Day 32 - Celebration Day!
Good night, sweet prince!
I similarly threw my copy of Infinite Jest onto the floor last night. Except that I have carpet so it made more of a “WHOMP.” Then I stood on top of it and did a little dance. Okay, maybe a big dance. Like a big whomping Russian version of Riverdance dance.
Then I had a moment after finishing my dance (sweaty and sleepy) when I contemplated calling you and getting you to agree to not ever posting a conclusion to the blog. That way everyone can also go through the experience of finishing this book: utterly unsatisfied and nearly sent back to the beginning. I guess we’ll spare the readers, but I just wanted you to know that I seriously thought about it.
I agree with all your recommendations for future readers of the book. This is a book that gets easier the longer you live with it. But now that it’s out of my everyday life, my immediate recommendation to DFW newbies is: I still prefer the essays. There, I said it. I think part of what kept me going personally through this book was understanding and appreciating the underpinnings of DFW’s life’s work explained elegantly and egocentrically in such essays as “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction” and “Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness” (by now are you really surprised by the title?). The second actually is a pretty nifty cipher from what I can remember for a lot of Infinite Jest itself, so a revisit to that might be in store for me. After a long break. Two weeks. At least.
I don’t think I’ll be organizing/participating in any more gargantuan novel reading events anytime soon, but let me know what you want to read together next, Liz. Thank you to everyone for all the support for the last month, readers! IJ would have been collecting dust on my bookshelf if not for you all. And thanks to Ballio for buying the book for me! My total costs for this project:
Book… $0.00
Web hosting… $0.00
Materials for Infinite Jest themed place mats I never made… $0.00
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Total… $0.00
I think most people agree with you, Aaron, on the essays vs. novel bit, which might explain why we’ve seen so relatively many more of the former than the latter from our good author. I was howling (not to the point of fantods, but more of a rictal sort of howling) when I read some of the short stories in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and although my introduction to DFW was through Broom of the System (which I didn’t actually find particularly appealing beyond its mental masturbation), I still haven’t read any of his nonfiction. I suppose I’m part of the minority who prefers his fiction.
I also prefer his fiction. For some reason, his style is more palatable to me as fiction. That said, I loved “Host” and the piece he did about Roger Federer in the NYT.
Neat! I just found this site after a fresh google of DFW, having just finished Consider the Lobster. I read Infinite Jest during my senior year of high school (spring of 2000) in under a week–but that included several days holed up in a West Virginian cabin with my family. I think I’m ready for a re-read. 31 days sounds like a good timeframe.
Holy moly, Caitlin! Under a week as a high school senior?! That’s got to be some kind of record. You weren’t aided by some DMZ, were you?