> It has also been called metamodernist and hysterical realist.
The piece itself, I quite like, but I can definitely see why some people feel they're 'supposed' to like it, and for me, that certainly adds a whiff of pretentiousness.
Also, its no secret that the structure of the book itself, is just crazy.
Several of his footnotes are essentially short stories and have their own tangents and footnotes. Sort of the literary equivalent to the "cut-away" phenomenon of the 2000s. Think Arrested Development or Family Guy or The Royal Tannebaums, where they made a joke and it flashes back to a mini-scene 15 years earlier. It breaks up the narrative and allows for deeper exploration of the joke or concept. Same idea with IJ, or other DFW works where he uses the footnotes.
I think “pretentious” means “they are doing this to impress me, and it doesn’t seem authentic.”
I'm never clear just what people mean when they use it to describe a piece of literature or music. Sorry if my question is overly basic.