The Broom of the System

David's early book titles apparently have little to do with the subject matter, much like a song from REM, whose lyrics have nothing to do with anything at all, other than they sound good. Don't expect to learn what is 'The Broom of the System' by reading this book.

What you should expect is a Douglas-Adams like treatment of the near future, full of quintessential midwestern humor (David is from Urbana, Illinois), which consists mainly of Satire, Irony, and Social Comment. These are his major strengths. They are brilliantly displayed every so often in a 3-20 page satirical rant or manic expository piece.

If you want an example of his brilliance, search inside this book for 'vanity' and read what it says. This book-within-a-book - only 3 pages long, and starting on page 20 - will "up" your reading speed and have you laughing and crying before you finish the narrative. And you may also be wondering "is that me? what if this were me? what would i do ??"

David's brilliance at the 3-20 page narrative does not extend, unfortunately, to the 480 page novel. And so, while there are individual pieces of this book that are brilliant, absolutely hysterical 'laughing out loud and crying at the same time', you will probably enjoy the overall plotline less than the individual components of the book.

But this is still an excellent read, well worth your time and effort.

David Foster Wallace is one of my favorite non-fiction authors, so I decided to read his first novel, The Broom of the System. I'd love to be able to explain the title, but I can't; I have no idea what it refers to. Ditto for most of the book's themes, characters, motifs, and its plot. It was beautifully written at times; Wallace has a real flair for dialogue as well as the same descriptive zing that makes me enjoy his essays, but since it was "Picaresque," according to the blurbs on the cover, the storyline jumped all over the place, often from page to page. Which wouldn't have bothered me too much, except most of the story lines don't end.

It seemed to me that the whole novel has no point: though it comes to a climax, the ending is very nearly on the next page, and since the characters are ambiguous and conflicted (Their most realistic traits) it is impossible to say what the final effects of the climax are, or why the characters make the choices they did. It felt to me like the author had a very distinct concept of what effect he wanted to have on the reader, and he put everything he had into creating that effect; unfortunately, he didn't focus enough on telling a good story while he was affecting me.

So I'll be sticking to Wallace's essays from now on. Though it's a shame, because judging by the incredibly convoluted and wacked out plot lines that this book follows (until they peter out in a puff of dust, that is) and the ones described in the stories-within-the-story, Wallace has a great flair for absurdist story telling. I sort of wish he'd come down a literary step or two and just write something wacky. It would be fun to read.

I am a fan of DFW - Infinite Jest is one of my favorite books, and I've loved even some of his weirder forays into metafiction in his collections of short works. I was very surprised and disappointed by this novel, in fact forced to set it aside 120 pages in. It's largely incomprehensible, far too cute styllistically, and makes no effort to orient the reader in the webs of its plot. There's one entertaining character, Mr Bombadini, but the rest is just mastur**tory. I don't need stories spoon-fed to me by any means, but the author in this case seemed to be aiming for cleverness first, to hell with the reader.

It seems there will never be consensus about DFW's books. That makes me wonder why some people bother to buy them in the first place. His writings are post-everything, irreverent, intelligent and wickedly funny. He makes us, the readers, put in some effort.

In reading Wallace, don't try to figure out where he's going; rather spend your time figuring out where he's already taken you. Keep track of all the minutiae because you will need it to put the puzzle together after you have finished the reading. Closing the cover is not the end of the story. You get to finish it from all the clues he has given you along the way.

If you have not read any of his stuff, start here or with some of his short stories rather than Infinite Jest. And - keep your mind open and brain in gear. I think you'll like it.

As a raving fanatic of DFW, I was surprisingly and to all contrary expectations let down quite thoroughly by his first novel. People say it's a mini Infinite Jest, but that's really not true at all. I mean there are budding and teasing similarities, but they are, in my opinion, very different novels concerned with different issues. First, The Broom of the System is mostly in dialogue without the sharp wit and rolling-on-the-floor-funny humor and the trademark myriad lengthy footnotes you see in his later works. Second, it is a hell of a lot less pretentious; i.e. I didn't have to consult the OED, not even once, which is unthinkable in his later works, fiction or essays. In this sense, the book is much easier to read, but then for a seasoned DFW fan/reader, it felt lightweight, paltry, and very unsatisfying indeed. In other words, I felt cheated.

Indulge me with a little rant. The quintessential DFW experience is a menagerie of pretentiousness, sophistication, and killer humor blended together with the right amount of direction or plot. And here I say pretentiousness in its most possible sense. People tend to say, "Oh that's pretentious!" in the spirit of angry and dismissive criticism, but if you look at it more carefully, what's wrong with being pretentious? You know a lot of stuff, and you show off what you know. And what's wrong with that? Does it make you feel stupid? Ignorant? Inadequate? Well then, big guy, maybe you should sit, look up those words, learn them, and delve in further. Be a little more patient when reading books. It's literature, not popular fiction. It offers you an opportunity to be more educated, more knowledgeable, and perhaps - God forbid - more pretentious. Anyway, DFW's pretentiousness is by no means a malicious or harmful kind where he's trying to put you down or show he's a hundred times smarter than you. On the contrary, it seems to be informed by a desire to just play around with words (e.g. Hey, this word sounds cool, why not use it?).

But I digress. The point is that The Broom of the System didn't offer the full range and depth of DFW experience. It wasn't pretentious (which can be a good thing for some readers), it wasn't that sophisticated (no footnotes? Come on. And any cool plot? Like a film that makes people watch until they die and is being hunted by a Canadian wheelchair terrorist group to give the big terrorizing finger to the US?), and it wasn't that funny (I can recall only three, at most four, instances when I laughed out loud). The plot, too, was pretty bland and wasn't exciting. It also kept going off on tremendous tangents that weren't 1) funny or 2)relevant to the main story.

So all in all, it was such a let down that it almost hurt when the book ended as it did. Read his essays and his magnum opus, but this one isn't that worth it.