"4. Physically, Infinite Jest is a large book: 2.2 inches thick and, according to Amazon.com, has a shipping weight of 3.2 pounds. Some readers have found it useful to rip the book in half for easier reading on the subway or on the beach. If you do this, you also need to tear the footnotes from the back half and tape them to front half. This technique has the side effect of giving you the appearance of A Very Serious Reader of Infinite Jest, which will either keep onlookers' questions to a minimum or maximum, depending on the onlooker."
I was looking for more links on the end, found this first draft of a preface for last years infinite summer project, written by Jason Kottke, and I thought this particular piece of advice in his series of "how to read Infinite Jest" was hilarious. Why didn't we all do this?! Would have made our bags a lot lighter when we had to carry this book around all quarter. And when I plan to continue carrying it around. Because who knows when you'll need it.
http://kottke.org/09/07/how-to-read-infinite-jest
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What a great link Chloe! Wow, it would've been so great if I knew of this website earlier in the quarter. I keep stressing how thick this novel is and I keep referencing the book something related to DFW's life. Its hilarious how you highlighted the weight of the book. It is a pain to carry the heavy book around.
ReplyDeleteI have to ask, how exactly does one tear a 1,000-some page book in half? Not like emotionally (also a concern), but literally? I did do the several bookmark method, but I think I've ignored the chronology (golden page 223) more than is wise. I guess we'll see. I turned back to the beginning of the book last night and read some of the early passages and it occurred to me how unmysterious they are now that I know who the characters are. And that mold scene seems way more purposefully placed than it did even last time I turned back and tried to figure it out. I see now your point, Chloe, of the mold-ingestion being a key causal event... just what is it getting at? I have some ideas but they're probably already self-evident.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, despite my seeming absence here on the blog I constantly have this page open, along with about 30 other related tabs (DFW, IJ, Hamlet SparkNotes, etc.), and tend to be hugging my copy or talking about it or having it on my mind more than anything else. I feel kind of stupefied and like I said at the cafe on Thursday, I'm afraid to finish the book. I'm at a bit of a stand-still as far as expressing myself but my mind is active to the point of being burdened with ideas. My goal this weekend is to be able to express some of them here in words before I finish the book. One thought I have right now is how valuable multiple readings of the book must be, albeit time-consuming. Have you been reading the whole thing over again Chloe, or just key parts? What has your experience been?
Emily: well obviously I read the book once (over the course of about 9 months) before this class started, and have re-read it pretty faithfully with you guys. My person experience is that the significance of a lot of things is clearer on the re-read of this book, and part of that I think is due to the multitude of the characters and the non-linear timeline, odd dating system, etc. which especially when the reader begins IJ make it hard to keep what is significant to the plot straight. Of course a lot of things also just get missed the first time around. Because actually re-reading this whole book front to back without the motivation of a class would be a little daunting for me (and is, even though I've been doing it) one of my favorite things is just flipping through the book. Often I am looking for a particular passage that I highlighted earlier, but I end up seeing all kinds of things that I wasn't looking for specifically and its just kind of fun- although it often ends up taking up a lot of time as I get distracted by different passages and thinking about all kinds of stuff...
ReplyDeleteI do like considering the significance of the physical size of the book. We might even talk about the choice to make the task of reading it so arduous.
ReplyDeleteI will say my experience of reading it the first time was too rushed. I had a list of 150 books to read for exams, several of which were around the size of IF (Gravity's Rainbow, for example), and so I had only about 2 weeks to read it. As a result, IF came to me in set pieces, which I guess is why the idea of tearing it up makes sense to me.
The problem with that, however, is that I don't have a super clear sense of the narrative as a whole. It is a lot easier for me to point to scenes and passages that address certain topics, but seeing them in context of the larger work can be really daunting.