Infinite Mid-Summer

I haven't mentioned the Infinite Summer recently, but that in no way means that I've given up on Infinite Jest! Indeed, I am right on schedule, which means that I've finished half the damn thing already. I am relieved to know that I have another 500 pages or so to go before I have to bid farewell to my one-time-only first reading. ("You never forget your first time.") I've decided that there are two types of people in this world¹: Those who can't get through IJ at all, and those who not only get through it but continue to reread it. I will clearly be in the latter group.

My biggest regret is that I didn't read this book before David Foster Wallace killed himself. So far in the book there have been two attempted suicides (both very depressed young women), one of whom who describes her depression thus (p. 73):

It's like something horrible is about to happen, the most horrible thing you can imagine—no, worse than you can imagine because there's the feeling that there's something you have to do right away to stop it but you don't know what it is you have to do, and then it's happening, too, the whole horrible time, it's about to happen and also it's happening, all at the same time.

When a psychiatry resident asks her whether she was trying to "hurt" herself, she says, "The last thing I'd want is more hurt. I just didn't want to feel this way anymore." (There has so far in the book been one completed suicide, a sort of, um, comical one, and always referred to as a "felo-de-se.") But another character died (albeit by murder, not suicide) and was described to have shed "his body's suit" and be "free" and "soaring" home. All I can think of when I read this stuff is DFW's own suicide. Is that how he felt? It breaks my heart and makes my mind race all at the same time. I wonder what it would have been like to read this book without having DFW's suicide first and foremost in my mind. So I envy those who read it back then and are re-reading it now.

I am loving this book. I am dazzled. Wallace does things with language that I just didn't know you could do. He sends me to the dictionary. He makes me work at making connections. He cracks me up—loudly, and often when I'm at the pool, which causes all the other parents to look at me funny. I think he knew more about language, math, and tennis than I do about everything in my life combined.

Many people complain about the endnotes. They feel annoyed at best, manipulated at worst. I guess I'd prefer that they were footnotes, just so I wouldn't have to keep flipping back and forth between my bookmarks, but I enjoy many of them. Sometimes I feel as though there's this inside joke DFW is sharing only with those readers patient enough to bear with him.

Much of the action takes place in the fictitious town of Enfield, MA, which seems to be based on Brighton, MA. DFW mentions many landmarks very familiar to me, like the Newton-Wellesley Hospital, but he also invents places, like East Newton (we have only a West Newton). He nails many of the traits of Bostonians, particularly the way we/they speak. It's been a huge bonus for me that so much of the book is based right here where I live.

Those of you who have read or are now reading the book will know what I mean when I say that it's become a little like "The Entertainment" cartridge to me: I want to do little else beside read it. I would gladly hole up in my room with nothing but a good lamp and my copy of IJ. "And so but" at this halfway point, I am grateful that I finally got it together enough to read this book, eager to keep reading, and already mildly mournful that when it's over, there ain't no more.

1. (A footnote in honor of DFW) You know the old joke, don't you? There are two types of people in the world: Those who divide the world up into two types of people, and those who don't.

Comments

[califmom]

I find myself, at nearly the half-way mark, already preparing to reread IJ. And I am not a rereader of books. I blame this desire on DFW's style of character development, as it's taken me up to this point in the book to feel like I'm finally getting things straight in my head, which leads me to want to start over, knowing what I know now.

And, I've come to love the endnotes. Because of my flight to Chicago, I ended up purchasing a Kindle version of IJ to read on my iPhone during the flight. What a blessing this turned out to bed. No more flipping back and forth through that behemoth of a book. Just a tap and I'm back to my place. I still have to go back to my hard copy, though. I can't stand not knowing where I am in the "big book."

I've also been insanely jealous that you live in the midst of the book's imaginary setting.

[Auguste]

That's an incredibly good description of depression.

I may have to read this book.

[Naomi]

This is a very intriguing pre-review! When my kids are a little older, I may give it a try. We've got a copy moldering on the bookshelf...

As for your footnote, I always say, "There are two kinds of people in the world: me and everybody else."

[Infinite Tasks]

Nice post, glad you Showed Up!

I think a lot of 2nd-time readers are actually jealous of us first-timers, and they are on the edge of their seats waiting or us to discover whatever remains to discover in the next 450 pp. One commenter on my blog got so excited he had to put plugs in his orifices so as not to reveal what was coming (and we all appreciate his gesture, I'm sure).

[nina]

I have actually pulled ahead of schedule after plenty of glorious reading time last weekend (I'm on p. 648). I'm in that paradoxical place where I want to do nothing but read it, but also never want it to end.

[kate]

OK, I now have possession of the book. That is step one.

Enfield is one of the four towns (buried? destroyed?) flooded to create the Quabbin reservoir that provides Boston's water. A message? What are the others you ask? Dana, Greenwich and Prescott.

[Nancy]

I'm envious and mystified. I abandoned IJ at page 250, having derived not a moment of pleasure from the endeavor. I found it grueling, confusing, and self-indulgent. (And I'm a DFW fan--loved his essays.) Maybe if I were more of a puzzle solver..?

[Steve]

Ok - I skipped this (almost) entire entry - and comments. I had to put IJ on hold while on vacation (see my FB page for pics of our AMAZING Alaska cruise) as I had far too many distractions to focus on the book. But I'm with you - at my current 300-something page, I am a believer.

Even as I read my "easy" book (Shadow of the Wind - which, I think, you would hate), I thought of IJ and can not wait to get back to it now that I'm on my home turf.

[Susan Champlin]

I'm sorry now that I didn't join the Infinite Summer readathon—I just didn't trust myself to stay on track, with a huge work project due in September. But my 25-year-old nephew is on his third reading of IJ; his enthusiasm and your description have convinced me that it's time for me to start. Thanks, Karen!