I am a DFW fan, a near completist, but I'd never read his first novel, The Broom of the System. Now I have. While it doesn't quite qualify as juvenilia, it definitely lacks the depth of his mature work. A lot of his stylistic quirks are already in evidence (digressive structure, overabundance of detail, deadpan surrealistic comedy, allusions to high and low culture, characters tortured by their own convoluted thought processes; but no footnotes), but without the moral or empathetic depth of Infinite Jest or his later works.
I usually like DFW's digressiveness, seeing a thematic purpose to it, but I found it annoying here. I got engaged with the main narrative thread about the group of people missing from a nursing home and with the loquacious cockatiel Vlad the Impaler; Wallace dropped both threads quickly. Wallace was reportedly inspired by ideas from Wittgenstein and Derrida, but I found the book madcap without real purpose.
My favorite digressions are the story summaries from the main character's besotted boss, the editor of a failed literary magazine. I especially enjoyed the story of the woman with a tree-frog living in a hollow of her throat.
I usually like DFW's digressiveness, seeing a thematic purpose to it, but I found it annoying here. I got engaged with the main narrative thread about the group of people missing from a nursing home and with the loquacious cockatiel Vlad the Impaler; Wallace dropped both threads quickly. Wallace was reportedly inspired by ideas from Wittgenstein and Derrida, but I found the book madcap without real purpose.
My favorite digressions are the story summaries from the main character's besotted boss, the editor of a failed literary magazine. I especially enjoyed the story of the woman with a tree-frog living in a hollow of her throat.
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