As part of Infinite Summer, both Amy and I have embarked on the reading of David Foster Wallace’s magnum opus, “Infinite Jest.” It’s a 1,076-page monster, and although I’m not yet very far into it, I can already tell that its density has not been exaggerated.
Already, I’ve encountered things that I know will be richly rewarding in a way I can’t appreciate until I reread it. That thought fills me with both dread and delight.
I avidly anticipated coming across my first footnote, since they are legendary, and now that I have, I’d like to post something that was tweeted by Steve Juras a while back. Here’s a (pdf) link to David Foster Wallace’s course syllabus when he was teaching Literary Interpretation in 2005. It’s funny and dense and it’s got footnotes.
You should get a copy of Infinite Jest and join us in the read!
Grant Hamilton
5 Responses to “The beginning of something infinite”
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I still have not gotten up the gumption to try it. What a wuss.
It’s amusing that the progress tracker is being used as a race to see who can read the book the fastest – I’m a little skeptical that a few weeks ago a few people reaaaally finished the whole thing. My perception of the whole deal was to savor the process and take it casually, by following the deadlines fairly closely and gently completing the marathon together, sharing warm fuzzy feelings and the sort. But noooooo….us people who were reading 75-pages-a-week are sometimes listed as the bottomfeeders of the race! But this probably won’t encourage me to rashly increase my reading pace – I have been enjoying the slack 75-page deadline, and like to switch gears with books that don’t have page-long sentences. All in all, the book is funnier than I imagined it would be, and I’m looking forward to reading it for the second time
I’m way behind, but I think I completely agree with your sentiment that it was meant to be a “together” thing, at 75 pages per week, and not a race. There are always people who turn everything into a competition, though.
Whereabouts are you? I’m still under a hundred pages, but I plan to dedicate much more time to it in the coming couple of weeks, and hopefully catch up.
I’m on 270, and only reading 10 pages a day. You’ll easily be able to catch up in no time!
Correction: Now that I think about this logically, I realized that it is possible that people have comfortably read the book without skipping parts. Rebels.
Thanks for the syllabus link! It’s an entertaining read. I told myself that I would reread Infinite Jest this summer but I haven’t started. As one would expect, it takes discipline. I think I’ll be more comfortable on the reread, though. The first time around there were parts that had me totally lost (flipping back, however, never fails).