super early in the story come on lad

Aussie here, just hit the 200 page mark last night and i'm really digging it so far. That section about joi's father really made me laugh for some reason.

Is this book really an accurate portrayal of american life? so strange

Still isn't translated to Polish

we don't, it has no significance here whatsoever

Chechen here. I think it’s probably my least favorite postmodern encyclopedic novel, The Recognitions should replace IJ in the meme triology

It was fine

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louie?

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TFW no translation in my native language. Is it hard for non native on b2/c1 level of English to read it?

I assume non-american actually means non-burger ?

yes, you fucking third world scum

That does sound pretty cringe. This is a joke, right? I though the book was just about some tennis-playing college kid.

For now

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just as I clicked on that thumbnail I could hear the sound of several helicopters flying over my house. I feel like I'm in fuckin' 'nam

Fuck the bourgeosie. Fuck them. Fuck them all.

Based

That's a pretty feminine foot you got there, how does it smellz?

Definitely, but that just makes it even more fun and challenging. As a fellow non-native I suggest you read it anyways.

Yea Forums users who think “we wuz kings” is something actual black people say would sill be able to write a more convincing black vernacular than Wallace’s terrible “Wardine be cry” sections