The Broom of the System

by David Foster Wallace
The Broom of the System
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1,853 ratings, 3.73 average rating, 211 reviews (more data...)
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published
May 1993 by Avon Books (first published 1987)

details
Paperback, 467 pages

description
DFW's first novel. ISBN 0380719916 duplicates that of HarperCollins Canada edition but this is Avon Books U.S. edition with different cover.


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MyFleshSingsOut
bookshelves: fiction
Owns a copy — Read in January, 2009
I find it fitting in a initially intuitive and deeply, personally meaningful way that the one DFW book I've yet to read is his novelistic beginning and is going to be read last by myself; considering the horrible events of September 12th, 2008; considering the nature of things beginning and ending; considering the near-constant ruminations on such things being heightened in new and more profound ways all of the time; considering that the successive passage of time implicitly involves more and mo...more
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  13 comments

Andrew
Jan 20, 2008
Andrew added it (review of isbn 0142002429)

Read in January, 2008
This is a hard nut to crack. I decided long ago I needed to read old David Foster Wallace, and I wasn't feeling committed to the 1100 page chore of "Infinite Jest." As far as I can tell, he draws on three American literary traditions: the first is the American hysterical realist tradition that it helped to found (see DeLillo, Franzen), the second being the batshit tradition beloved by smart 18 year olds (see Vonnegut, Robbins), and the third being Thomas Pynchon, who is his own wonde...more
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  1 comment

Davis
Jul 16, 2009
Davis rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0140098682)

Read in July, 2009
recommended to Davis by: Mom
recommends it for: Any literate individual
David Foster Wallace was once quoted as saying "The Broom Of The System seems like it was written by a very smart 14 year old". I respectfully disagree with the always self-degrading and self-conscious author (Rest In Peace). In fact, due the relative success of this novel, and his inability to utilize it properly, Wallace had a mental breakdown. The circumstances around this book, both before and after, are incredibly interesting, and regretfully, there is a whole lot of space here to...more
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  4 comments

Alex
Jun 16, 2008
Alex rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

Read in June, 2008
recommends it for: philosophy majors
"It's no Infinite Jest."

That's probably the most obnoxious way I could possibly kick off this brief review of a book which, on its own terms, is very good. It's funny and clever, indubitably "smart". Some of the scenes are fantastic - for example, a finale that reminds of the procession at the end of 8 1/2 - and some are deliciously cringe-worthy - for example, almost anything containing one Mr. Rick Vigorous.

But, at risk of belaboring this point, it...more
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Rob
Aug 27, 2007
Rob rated it: 3 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

bookshelves: fiction
Read in September, 2007
this was published 10 years before Infinite Jest. much like in IJ, every single character in this novel is broken, defective, missing some vital piece. one is missing a leg, one is missing a penis, many lack morality, or empathy, or confidence, or even any self-identity. but in infinite jest, you end up really liking a bunch of them -- their defects make them lovable, or you love their good qualities in spite of their defects. but in this novel, i sort of grew to despise all but one. i pinn...more
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  1 comment

Ben
Jun 05, 2007
Ben rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

bookshelves: americana
Incredibly Pynchonesque--so much so that I kept forgetting it was written by someone else--but it's a great book, so it doesn't matter. Everything's crazy but so believable--I think this is the world I want to live in.
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Taka
Jan 15, 2008
Taka rated it: 2 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

Read in January, 2008
Disappointing--

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 le...more
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Jafar
Mar 28, 2007
Jafar rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

This book is supposed to be a mini Infinite Jest. At 500 pages and a complicated plot with a lot of characters, this mini was plenty enough for me. There’s actually not much of a plot in the traditional sense of a story that begins at A and concludes at B. It’s an absurd story about a girl named Lenore whose grandmother, also named Lenore and a former student of Wittgenstein, disappears from her nursing home. The young Lenore, coming from a fucked up family and with lots of issues, has a boy...more
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Tempest
Dec 25, 2007
Tempest rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

Read in January, 2008
Broom of the System has the advantage of being written by the talented Mr. Wallace, without the disadvantage of 612 additional pages and a few extra chapters of footnotes.

Infinite Jest, Wallace's masterpiece, is well plotted, well written, and rather profound--but it is difficult to keep momentum going throughout the entire tome (Not to say it isn't worth it.) Broom is well plotted, well written, rather profound, and sustainably engaging. While not a 'mature' work by Wallace, it tou...more
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Ben Bush
Mar 09, 2010
Ben Bush added it (review of isbn 0142002429)

David Foster Wallace's books have had some pretty ugly cover art in general. My edition of Broom of the System was certainly no exception with a strange day-glo orange ectoplasmic smear on the cover. "Broom" is an enjoyable read. That first semi-traumatic scene in the dorm room is pretty great but the book only comes alive in that way in a couple other places for me. The scenes with the "Antichrist' brother and Lenore's sister's family's enactment of their family drama in front of...more
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Matt
Sep 07, 2009
Matt rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

Read in September, 2009
Funny and endearing. The book is divided into two parts, and, out of coincidence (being legitimately busy), I actually read it as such ... with a week or two between segments. Not sure if this helped or hurt. It is certainly the kind of reading where you need to shift your reading brain to the writer's particular groove - the next book you pick up will almost certainly feel less ... something. Less like an explosion of a brain onto the page, and more like a novel.

And that's what'...more
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Irwin
Feb 06, 2009
Irwin rated it: 3 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

Read in January, 2009
this was a fun read, appropriately taken on during a vacation punctuated by long airplane rides. It was inspired mainly by david foster wallace's recent death and the spate of articles describing him as an extraordinary treasure when it was my impression that he was largely inscrutable. I still fear I may not be smart enough to read any of his other books, but this one, apparently written right out of college, was quie approachable. I particularly liked the way the story was stitched together ou...more
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Meg
Dec 27, 2009
Meg rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

bookshelves: classics
This is the sort of book that worms its way into your mind and then changes the way you think. Even a few hours after I'd put it down, I'd suddenly realize that I was thinking run-on sentences that were a bit too absurd even for me. I don't know, I think DFW gets major props for that.

I I just recently read his commencement speech, his candid thoughts on how to think and how to live, and the fact that this brilliant man committed suicide really, really bothers me. I think it may be...more
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Sean
Dec 08, 2008
Sean rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

bookshelves: wierd-but-wonderful
Read in December, 2008
So far so amazing; it's a terrible loss to this world to lose such an amazing talent. I've read bits a pieces of DFW prior to this - Infinite Jest was an amazing ten pages but I got overwhelmed with the other 990. This is much more manageable, and probably much more enjoyable. Stay tuned for more.

I finished this novel yesterday. I was admittedly a little frustrated with the ending, as I felt it was a little odd. He literally leaves one hanging on the last word, and while it's ob...more
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Drew
Nov 04, 2008
Drew rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

Read in December, 2008
I liked this book for the words. I is quite obvious that, to Wallace, the English language was a playground. Consequently, reading his creation (I hate to call it work) I felt like a kid on a swingset or jungle-gym.
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Neil
Apr 06, 2009
Neil rated it: 3 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

Read in April, 2009
It's so enjoyable to read a novel that imagines a portion of Cleveland that was laid out in the shape of Jayne Mansfield, or includes the idea of a giant man-made desert in Ohio. These are wonderfully inventive ideas and they're only two of the many in Wallace's debut.

And yet it never really adds up to much. Unlike Infinite Jest, which I found so emotionally effective, everything in The Broom of the System seems to happen at a distance: much of the plot, such as it is, takes place aw...more
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Joseph Green
Aug 12, 2009
Joseph Green rated it: 3 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

Read in August, 2009
If I could've given this book 3.5 stars, I would've. At it's peak, this book is vintage Wallace, giving us an inimitable mix of absurdity/sincerity/technique that makes reading a joy. However, all of Wallace's shortcomings are also on display, not the least of which, for me at least, is Wallace's inability to conjure a satiating ending. I know many, many, many will disagree with me on this, but I think stories need real endings and Wallace continually (twice) refuses to give us an ending. In Inf...more
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Tyler Dorholt
Read in June, 2007
Uproariously inspiring and unafraid in slant, Wallace’s first novel knocked me into writing mode for the duration of its read and the entire month thereafter. It is absurd in its invigoration and timeless in its character chew. Read it first to further enjoy everything he has done since.
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Erica
Jun 08, 2008
Erica added it (review of isbn 0142002429)

Read in October, 2008
I really don't even know how to rate this. It took me forever to read but since the untimely passing of Wallace a few weeks ago, I thought it was time to plow through the rest. It was, um, interesting for sure. But honestly, I don't know if I liked it or not.

How's that for indecisive?
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Ed Raso
Dec 28, 2009
Ed Raso rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0142002429)

Owns a copy — Read in December, 2009
I've seen reviews of this book that say to read it before attempting Wallace's mammoth and more popular "Infinite Jest". I would have to agree, and it makes sense considering that "Broom of the System" is the author's first novel.

Broom is similar in many ways to Infinite Jest, but in a much less verbose package and doesn't have the infamous foot-notes. Like Jest, It explores themes such as Corporate America, the environment, and disconnect (both technological and ...more
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Sometimes the first line of a book just grabs you by the nostrils and drags your fool head into its pages, preventing escape in any way, shape or form. Which of these opening lines has its phalanges most firmly planted in your nasal cavities?

"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink."

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  104 votes, 5.6%

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

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  97 votes, 5.2%

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

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  83 votes, 4.4%

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
 
  75 votes, 4.0%

"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
 
  68 votes, 3.6%

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun."

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
 
  63 votes, 3.4%

"He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad."

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  60 votes, 3.2%

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  60 votes, 3.2%

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  60 votes, 3.2%

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  59 votes, 3.2%

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  57 votes, 3.0%

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  57 votes, 3.0%

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  56 votes, 3.0%

"All this happened, more or less."

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 
  54 votes, 2.9%

Bah! Foolish poll-maker-person! The nostril seizing power of these paltry lines is minimal, at best! Look to the comments section where I shall carefully type out my choice, which you have so imprudently omitted!
 
  54 votes, 2.9%

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."

The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien
 
  53 votes, 2.8%

"There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife."

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
 
  52 votes, 2.8%

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins."

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
 
  50 votes, 2.7%

"As Gregor Samsa awoke from a night of uneasy dreaming, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
 
  49 votes, 2.6%

"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany."

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
 
  46 votes, 2.5%

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Orlando by Virginia Woolf
 
  46 votes, 2.5%

“'To be born again,' sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, 'first you have to die.'”

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
 
  40 votes, 2.1%

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The Crow Road by Iain Banks
 
  39 votes, 2.1%

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Neuromancer by William Gibson
 
  37 votes, 2.0%

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  35 votes, 1.9%

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Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler
 
  32 votes, 1.7%

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The Stranger by Albert Camus
 
  31 votes, 1.7%

"Call me Ishmael."

Moby Dick by Herman Melville
 
  30 votes, 1.6%

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Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
 
  27 votes, 1.4%

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The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
 
  26 votes, 1.4%

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
 
  24 votes, 1.3%

"There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim and we sat in the Korova milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening."

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
 
  24 votes, 1.3%

“'When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets,' Papa would say, 'she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing.'”

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
 
  19 votes, 1.0%

"Ages ago, Alex, Allen and Alva arrived at Antibes, and Alva allowing all, allowing anyone, against Alex's admonition, against Allen's angry assertion: another African amusement . . . anyhow, as all argued, an awesome African army assembled and arduously advanced against an African anthill, assiduously annihilating ant after ant, and afterward, Alex astonishingly accuses Albert as also accepting Africa's antipodal ant annexation."

Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish
 
  18 votes, 1.0%

"Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden."

The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace
 
  18 votes, 1.0%

"The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up."

The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton
 
  18 votes, 1.0%

"For a long time, I went to bed early."

Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
 
  18 votes, 1.0%

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The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
 
  16 votes, 0.9%

"When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere."

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
 
  15 votes, 0.8%

"The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new."

Murphy by Samuel Beckett
 
  12 votes, 0.6%

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The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
 
  12 votes, 0.6%

"Of Herbert West, who was my friend in college and in after life, I can speak only with extreme terror."

Herbert West: Reanimator and Other Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
 
  10 votes, 0.5%

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Chromos by Felipe Alfau
 
  10 votes, 0.5%

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Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
 
  10 votes, 0.5%

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The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
 
  10 votes, 0.5%

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The Debut by Anita Brookner
 
  10 votes, 0.5%

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  8 votes, 0.4%

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  7 votes, 0.4%

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  7 votes, 0.4%

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

Paul Clifford by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
 
  6 votes, 0.3%

"What if this young woman, who writes such bad poems, in competition with her husband, whose poems are equally bad, should stretch her remarkably long and well-made legs out before you, so that her skirt slips up to the tops of her stockings?"

Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things by Gilbert Sorrentino
 
  3 votes, 0.2%

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The Broom of the System (Paperback)
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The Broom of the System (Paperback)






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