Completed Feburary 25, 2019 at 9:58 pm

I've said it once, and I'll say it again -- David Foster Wallace was a once-in-a-generation writer who had the uncanny ability to both challenge and entertain his readers in a way that I don't think anyone has been able to do since.

Over the years, I've read a good portion of his non-fiction ('Consider the Lobster', 'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again'), though I was more challenged by his fiction. After finishing 'Infinite Jest' earlier this year, I took up the challenge of 'The Broom of the System' which has been sitting on my bookshelf since college.

'Broom' is DFW's debut novel, written as a undergraduate seniorthesis (!) while at Amherst College (he was a double major -- his other thesis was a piece on Fatalism that I haven't read). This alone is astounding, as the book reads like the work of a much more mature author.

The book center's around Lenore Beadsman, a switchboard operator and heir to a baby food dynasty. That only scratches the surface -- the novel dives into a somewhat-existential crisis she is having on whether or not she is real, or a linguistic construct (supposedly, Wittgenstein an Derrida where big influences on the text).

Much shorter than 'Infinite Jest', with quicker chapters and no footnotes, it can in some ways be viewed as a great beginner's guide to DFW. However, don't mistake that for an easy read -- the book still took me sometime to finish (for it's own sake, but also other non-related ones) as it involves multiple intertwining stories posed in different formats (you can see the beginnings of 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men'-style here as well) and challenging linguistic tricks (not sure how else to explain it). However, it is very much worth the read.

As with all works of DFW, it's hard to finish without thinking how much of a loss we suffered when he passed. He's really in a realm-of-his-own, and is the type of writer that others should aspire to be.

If you're looking for a beginning pathway to the world of DFW, or even just a small novel (sub 500 pages) that is going to stretch your brain -- I highly suggest picking up 'The Broom of the System' and checking it out.