Washington University lecturer and "Infinite Jest" enthusiast Michael O'Bryan offers up an intro to David Foster Wallace's encyclopedic novel. This is Part 1.
To all new listeners of this lecture, know this: Just get past the few first minutes of nervous mumbling and it turns into a FANTASTIC lecture. The best introduction to this book I have ever heard. This is a treasure :) My best greetings to you, O´Bryan ;)
Glad you posted this. I almost p'shawed YT's recommendation engine 40 seconds into the video. Good on you and RU-vid. I am glad i kept watching, and feel only mild irritation that there are three parts that i will definitely be absorbing.
“The truth will set you free, but not until it’s finished with you”… this is best lecture I have heard on the book and thank you so much for putting this together. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated the points about the readers.
everyone attacking this wonderful lecturer on his way of speaking clearly never had to present on any complex topic in a lengthy manner. be grateful for how lively this lecture was
@@sebastiansmith5524 Yes, and at university famously some of our lecturers were really shit in their delivery style, because they were academics first and foremost. Some of our lecturers were world famous and shit, so you had to listen really hard and take notes, by hand (gasp), because it was in ancient times before laptops and some of us thought that it was fucking rude as well as lazy to put a dictaphone on their lectern. You'd clearly have to completely not understand university and how some academics are there to write books and research first and foremost and lecturing is an annoying thing they have to do while doing that to put bread on the table. American lecturers were the worst for speaking in terrible english and having ridiculously high as well as foreign standard to impose on us, like endnotes only and not footnotes, which are awful or double spacing, they also used to throw loads of assignments at us and be upset when we didn't do them, because things are different here, but that's apparently what you pay for in the US at university. It's not actually a place where because you have to pay them as much as they want, because it's not regulated, that they somehow have to present really clearly for you, that's not really how university works, even over there.
Poor presentation skills are a sign of poor preparation and a lack of standards. His slides also reflect his low standards for quality. Or would you argue walls of text make for excellent slide composition? Forgivable with grad students, but not literary professors!
While I’m on it, you see the laziness even in his appearance. He mentioned at the beginning that he couldn’t bother finding a way to groom himself during COVID.
After reading “The Planet Trillaphon…” it became heartbreakingly evident what a cry for help every page of IJ is. And i understood why he was so bemused that everyone thought it was such a funny book. GOOD NIGHT SWEET PRINCE AND FLIGHTS OF ANGELS SING THEE TO THY REST
Love this. I’m almost done with my 4th reading of Infinite Jest, but this time it’s audio. I don’t think it can ever be exhausted, so I really appreciate this.
Getting ready to tackle infinite Jest for 2022. A few years behind for the challenge I suppose but glad to have found this. Cheers to anyone else preparing to read this novel too.
I’m so excited to watch this! When reading these big books I often wish to have a resource to interact with. Would love to see this turn into a series of other big books!!!
I got about halfway through IJ before I realized I wasn’t really processing it, and more marathoning it. Should’ve listened to this first! Great lecture.
Stick with this (like Infinite Jest). He hits his stride midway through Part 1 and then gets better and better. Really -- this 4 part series is brilliant.
I think it is time to read "Infinite Jest" for the 3rd time! It is just completely transformative. Also PLEASE folks check out "The Pale King" :) ... anyways I once read IF as my avatar in VR ... maybe I do it again in Second Life ....
People really can be assholes. Making fun of the way a dude speaks (for like the first 2 minutes by the way - the 'ums' dramatically reduce as he eases up), whilst watching a video about one of the most self-conscious intellectuals in recent times, really advertises a gross ironic lack of self-awareness. I'm interested as to why Michael said he wasn't much of a fan of Harold Bloom. Bloom is undoubtedly a genius and incredibly well-read as far as his literary analyses and criticisms go (although I do disagree with him about Infinite Jest, at least in part). I can only imagine his dislike stems from Bloom's more outspoken criticisms of identitarian approaches to literary analysis (ie obsessive moralizing political correctness under the guise of literary analysis). Most university students and lecturers have unconsciously adopted that stance (with the best of intentions usually), so I'm curious if seeing someone vehemently against that approach is the reason for Michael's lack of enthusiasm towards Bloom.
Its endlessly interesting the ways in which a perspective at the moment when it has your undivided attention seems to sit in the king seat and dominate your ideas and beliefs, in this case, on David Foster Wallace. But when you are reading Wallace, he indeed is that seat while you read. And then when you are not reading then you sit in that seat. Like Hamlet. And you soliloquize about your life. What interests me here is the attitude of the instructor who seems to assert that he has the ultimate truths about IJ. Indeed, the people seated must believe in him as some sort of authority of the text but you see it is precisely the same belief that people have about property and who owns that property.
But why do they say this book is complicated??? Or somehow difficult to understand, or process, or get, or absorb or have any clue whatsoever is going on at any given moment or series of moments within aforementioned book..... It doesn't make sense, I don't get it, why is this book considered challenging or difficult or infuriating or anything other than a fairly easy read that clips along quite nicely.... Well whichever, I'm going back to clipping my toenails
I see. He wasn’t a spoiled angsty brat. He was a drug addict. I finally understand this guy. Why pretend to be something you’re not and arguably less likable. I couldn’t stand him when I thought he was a brat. An addict makes sense. I suppose empathy for addicts wasn’t like it is today. His pr and own image making, perpetuates the depressed pretentious narcissistic white guy culture, which his work has nothing to do with .
When does the book get enjoyable? When will it 'hit me' like it did with other people? I'm on page 560 and I've found the experience torturous and unenjoyable.
You can't mention a successful white person without insulting him first in American shitiversities, otherwise the autistic social justice warriors will complaining about the professor being a white supremacist.
@Philip Walsh he doesn't have a stutter. He's just lazy and undisciplined. Just like the content of his presentation is the product of lazy and undisciplined work.
@Philip Walsh I think it's quite a bit more "mean" to make his audience suffer through all of those umms and uhhhs. Someone needs to give him a wake-up call.
Ummm I’m trying to ahhh fit the stereotype of an academic so ummmm I ahhh feel the ahhhh need to say uhhhhh and ummmm all the ummmmm time. Ummm is not jargon !!!!!!
