The Broom of the System

published	August 7th 1997 by Abacus
binding	Paperback
isbn	0349109230 (isbn13: 9780349109237)
ebook
pages	467
description	Published when Wallace was just twenty-four years old, The Broom of the System stunned critics and marked the emergence of an extraordinary new...more [close] Published when Wallace was just twenty-four years old, The Broom of the System stunned critics and marked the emergence of an extraordinary new talent. At the center of this outlandishly funny, fiercely intelligent novel is the bewitching heroine, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman. The year is 1990 and the place is a slightly altered Cleveland, Ohio. Lenores great-grandmother has disappeared with twenty-five other inmates of the Shaker Heights Nursing Home. Her beau, and boss, Rick Vigorous, is insanely jealous, and her cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler, has suddenly started spouting a mixture of psycho- babble, Auden, and the King James Bible. Ingenious and entertaining, this debut from one of the most innovative writers of his generation brilliantly explores the paradoxes of language, storytelling, and reality. [close]
date added	05-15-07 edit book

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Taka rated it:

(review of isbn 0142002429)

01/22/08

bookshelves: japan_jul07-present, post-modern_lit

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 myr...more 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 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 positive 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.

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Alex rated it:

(review of isbn 0142002429)

06/23/08

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's...more "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's not Infinite Jest.

I remember reading an interview with Bob Dylan, in which he pleads that people not judge his new record against his own body of work. "Judge me against somebody else." It's a fair request, but given the difficulty in compartmentalizing appreciation, it's almost impossible to comply with.

With David Foster Wallace, of course, this axiological sequence is reversed; his older stuff is what one would like to avoid comparing to the newer.

Where Infinite Jest had a cast of ontologically distinct characters, the inhabitants of The Broom of the System seem each to be quirky variants on a singular, hyperliterate consciousness. It's tough to imagine a world in which seemingly everyone is able and willing to discourse on various theories of solipsism and interconnection at the drop of a hat. Unless that world is a college campus...

And I think that's my issue, here. This book, though ostensibly set in and around Cleveland, is really a college novel. I imagine young Mr. Wallace, not wanting to write just another coming-of-age-in-educated-society tract, concentrating all of his formidable intellect and projecting outwards toward what he imagines the "outside" world is like, wanting to make it authentic and mature.

And where it succeeds, it's clever, and funny, and sometimes sensitive. Where it doesn't, it's still entertaining in a philosophy-major sort of way. It just lacks the cohesive sensibility that makes Infinite Jest brilliant.

But, to be fair to this ambitious "little" book, the phrase "It's no Infinite Jest" can be said even more emphatically of nearly every book I've ever read....less

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