It’s 1987. A twenty-something with a bandana and a serious case of "smartest guy in the room" syndrome publishes a novel about a girl named Lenore, a missing great-grandmother, and a cockatiel that recites scripture. Most debut novels by philosophy students are, frankly, unreadable. They’re heavy, they’re pretentious, and they smell like a library basement. But The Broom of the System was different. It was loud. It was messy. It was David Foster Wallace’s opening shot, and honestly, if you want to understand why the guy became a literary deity before his tragic end, you have to start with this chaotic, hilarious, and deeply frustrating book.
People usually jump straight to Infinite Jest. They see the 1,000-page brick and think, "Yeah, that’s the boss fight." But The Broom of the System is the origin story. It’s where Wallace first tried to figure out if we are just "word-wasps" trapped in a jar of language or if there’s something actually real behind our teeth.
What’s actually going on in East Corinth?
The plot is a fever dream. Lenore Beadsman is a switchboard operator at a weirdly corporate publishing house. Her great-grandmother—also named Lenore—has vanished from a nursing home along with a bunch of other elderly residents and some high-tech hearing aids. Meanwhile, Lenore’s boss/lover, Rick Vigorous, is an insecure neurotic who tells stories to cope with his own inadequacy.
Everything in this world feels slightly "off." The setting is a fictionalized Ohio where the desert is man-made (the Great Ohio Desert, or G.O.D.) and the suburbs are shaped like a profile of Jay Leno. It sounds like a cartoon, but Wallace is using these absurdities to poke at a very real anxiety: how much of our lives is just a script written by someone else?
The philosophy behind the madness
Wallace wasn't just making stuff up for the sake of being "quirky." He was obsessed with Ludwig Wittgenstein. If you haven't spent your weekends reading Philosophical Investigations, don't worry. Basically, Wittgenstein argued that language is a game. We don't use words to describe the "truth"; we use them to navigate social rules.
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The title itself comes from a story Lenore’s great-grandmother tells her. Imagine a broom. You have the bristles and the handle. Which part is the "essence" of the broom? If you use it to sweep, the bristles are the point. If you use it to reach something high up, the handle is what matters. The "broom-ness" of the object depends entirely on how it’s being used in a system.
Lenore is terrified that she’s just a "bristle." She’s worried she has no soul or internal life outside of the stories people tell about her. It’s a very 1980s kind of paranoia, but it feels weirdly relevant in 2026. Think about it. We spend all day curate-ing "profiles" and "feeds." Are you a person, or are you just a collection of data points in a social media system?
Why the dialogue sounds so... Wallace
If you’ve ever listened to a DFW interview, you know the cadence. It’s a mix of high-level academic jargon and "dude, like, totally" slang. In The Broom of the System, this shows up in the dialogue. Characters don't just talk; they perform.
- Rick Vigorous talks in dense, self-pitying paragraphs.
- Vlad the Impaler (the bird) screams fragments of Bible verses.
- Lenore spends most of her time trying to find a gap in the noise where she can actually exist.
The sentence structure in the book is wild. You’ll have a page-long sentence that deconstructs a character's childhood trauma, followed by a one-word response. It’s meant to be jarring. It’s meant to make you feel as overwhelmed as Lenore feels.
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The critics weren't always kind
When the book dropped, some critics called it "derivative." They saw too much Thomas Pynchon in the wacky names and the sprawling plots. And sure, you can see the influence of The Crying of Lot 49 all over the place. But Wallace added a layer of sincerity that Pynchon often lacked.
Underneath the jokes about a massive desert in Ohio and a bird that won't shut up, there’s a real sadness. Wallace was a guy who struggled with depression and the feeling of being disconnected from other people. You can feel him reaching out through the text, trying to find a way to make language mean something more than just a "game."
The "Incompleteness" of it all
One of the most famous (and hated) things about The Broom of the System is the ending. I won't spoil it, but let's just say it doesn't wrap up with a neat little bow. It literally stops mid-sentence.
Some readers felt cheated. They wanted to know what happened to the great-grandmother. They wanted a resolution. But that would have betrayed the whole point of the book. If the world is a system of language, and the book is a system of language, the only way to "escape" the system is to stop talking. The ending is Wallace’s way of letting Lenore finally step out of the story.
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How to actually read this thing today
If you’re picking this up for the first time, don’t try to "solve" it. It’s not a mystery novel, even though it pretends to be one at the start. It’s an experience.
- Stop worrying about the references. You don't need a degree in philosophy to get the vibes. If a section feels too dense, just keep moving. The rhythm is more important than the individual words.
- Pay attention to the stories within stories. Rick’s stories are often more revealing than the actual plot. They show you his neuroses in real-time.
- Look for the humor. People treat Wallace like he’s this heavy, grim intellectual. He was actually hilarious. The scene with the bird on the Christian talk show is gold.
Actionable Takeaways for the Wallace-Curious
If you want to dive into the world of DFW but feel intimidated, The Broom of the System is actually the best entry point. It’s shorter than Infinite Jest and more playful than The Pale King.
- Start with the audiobook if the long sentences hurt your eyes. Hearing the cadence makes the humor click much faster.
- Read the first 50 pages. If the voice doesn't grab you by then, it probably won't. Wallace is an acquired taste, like black coffee or experimental jazz.
- Check out his essays afterward. If you finish the book and want more of that brainy-yet-grounded energy, read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. It bridges the gap between his fiction and his real-life observations.
Ultimately, The Broom of the System is about the struggle to be a "self" in a world that wants to turn you into a character. It’s a young man's book—full of energy, ego, and a desperate need to be understood. Decades later, it still feels like a lightning strike.
To get the most out of your reading, keep a notebook handy. Not for "studying," but for jotting down the phrases that make you stop and think. Wallace’s greatest gift wasn't his vocabulary; it was his ability to pin down a feeling you didn't know you had until he put words to it. Grab a copy from a local used bookstore—the ones with the weathered spines usually have the best marginalia from previous travelers.