where to start w/ dfw?

[michael]

consensus seems to be that infinite jest is his masterpiece. best place to start?

[hatta]

It is without a doubt his masterpiece and it was the first thing of his I read. I found it completely engrossing and read it for 9 days in a row. A great, great book. However one could start with his short stories, which are if anything even more innovative. A good place to start I think would be his last short story collection, Oblivion, which contains his mature work but also the near novella Mr. Squishy which gives you a bit of a feel for his longer works. Its all worth reading, though I would not start with Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.

[faster]

Man, I'd start with "Consider the Lobster" or "A Supposedly Fun Thing", just to see if you like his style or not. It's not the kind of thing you can ignore, and if you don't like it, IJ would be a fucking nightmare.

[hatta]

I hear what you are saying Joe, but I think the short stories are better then the essays to get a sense for his fiction. I do love his essays though.

[mudd]

'consider the lobster' isn't a bad suggestion. i actually listened to the audiobook version of that, it's really interesting to hear exactly how foster phrases this thing in speech, sometimes it's not entirely obvious.

and mr. squishy was the work that convinced me dfw was more than a one hit wonder. i started with IJ and loved it, but the first story collection and 'broom of the system' didn't come close.

m

[diederich]

Well I started with Broom of the System and loved it, but IJ is a very different sort of beast. It can't hurt to just dive in.

[michael]

hmmm opinion seems pretty scattered

[markt]

consensus seems to be that infinite jest is his masterpiece

I think it is.

The first thing I read by DFW was A Supposedly Fun Thing..., followed immediately by Oblivion, followed (pretty much) immediately by Infinite Jest...
I've recommended reading the work in this order to other people - just as a way to ease you into the big one. At the very least, SFT will get you prepared for the crazy (and awesome) footnoting that goes on in IJ.

I kinda regret having read Infinite Jest in two sittings (separated by a month or so). I thought about starting again, but was too lazy. If you're going to read it, make sure you clear your scheduele first.

[Jesse]

I kinda regret having read Infinite Jest in two sittings...

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[markt]

that wasn't quite what I meant...

Just every time I read a novel I end up stopping in the middle, then picking it back up and spending the next 70 pages trying to remember who characters are and what they're doing. Though it was probably inevitable in this case, I found the book particularly hard to get back into.
There was already enough to keep track of in Infinite Jest; for me, the month long break definitely took away from the book. I'd like to re-read it one day, but DFW is well under my mountainous "to-read pile"...

edit: and more than a month in retrospect, almost a whole semester.