Hysterical realism and the postmodern trademark

[quietphilosophe]

I finished up reading Infinite Jest a few days ago and I've been wandering around in a bit of a daze ever since.  The length wasn't as much of an issue as the general structure and nature of the novel--it was arguably one of the most difficult texts that I've gone through, but it was also profoundly rewarding.  I rarely blog on the books I read

Comments

[quietphilosophe]

I think you may have understood this book to be primarily a philosophical text--this is just my initial reading of your response, however. Please note that it is, in fact, fiction and filed amongst Ender's Game and other "groundbreaking" works of fiction.

Because in my world view, precisely because we live in a flood of information, there is very little which is worth paying attention to with my precious time, and what little there is must therefore audition for me, present its bona fides, and convince me that it is worth the effort--for it competes with mountains of drivel and I have no time to waste on drivel, nor do I have quick and easy ways to sift the valuable from the drivel, or otherwise identify it as being worthy.Well, this is basically what the novel is trying to express and contextualize. There's no really good way to have a reader understand a "glut" unless they actually experience something along those lines. DFW's glut is simply more engaging and heady than if you were to take 10 of the NY Times' best-selling

Don't cop out on me now!

[quietphilosophe]

What are these works of philosophy that consumed so much of your time? I'm genuinely curious. I'm afraid we're talking past one another, as I'm making claims about the essence of philosophy that I'm not sure you have actually acknowledged.

Take the Euclidean proof issue above:

You might view this as a chicken-or-egg kind of situation, but I think philosophy preceded and enabled much of the scientific progress. We could just as easily be having this conversation outside in a Greek forum. The crux of my point: hard sciences frame and enable degrees of human interaction. Philosophy is at the essence of our interaction, however. There's a sharp distinction here that I'm not sure you appreciate.

I, on the other hand, have a high regard for the hard sciences and don't consider a moment I spent learning physics, calculus, or chemistry a wasted moment. It certainly doesn't seem like you can claim the inverse.