Week 4 Pages (258-342)/ Week 5 (343-442)*

Hello everyone–I realize it’s been over a week and I apologize for being late. First off I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been posting and to encourage you to stick with it (are people getting more into it now and finding a pace that works for them?).

In order to keep us somewhere close to the schedule, I’m also going to tell you that Week 5 reading (which was supposed to be from August 5th to August 12th) was 343-442. But a note on the schedule. *Since I have been posting irregularly, I am aiming to be around page 400 by next Wednesday (August 12th). Now that the business stuff is over, just a thought or two to get us talking.

• Here's an anonymous comment I got on last week's reading on one of the many places this conversation is happening, and I thought it was an interesting point:

"I'm giving up.It's too much rambling while under the influence or writing based on the author believing that under the influence he was wonderfully imaginative. It is interesting that the book has led to a cottage industry in manuals explaining what the author meant. Good luck to you."

What do people think? Anyone want to come to DFW's defense? I think this comment does give us, at the very least, a platform to talk about drugs (and all other sorts of addictions) in the novel.

• In the last section of the week 3 reading we learn more about JOI's suicide and get more of the gruesome details. We talked a little bit back in the Week 1 update about DFW's own suicide, and I got the chance to read DFW's commencement address to Kenyon from 2005 called Life is Water and the references he makes to suicide become both eerie and tragic in light of his death:

"Think of the old cliche about the mind being "an excellent servant but a terrible master." This, like many cliches, so lame and banal on the sruface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms nearly always shoot themselves in...the head."

Or this one:

"None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to thirty, or maybe even fifty, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head."

Any thoughts?

Thanks again to everyone and I hope you continue reading and enjoying Infinite Jest. I'll try to post between now and August 12th with some thoughts but be sure to leave your comments here.

Week 3 Pages (181-258)

I'm sorry everybody for being late this week. It feels silly posting the new reading assignment two days late, considering there is so much to talk about already, but I figure it's a shorter assignment than most weeks and the weekend is a perfect time to play catchup. Here just a few little things to think about:

• First off, I love the section that Sophmom mentioned she was reading in the week 2 update, the one between JOI and his father. Here's one of the quotes that I love that I think is DFW talking about Infinite Jest: "It will do what it's made for and do it perfectly, but only when stimulated by someone who's made it his business to know it's tricks and seams, as a body" (159). Any thoughts on the scene or the book as a whole so far?
  

• Second, what did everyone think about Mario's movie Tennis and the Feral Prodigy from pages 172-176? I love this section because the imperative allows some of the more general "life advice" (if you call it that) hit closer to home. "Sometimes words that seem to express really invoke" (175). Did anyone find this section striking for any reason?
  

• And finally to get you started on this new reading, we meet a very important character in this first section--Madame Psychosis. I'm not going to give any pointers on this one (unless you want some) but feel free to give your thoughts on this section or on her as a character. Some really interesting stuff.

Keep up the reading and please post your thoughts (don't feel limited at all by these prompts either, it's just what I've been thinking of) or contact me with your questions and comments. Still trying to recruit people who want to do updates and things...Happy reading!

Week 2 Update

Hey everybody,

Sorry that this update is a little late, but to be on pace you'll probably want to be around page 150 or so to get to 181 by Wednesday. Here are just a few things from the reading that I've found interesting:

• There's a great section from 109-121 where groups of younger tennis kids are talking with their older mentors (and the narrative moves from room to room), and at one point Hal concludes that the reason the school pushes them so hard is that "The suffering unites us"(113)--would you call the kind of hard work the book demands a kind of suffering? Does it unite us as we read it together? Is it better reading this book in groups for that reason? Or not?
  

• On pages 140-142 there is an essay written by a young Hal that looks at the evolving nature of the hero. Hal ends the essay saying "We await, I predict, the hero of non-action, the catatonic hero, the one beyond calm, divorced from all stimulus, carried here and there across sets by burly extras whose blood sings with retrograde amines." Do any of the characters we've met so far fit this portrait of a hero (or what do you think of this hero)? Or any image of a hero (offered by Hal or our own experience with other literary heroes)? Does Infinite Jest have a hero at all?

• Last but not least, what did you think about the section from 145-151 about why videophones never became popular? Do you agree with DFW?

Always looking forward to hearing your thoughts! Have a great week and check back on Wednesday for next week's page numbers!

Week 2 (pages 95-181)

Another week begins! I hope the reading is going well for everyone and that you're enjoying the book--the comments that have been coming in are really great and have got me thinking about a bunch of different stuff. If you're just joining us, reading the comments and posts from last week is a great way to catch up. Also, please feel free to write about anything you find interesting or enjoy and don't worry about being behind (or ahead of) the "set" pace; if you're ahead, just make sure to try not and spoil anything for the rest of us. Here are some of the things I've been thinking about:

• Let's start with the scene at the end of last week's reading just to lead us in to this week--We meet Marathe and Steeply in a scene that I find hysterical (that image of Steeply in a dress, falling down the hill is priceless). Are there any other scenes that have made you laugh? This scene is basically a Monty Python, cross-dressing slapstick, but what other kinds of humor have you found? What scenes? (and don't pretend to pretend to pretend to not know what I'm talking about)

• This question about humor (in light of what some people commented on in the update) leads me to just report a couple of observations from what we've already read, and leave you to think about them. The first quote comes from page 71:

"sarcasm and jokes were often the bottle in which clinical depressives sent out their most plangent screams for someone to care and help them."

When I first read this, I couldn't help but get chills thinking that DFW was talking about himself. (Much like JG and Sophmom were getting at with the Forward)

• The second comes from the filmography (note 24 in the endnotes--if you're skipping them, you're missing out) and describes a film by JOI called "The Joke" (pg 988-989):

"Two Ikegami Ec-35 video cameras in the theater record the 'film''s audience and project the resultant raster onto screen--the theater audience watching itself watch itself get the obvious 'joke' and become increasingly self-concious and uncomfortable and hostile supposedly comprises the fil'ms 'antinarrative flow.'"

When I read this, I couldn't help but feel like DFW was talking about Infinite Jest (the book, not the movie in the book). What do you think about all this? It's like JG was saying about choices in the construction. I feel like I am always coming across moments when the work is referencing itself.

Keep it up and thank you all for participating! I hope you're having as much fun as I am! Remember you can post here or look at http://www.ephblog.com.

P.S. If anyone wants to write about a particular scene they like or wants to do an update during the week let me know by emailing me at cjf1@williams.edu. Thanks!

P. P. S. This one is just for fun and not really about the book but I just saw Harry Potter and was thinking about Infinite Jest. Could it work as a movie? Not in the sense that you could have audiences sitting in the theater forever, but in the sense that some of these scenes are so cinematic and easy to visualize, could it work? A well-done BBC miniseries even? I don't know.

Week 1 Update

So we're a little bit more than half way through the week, which means to be on pace you probably want to be around page 60 or so (if not you can always catch up). Here are just a few of my thoughts on the first half of the reading (don't forget to post your own at some point!):

• As a few people have mentioned, the answer to the triva question is that Infinite Jest comes from Hamlet, specifically the scene where Hamlet speaks to the skull of one "Poor Yorick." Have you seen that name anywhere in the book (the footnotes perhaps?). This Hamlet reference makes Hal's whole relationship with his dead father more interesting (here's a line: Hal in the ambluence says "I think of John N. R. Wayne, who would have one this year's WhataBurger, standing watch in a mask as Donald Gately and I dig up my father's head." (17)) What could this mean? What's going on? I don't really know...

• We've met a lot of different people already--Hal, Mario, Don Gately, the medical attache (just to name a few)--do you find anyone's story particularly enjoyable? Moving? Interesting? Is there one you relate to more than the others?
  

• On page 55 there is a line which I think sums up DFW's reason for writing the book: "The reason being it's a lot easier to fix something if you can see it." What is he trying to show us? What needs fixing?

Be sure to post your questions and comments whenever you get a chance. Hope the reading is going well, and don't forget to check back on Wednesday for next week's reading assignment and some more things to think about!

Infinite Ephs Week 1 (pgs 3-95)

It's time to start reading! Hopefully you've already picked up your copy of Infinite Jest. This week we'll be reading pages 3-95 (don't forget the footnotes), and here are a few things to start thinking about:

• Hal is the first character we meet, and anyone who has been on any sort of interview knows how he feels in that first scene. But something odd is going on and we're not quite sure what it is--why does the book open in this particular way? Does anything about scene cause us to read the book in any particular way?
  

• The devil's in the details! This book is so dense that it's easy to miss how intricate it is as well. Be on the look out for words and images that pop up in multiple story lines (or in the footnotes). The first one that comes to mind is "spider" or spider-related words, but keep your eyes peeled (another example would be the filmography). What other words do you see popping up? And why might they be emphasized in this way?
  

• And finally a trivia question: Does anyone know where the title Infinite Jest comes from? Why would that be important?

Post any of your comments or questions here as you read along and get the discussion going.

Infinite Summer

Hey Everybody,

Thanks for joining us in reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest this summer. We'll be having discussions all summer as we read this epic book together, and feel free to post any thoughts, insights, or passages that interest you. To start us off, I had a question for everyone taking part in Infinite Summer.

On page 17 there's a great line "So yo then man what's your story?" The book is really about a lot of different stories so I wanted to ask everyone the same question. How did you decide to pick up Infinite Jest this summer? What draws you to the book? What's your story?

And to start us off, here's my story: I actually came upon the book by accident. I was ordering books for myself over winter break and ordered "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace and Barnes and Noble said "Books you might like" and indicated "Infinite Jest." I ignored it and ordered a few other books (that I still have to read) and Barnes and Noble kept telling me that I might like this book "Infinite Jest." So I read the description and it said the book was funny, thought provoking, and about entertainment--what more could I ask for? So I ordered it.

A week later it came in the mail and I realized it was 1000+ pages long. I had no idea (obviously I was not paying attention when I was reading the description) and I immediately thought, I'll wait till summer. When I got back to school I saw that it was on the syllabus for a class that I was taking (Epic and Mock Epic with the great Bob Bell) and I got really excited. But being a busy Williams student, I didn't give Infinite Jest near as much attention as I would have liked and when I was contacted about Infinite Summer I was really excited to dive back into this book. It's really a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy it.

Now it's your turn--what's your story? I'll be posting page numbers and some questions to think about for this our first week of Williams Infinite Summer!