The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I could very theoretically start listing the shelves where this touches upon, but I'd rather just say that this is a first novel most cocaine heads listening to the middle days of heavy metal would want to write if they were hopelessly in love with with the craziest *roughage* post-modern deconstructionists willing to push all narratives into wonderfully feathered *roughage* prose that's more absurd mixed wth frame within frame within frame *roughage* stories that are linked so very vividly with one another while requiring such heavy *roughage* to digest simply because we're fed the literary equivalent of eight steaks.

Yes. That's right. Eight Steaks. And don't you fucking forget the desert.

This novel is not the grotesquely fat monstrosity that wants not only to consume and replace the universe, as in Infinite Jest, but we do see the much smaller man that Wallace's later book becomes, as it engorges himself, (and us, by proxy,) in record time.

I'm sure I'll incur the wrath of many IJ heads by saying that I absolutely love this book in comparison to that other whale. The frankly told mini-tales were some of the coolest and craziest and fucked up stories, ever. Imagine good mini-novels told as a quick narrative in bed after or before sex, then imagine getting your mind fucked. This is the kind of thing you can expect in this little novel, and it happens on many different levels. Can I say how tickled I was by all the almost meta interpretations of turning your idea of self into a fully three dimensional character? This coming from a psychologist to one of the main characters? Well, shit, you have no idea, how many times I was tickled by similar awesome bits.

It's very smart, the tale is actually rather linear, although there is NO CLIMAX. Not really. There's a headlong rush of words speeding up and speeding up in a Wittgenstein coitus that ends in the ultimate of interruptus, almost as if we were hit over the head by a big broom.

I DO kinda wish I could be a little surprised by that, but it's par for course. :) Wonderful and smart characters, truly oddball situations and conversations, delightfully feathered prose that links all these disparate parts together in a paint splattered mosaic of trash.

Seriously brilliant. Every page is enjoyable. We get the sense of a grand plan shaping. But of course, this is DFW. He is the king of the fuck you. :) I did mention that he's rather heavy metal in his outlook on life, didn't I? lol We all know what he said when someone paid him the compliment by calling him brilliant, right? He said just that. Fuck You. Classic. :)

View all my reviews