I can imagine a nearby possible world where I read this before any David Foster Wallace. I think that would be a better world for me, because the tone is lightly comic but not ridiculous, and it works as straightforward high concept, but alas we do not live in this world, so it received the worst of all possible reactions from me: "I can see what the author is trying to do here".
This is the somewhat defensive signal that indicates that the brain has activated and I'm no longer in something as an immersive experience; it is critic-brain. "I understand what the book/movie/tv show is attempting and it executes its attempt with style" really just means that I have emotionally disengaged from it, and there's no point in continuing.
The opposite does happen from time to time--I stick with something out of obligation and find that I love it--but vita brevis longa ars, so often I will just never know.
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