A Novel (Penguin Orange Collection) - The Broom of the System

Read other reviews for plot and character analysis.

I'm new to DFW, I'll admit. But I've extensively read up on the author and am familiar with his reputation as toeing the line between literary genius and madman. So, as I have with all fiction, I felt the compulsion to read his works chronologically so as to pick up on any subtle nuances in later works, and picked up a copy of The Broom. This rule has its pros and cons. Obviously, if The Broom left me confused and angry, it could dissuade me from reading any of DFW's more evolved works and I might miss out. On the other hand, I have the unusual ability to view DFW's first work with a fairly unbiased outlook, having not read his more acclaimed works, i.e. Infinite Jest. Just to set the scene.

The consensus: Yes, DFW is self-indulgent, but not at all in an arrogant way. This guy is consummately perceptive, insightful and knowledgeable and it would require extreme restraint on his part to NOT be self-indulgent, restraint that I believe would be painfully obvious to his readers. From this novel, I think I can safely presume that DFW is one of those writers whose work is at least as much for himself as his readers. The Broom is moreso for DFW considering he wrote it for his Grad thesis, and this may leave the reader feeling confused, left out and frustrated at times (especially the ending). There are many moments, however, when DFW lets the reader in, and they are illuminating, enlightening, inspiring, heart-wrenching, and nostalgia-inducing for any self-conscious reader.

If you appreciate individual moments, the written word, the ambiguity of human nature, the modern relevance of the allegory and don't mind feeling belittled in the shadow of a great mind, then you'll connect deeply to this novel in spite of its many unforgiving flaws. In turn, it will leave you angry, but why shouldn't it? You'll be smarter for it, regardless. Or go pick up the latest installment in the Twilight series, what do I care.

Girl with Curious Hair, here I come.

After reading through the reviews here, it sounded like "Broom" was a good starting place for reading David Foster Wallace. If that's true, then I'd say we're off to a good start. Really enjoyed it and will be digging into more of his work.

This wasn't nearly as challenging of a read as some have previously noted. We do get glimpses of conversations that don't make sense until later in the book, so I suppose that could throw some readers off track. It was challenging to me to slog through some of the long Rick stories, but I think that was obviously intentional. I enjoyed the change of pace of transcripts, observation logs, etc. sprinkled throughout the book.

Personal note: For some reason, I kept picturing Rick as Ignatius J. Reilly. So that was fun.

Given the hype over Infinite Jest, which I've never read and probably never will, this book disappointed me in the extreme. The dialog was leaden, the plot turns alternately heavy-handed, confused and self-conscious. I couldn't get into any of the characters, except the great-grandmother, but only a little. And what was the point of the Great Ohio Desert, except to fill in the G.O.D. acronym? Ooooh, what a grand metaphysical statement!!! The most engaging segments of the book were the excerpts from the rejected submissions to Vigorous Publishing. Ironically, this book itself would have been a prime candidate for that same scrapheap.

It was a great book to get through, regardless of whether ultimately there was a point to it or not. It doesn't necessarily make a lot of sence, and it has no resolution, but for some ungraspable reason, it's funny. The characters are believable, even while the story isn't. Would only recomend it to those with an active imagination

A savagely hilarious look at the modern age, this novel is a comedic whirlwind that centers on the increasingly hapless Lenore Beadsman and the bizarre people who make up her world. There's really no way to accurately convey the range and spirit of this one-of-a-kind book, because it's almost about Everything...but mainly about communication...how we communicate with lovers, bureaucracies, parents, siblings, enemies...how we connect and disconnect in the fragmented modern world. I can't recommend this hilarious, thought-provoking and generous book highly enough. You'd be a fool not to try it.

Though I liked this book, I was rather frustrated by the end of it...I felt almost like I had been cheated. All this excitement builds and builds and it just ends up feeling anti-climatic (and can someone please tell me why it ends mid-sentence?? i thought pages were missing). Honestly, I prefer David Foster Wallace's short stories and essays (10 out of 10 for "a supposedly fun thing..." and "girl with curious hair") because they give me some sense of cohesion. I felt like in this novel a lot of story lines were abandoned or not developed fully enough. This felt like a bunch of short stories pieced together to form a novel. The writing is good and very funny though...the book had me laughing out loud more than a couple times!

I agree with the reviews that consider this book a pretentious, self-indulgent, ego-fest. Wallace is obviously highly intelligent, and every minute of this book seems designed to remind us of that.

It all starts off well enough. The characters are quirky and interesting. At first. And Wallace does a good enough job of setting up a curious chain of events to keep the reader reading and wondering what's going to happen. But nothing ever really happens. And at some point I just grew sick of the characters and their weird little lives.

Ultimately, this just felt like what happens when a really smart person decides to write something as a way to experiment with and exhibit his own intellect. And while that exercise may have been rewarding for Wallace, it wasn't so terribly rewarding for the reader.

Curious and wonderful to see what someone as (obviously insane?) as DFW did back when he was still in a grad program for creative writing -- back when he was just a cunning tyke of 26, before (presumably) the MacArthur Fellowship had given him an oversized novelty cheque just for being really really smart --- before he started writing 1100 page behemoths and incalculably inscrutable short stories. Broom Of The System is, in a way, as straightforward a narrative as DFW ever has written (although there are plenty of POV shifts and a huge, steaming plate of metafictional story-on-story action)... It is a jumping off point, certainly, and you can see some of his fabulous textual obsessions of later books (fathers and dysfunctional families and drugs and addictions) in their earlier forms, here. DFW is to fiction what the band Rush was to music: he is a prog-rock artist, switching POVs and the like with a merciless disregard for tradition, and it's probably best to view his work-- esp. something like Infinite Jest -- as experiments, and not "stories." But with Broom of the System you get a little bit of both -- the first chapter in particular, I think, is one of the most flat-out charming bits of DFW's that I've read.

Reading the other reviews for this book as well as for IJ, what perhaps impresses me most about DFW is his ability to polarize his readers. Never have I come across an author who evoked quite the adoration from some and seemingly intense personal hatred from others. Infinte Jest received the former from me; Broom of the System acts merely as a subtle reminder of what a genius this author is. It seems that DFW needs a thousand pages to create characters that one can sympathize and identify with. What you have in BotS is sort of a skeletal version of the grandeur of IJ: a similar plot structure (none?); interesting, intriguing characters; and that wonderful hint of surreality that keeps you reading, perhaps against your better judgement. Worth reading, but don't expect greatness in this one.

Okay - this is not a literary implementation of "Wittgenstein's system" as I have read elsewhere, although he plays around with some pretty cool Wittgenstenian ideas in it... it is a whole lot like a shorter version of Infinite Jest in ways... I did in fact enjoy reading it, but I understand why DFosterW chose to write Jest in a way that more fully explores this literary stab. And hey - why is it that we human readers so expect our human writers to contrive plausible endings to all that is written anyways? I mean, it is weird enough that our eyes roam across these little symbols on a page and a voice goes and speaks in our head and tells us what is written, that's what's happening here, right, and that's weird, but what I'm really trying to get at is more like

Audiobook. I was 30% into the book and completely exhausted from listening to the verbose rantings of this author. Sure, there were some minor chuckles here and there but nothing to even closely warrant the time commitment to finish.

Two stars because of the creativity of some of the side stories, but truly, not that good to purchase and the time spent to wade through the multitude of words and unending loops of ideas.

Here's the reigning king of postmodernism, a writer who hasn't seemed to have heard that that movement is dead, yet whom nonetheless keeps on doing it. And I for one am thankful for that. There isn't anything David Foster Wallace has writen that I don't completely adore, and this novel--his first--is a great primer for any newcomers. Nothing I reccommend will be better.

Supposedly more "accessible" than the author's later novels, I foolishly chose to try this one and find nothing in it worth the time. It's billed as "outlandishly funny"? Why then did I not laugh even once? It's billed as "fiercely intelligent"? Maybe that means it taxes one's intelligence beyond repair. Indeed, I'm sorry to have spent the time, let alone the money. If you've already acquired a taste for "post-modern," go ahead and give it a try. If you'd rather read something truly accessible, read William Faulkner or John Fowles or Margaret Atwood or a thousand more, much better, novelists.

This has received great reviews, and I don't know why. He can write, that's for sure, but none of the characters did anything or went anywhere in the story or seemed believable, likable or relatable in any way. It also came across as pretentious, and I don't think I even smiled never mind laughed at any of it. It all seemed to be winding up to some great climax but it was a massive let down.
The only way this book is "outrageous" is if you're 90 years old and grew up thinking showing your knees in public was beyond the pale.