Nick Douglas is the editor of “Twitter Wit,” a collection of witty tweets coming out on August 25. In 2006, he was the founding editor of Valleywag.com. He’s probably writing a screenplay.
I finished about two-thirds of the books assigned me in my three years as an English major. The department head was right to ask me, when I first switched from political science, “Do you read quickly?” I don’t, and I’d like to blame that on my inability to skim. The less I like a passage, the more I claw at it, wasting my time, because I can’t understand that a published work of prose may still contain unnecessary digressions. And so I’ll often grind to a halt. I’m glad for this flaw in my reading habits, because skimming Infinite Jest is stupid.
Someone saw me struggling over one dull page of IJ this week, the description of Enfield MA and its institutions (tax-paying and -exempt), and recommended I skim it. She hasn’t, of course, read her copy of the book.
Because if she had, she’d know that skimmers miss out. Had I skimmed the Wardine and yrstruly sections, would I still have understood that Poor Tony stole the artificial heart that Steeply-as-Helen wrote about? Had I skimmed endnote 24 — well, I’m sure I’m not alone in reading 24 with alacrity, then re-reading each synopsis as I caught references, and soon probably going back to read the whole list in case I’ve missed something.
Because like Eggers said in his foreword, this book is an exercise for the mind, and Wallace gives us the chance to piece things together before he explicitly synthesizes. He leaves some aspects of the world of O.N.A.N. foggy, so that we must pull a Supreme-Court-Justice-building-the-right-to-privacy-piecemeal-from-the-Bill-of-Rights maneuver to understand that our nation has dug a giant pit in the Northeast and flings its garbage there through the upper atmosphere, and maybe later we’ll be sure whether these catapulted garbage vessels are, once launched, self-propelling, or whether they’re shot out with sufficient force to arc across the continent into Hamster Country.
Why anyone would want to read this book without the satisfying click (not steady, but in waves, like the click-clack-click of Joelle’s internal monologue, the disappointment at page 223 quickly counteracted by the deductive satisfaction of the next sixteen pages) is beyond me.
Those digressions that don’t serve the plot (or at least provide a satisfying coincidence that may or may not serve the plot, such as Gately’s role in a separatist’s death or Steeply’s putative puff piece on Poor Tony’s heart-snatchery) serve the theme. Since most of these thematic moments are so subtle, I’m sure we’re particularly required to remember the ones Wallace mentions twice, just as the Biblical God repeats his most important commands three times. So we should definitely remember Hal’s rhetorical flourish at the end of his comparison of Chief Steve McGarrett of “Hawaii Five-0” and Captain Frank Furillo of “Hill Street Blues.” I’m not sure if we’re meant to agree with the teacher who downgraded the paper to a B/B+, or if the only point of that part of the chapter heading is to tell the reader, “Hey moron, pay attention to this part, okay?”
Which he says so lovingly (and it’s been almost a quarter of the book since he said it last), while warming us up for the meet against Port Washington: “It all tends to get complicated, and probably not all that interesting – unless you play.”
Which he hits us with again at the end of that section, sneering at the Port Washington parents who wear “the high white socks and tucked-in shirts of people who do not really play.” Almost makes me regret not marking up my book with a pen, lest I embarrass myself with a copy of Infinite Jest sitting on the shelf in good condition like a backslider’s Bible.
The ill-earned ending to Hal’s essay, the part to which we morons must pay attention, posits that the culture’s next great hero will be passive. And how chilling is that? We’ve now spent three hundred pages biting our lips over the impending death of Hal’s communicative abilities, and our curiosity over the titular Infinite Jest has for the last few dozen of those pages only been answered with clues about its origin and content, but clearly we’re waiting to see how many people Wallace is going to mow down with Chekhov’s gun.
Hal, don’t tell us we need a passive hero, don’t jinx yourself in a grade school essay, don’t go catatonic on us! Don’t end up like the frozen attentive faces in videophone dioramas or Kate Gompert in the doctor’s office or the zombie that John Wayne resembles to Schacht or the Basilisked statues of your father’s victims-by-film! Keep your face moving, and I’ll keep reading every single page, like Bastian keeping Atreyu alive and saving Fantasia from the Nothing.
Except, like, smarter.
Comments
22 responses to “Nick Douglas: Skim is for Wimps”
Damn it, now not only am I jealous that I can’t write like DFW, I’m jealous that I can’t read like Nick Douglas. 🙂
sigh… thanks, Nick.
Ughhhhh you’re welcome.
Wellll…
I’m shallow. I read novels for pleasure first and foremost. I do whatever pleases me. Sometimes it pleases me to skim.
That’s not to say that fiction doesn’t get down and do weird things to my soul, such as it is (i.e., maybe non-existent).
It’s not like, like Bergamot, I don’t admire the non-skimmer. But I think that the thing that is admirable is that this seems like a patient and zen-like way of reading. I just don’t have patience to read slow. I have to read fast and then re-read. I don’t intend to read things quickly–it just happens. It’s not like the skimmer is not engaged–I got all the crucial things you mention as a fast read–I think the fast reader is often your impatient gotta-have-it-now/what’s-gonna-happen-next type.
There’s something very satisfying about drenching oneself in Wallace’s writing, trying to unkink all the stuff he’s revealing while it’s still cryptic and not out in the open. In addition to noticing the Poor Tony stuff, there’s also hints that Emil Minty is yrstruly, and if you read footnote 110, you can piece together why Steeply is asking Orin about Jim (though if you then skim the upcoming Marathe/Steeply section, you’ll miss some great philosophical questions that relate back to the idea of Too Much Fun and the inherent problems of All That Choice). Samizdat indeed.
My book, incidentally, is getting palimpsestic.
an argument in favor of not sweating every convoluted section (which, I think, is marginally different from skimming) is a subsequent re-reading in which the whole thing make a lot more sense.
I have to totally agree with you. There are some sections which I did not understand the first time and made no sense. On a re-read recently (and about six years after the initial read), I picked up on so much that I had missed earlier. Indeed, the first 300 pages are so packed with information that on a first read they are way beyond confusing, but on a subsequent read clear up tons of things missed in the first read.
Daniel is right on the money there. Second time around is much more fun for me. Less of the “what’s going on” anxiety.
This is my first time through, and I’m actually looking forward to reading it again, since the first 250 or so were so confusing, and I’ve heard the second time around is much more satisfying. I’m not a skimmer, I read every word, sometimes more than once. I plug through the hard stuff. My sister can skim, she got that gene. I did not.
Wonderfully written.
I wouldn’t call out skimmers as wimps. The ability to skim reading material is critical in many contexts. However, if one accepts the premise that every word and sentence construct of IJ is placed where and how it is placed for a reason, then skimming has little value in the context of reading this particular book. Some of the portions that might seem skim-worthy (e.g., the discussion of Mean Value in endnote 123) are actually not what they appear on the surface, and are rich with character development.
The wonderful thing about some books is how they affect our individual reading styles. Anyone who’s read /Gravity’s Rainbow/ knows that it can change the way you approach reading a text, the same way reading /Finnegans Wake/ is *not* the same way you read, say, Dickens or Proust.
I find skimming helpful on occasion, especially when there’s a long Wallace-riff or monologue to get through. Yes, I probably miss a few key things here and there when I skim, but I know I’m not gonna “get” everything with this book as is … I can see now how it will require re-reading.
Skimming — when absolutely necessary for me — helps me avoid getting bogged down in a passage that might make me return the book back to the shelf. If I’m to accomplish reading this work, I have to keep it interesting for myself. Skimming on occasion does that for me.
I’m on the second reading, and I’m already predicting that I’ll need a third. I’m definitely a fast reader in the vein that ozma described – it’s not intentional, it just sort of happens.
I’ve actually gone back twice now to make sure I’ve bookmarked all the appropriate sections that I want/need bookmarked.
I am skimming everyone’s replies to this awesome post, which I did not skim. Also, glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks of The Neverending Story on occasion, albeit with slight embarrassment. I mean, Orin? Right?
Anyway, you can’t call yourselves endurance bibliophiles and skim through the tougher sections unless you make and follow through on a promise to go back and read the skimmed sections. You’re only cheating yourselves. (Sorry, I’ve always wanted to say that, but I’m not a teacher or sports coach, so I’ve never had the opportunity.)
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I have to come out in favor of NOT skimming. Wallace’s language is as important to the story as the content (at least it seems this way to me on my first time in). The endnotes about prescription drugs made me crazy. But the endnotes control the flow of ideas like the pauses control the flow of the notes in music.
When I first decided to join this journey I hit this site and prepared to settle in for the long haul. I survived Moby Dick a few years ago and made it most of the way thru Leviathan (not modernized). I could handle anything. I sat down. Two bookmarks, with a third nearby, just in case. I had the kids in bed, the dog out and my husband in the other room. I was ready. I have never laughed so hard over a book in my life. If I could quit my job long enough to finish by reading non-stop, I would. This is not a “difficult” book. The language is beautiful, the characters fully reaized and the concepts intriguing. In fact, I am done here now so I can finish several more pages before I put the kids to bed tonight.
I can’t help but skim. It’s my reading style. I skip ahead to the end of any page or section that has a one sentence ending. Sometimes when I’m listening to a book on tape in which I don’t already know what’s going to happen, I look up on wikipedia so I can know, now. But I do go back as soon as I satisfy my intense need to know what’s about to happen and read it slower.
I also skim over graphic parts. I don’t re-read those. I dislike graphic violence and get squeamish about gross stuff. I did read all of Poor Tony’s withdrawal, but let it slide in one ear, and out the other to a certain extent.
I really wish this copy I have was not my friend’s, because then I could highlight things I really liked. She’ll never read it, and her husband has a copy, which is why I’ve been borrowing it for 6 years, but I still can’t ruin it.
I tend to be a skimmer, when I find myself skimming, I make sure I go back and reread. I’m getting lost ALL THE TIME skipping around to read the end notes, or realizing I’ve been on autopilot. I need to get started on a three bookmark system! I am not intimidated by the book’s size, but the complexity is something else. I find the book overwhelmingly sad, not so funny.
The three bookmark system works great, I must say, highly recommended. And I agree with you, I find it sad, and only a little funny in parts. I am also not intimidated by its size, especially now that I’ve gotten through what I hope is the really hard part!
the disappointment at page 223 quickly counteracted by the deductive satisfaction of the next sixteen pages
I’m already finding it hard to read only 75 pages a week. I get to the end of a heart-breaking section and want to stop there to savour it, but I accidentally glimpse the first sentence of the next section, a section on a totally different topic, and it sweeps me right back in.
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