(Note: This post was not a reaction to Kevin’s post from yesterday, but works in tandem with it, I think. Although it’s safe to say that we each draw very different conclusions.)
I am not enjoying Infinite Jest.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not going to quit. I’m going to read the whole thing and talk about it over the summer because I said I would, but that doesn’t mean I have to lie and pretend I’m having a super-fun experience, right? So here it is. Confession time.
I resent that I’m having to work this hard, that I feel like I’m indulging the author. I resent having to read enormous blocks of text, with no paragraph breaks, for pages and pages at a time. I resent the endnotes that (more often than not) only serve to either waste my time or confuse me even further. I resent that I’m continually reaching supposed milestones (“just make it to page 100!” “get to 200!” “300 is where you get rewarded for all your effort!”) that don’t actually represent any appreciable change in tone, style or plot.
I feel like my time is being wasted with an overabundance of technical explanations of subjects — tennis, drugs — that are largely irrelevant. DFW is explaining the wrong stuff. I’m at page 310 (behind, I know) and by now I’d have absolutely loved to see some explanation of the world these characters live in. Instead, we’re only being given vague allusions to “the great concavity” that leave me itching to check the wallacewiki just so I know what’s bloody going on.
Because that’s the thing — I don’t feel like anything actually is going on. I’ve gotten three hundred pages into this book, and nothing at all has happened. I feel like I have read three hundred pages of introductions to characters. Some of those characters (Hal, the folks at Ennet House) have been introduced multiple times, to no further elucidation. Some of them (James Orin Incandenza Sr., Himself, Guillaume DuPlessis) are freaking dead.
Instead of action, I’m getting portraits. Highly detailed — to a fault — portraits. And that would be fantastic if I were in an art gallery, or reading a collection of biographies. But I’m not — this is supposed to be a story, a series of interesting events told in a compelling manner. Not a bunch of descriptions of people and locales presented in an outright hostile manner to weed out the ‘unworthy’.
This post sounds a lot more hate-fuelled than I intended it to, I’m sure. I don’t hate this book, otherwise I would be quitting.59 But I am frustrated by it, and it is becoming more and more important that a payoff arrive, and soon.
I’m sure it will. Many people I respect are having a great time reading Infinite Jest. I hope I can join them.
Comments
122 responses to “I Am Not Enjoying this Book”
All I can say is, since you’re going to finish it anyway, stay positive. Things start to come together, you will start to see a point to it, characters will begin to matter to you, if you’re anything like myself or countless others who love it.
I disagree with those that say “just stick with it, you’ll start caring” etc. If you don’t really like the book by now you’re not going to like it, ever. I loved the book from the opening scene w/ Hal in the office, hilarious. Just stop now, don’t keep reading, it’s over your head.
Um…me, too.
It’s strange that you dislike the details so much. The thing that keeps me going in this book is the precise observations of characters body language, mouth agape-ness, arm akimbo-sity, etc. which seem pretty acurate down the degree of the angle. I guess it’s the ‘show-don’t-tell’ mantra that was drilled into me in college creative writing classes.
Maybe you shouldn’t be reading this? I think the grandest thing about DFW is his Voice, and I really don’t mind if he is discoursing on Dictionaries, or Transfinite Numbers, or Allston Streets, or Bongs. He invariably gets my attention, keeps my attention, wows me with his wordplay, and most of all *makes me laugh*.
If you are not laughing along with the author by page 20, let alone page 200, you probably shouldn’t be reading this book. Sounds like you just might want “off the bus” at this point, and why not. The rest of us want to go furthur with this story. 😉
Dateline: Infinite Summer
“Veteran Guide Opts Out of Infinite Jest Group Read!”
This. DFW’s voice, so to speak, comes through in the first pages. Plotwise, the markers might be milestones, but the voice/tone of the book is established pretty quickly, even though there is a lot of switching between characters and even narrators. The voice is definitely not for everyone. If it’s not for you, I suggest you don’t read any of his other work (fiction and non).
Hmm…maybe you should stop reading. I’ve been enjoying this book pretty much since the start and am now having a hard time putting the thing down. I’m guessing that the people you respect who are “having a great time” were already doing that well before page 310.
I, for one, will not judge you for putting IJ aside. I’ve stopped reading many books. I remember putting down “Breakfast of Champions” 20 pages before the end because I felt the string had run out and I knew I would just be dragging myself through. Some books are worth slogging through slow parts – but if the whole things feels like that it probably isn’t worth it.
Why not spend the rest of your summer reading something you’ll enjoy? No book is for everybody and there’s millions of other ones out there. Life’s too short.
Avery, nooooooooo! I can sympathize with you, of course: I’m a first-time reader as well, and I found the book moderately interesting in the beginning largely because of the clues and the “treasure hunt” that they provoked. However, it wasn’t until about page 450 that I found the story really took off. The funny thing is that I was planning on pacing myself according to the IS schedule, but after that p.450 point I became obsessed and couldn’t put the novel down. I got so far ahead of schedule that I simply had to read to the end, and finished two months early! [This belongs in a footnote:] The absolutely sick thing is that I’m actually considering doing a re-read, “catching up” with everyone else, and sticking with the IS pack the second time around.
I have to confess though to being quite annoyed by all the “trust the author” comments at the start, but mostly because I simply — and reasonably — wasn’t willing to blindly submit to an unknown author. Their comments make total sense to me now, and all I can say is stay positive! If you’re literary at all, then I guarantee that you’ll find the payoff to be spectacular — and it’s just around the corner!
I finished it too, and am also starting over. Amazing what I didn’t even realize was relevant to the story (and there is one)the first time….
I have to agree with the others who have suggested that you stop reading. You don’t have to finish it just because you said you would. It’s OK to change your mind.
I am loving every minute I spend reading this book, and I am not finding it to be hard work, or a chore, or frustrating. I am dazzled, I am inspired, and I am already panicking that after another 600 pages or so, I won’t have it anymore (well, not as a first-time reader, that is). If you’re not getting ANY of that, then it’s probably just not a good fit for you and there’s no reason to go on.
I have to second the bit on the footnotes. Sometimes there’s a bit of wit in them which will make them worth reading, but I mostly find them valueless interruptions. I’m so tempted to just blast through and ignore the footnotes, but I’m concerned I’d be missing the whole IJ experience.
Other than that, I find (even though I can totally understand your other points) there’s something enjoyable on every page that makes the page worth reading on its own – even if there’s nothing advancing in the story itself.
I absolutely felt this way about the book the first time around, though I suppose I was happier with it around the point you’re at. I eventually crapped out; the thing that did it was the goddamn Marathe/Steepely convos. But now, reading it again and no longer having to struggle for coherence, it’s incredibly fun, and moving, and all like that. So, to offer an in-between position, feel free to bow out now and then come back to it several years later. It’s that kind of book, I feel.
Oof! I was doing so well and then came upon footnote #110 (on page 311). Good God. For the first time I really resented the level of detail instead of finding it humorous and enlightening and had to set the book aside for a few days.
Wow. I thought Endnote 110 was both hilarious, and one of the most enlightening sections of the book (so far). Anyone who’s frustrated by the lack of answers, Endnote 110 actually brings big answers.
I’m reading for the first time too, but put me in the camp of “can’t put it down.”
I’m just past page 400, and I do feel like I have a better sense of what’s going on now. It’s not always easy reading, but I’m finding it very compelling. Maybe 75 pages at a time is too much?
I think that maybe you are destined to be disappointed if you are expecting things to tie together and for something to Happen in the book. IJ isn’t going to suddenly change into a traditional novel after 300 pages; it is the discourse of the novel rather than the plot that makes it compelling. I’ve found that I care a lot about the characters and a lot about the themes of the novel, but I am not really worried about knowing (for instance)exactly why or how Hal is trapped in his body in the Year of Glad.
well put.
“Instead of action, I’m getting portraits.” Yup. Good observation, Avery.
I stopped reading on Monday. I was right on schedule, but my mother saw I was reading it again and started asking me about it.
“Is it interesting?” “Not really. Well, occasionally.”
“Is it well-written?” “Somewhat. The author is kind of out of control and doesn’t know how to edit his own work. Kind of like his mind’s an open faucet and he can’t ratchet it down. He rambles a lot about stuff that’s not very fun.”
“Would you recommend it?” “No. It’s not bad, exactly, but maybe one out of every 4 or 5 chapters is worth reading. I would probably recommend a selection of the good parts as a collection of short stories.”
I was surprised by how quickly I said I wouldn’t recommend it and that’s what convinced me to stop. I’m not frustrated. I don’t have any problem with paragraph breaks or lack of ’em, and 1000-page books don’t scare me at all. I don’t have a problem with the different voices or characters or whatever, either. (I liked the yrstruly bit a lot, btw–characters did stuff, went places, things happened, character *development*!! xO) I just agree with the main part of this post. There’s not really a lot of book-worthy material here.
– a reader in the Concavity
It’s silly to think that a novel can (or should) appeal to everybody. There are going to be plenty of people who don’t connect with IJ and that’s fine.
It’s tempting, when reading about people struggling against inner demons to become better people, to think that finishing the book will make you a better person. This isn’t AA. You’re not fighting through addiction to get through to the other side. If ever there was a book that’s all about the journey and not the destination, it’s IJ. Take it from someone who’s read the book before: You are not going to achieve nirvana when you read the last page. If you hate it at page 200 or page 300, you’ll hate it even more at page 981.
So, if you’re having a miserable time, quit. Read something you want to read.
Hooray! (I agree)
No way is IJ (or DFW, for that matter) for everybody. And that’s totally okay.
love it or else
just kidding (i think)
i was bogged down by the detail and the scope of the thing the first time i read it. i think i got about pg 150. it helped to know what i was getting into this time. i’m flying through it ahead of schedule and have had to start limiting myself to one section at a time. by page 310 you probably know whether it’s for you or not, but there are a lot of really wonderful things in the pages ahead that might change your mind.
I couldn’t agree with you more, so I’m not sure if reading this post is really encouraging or really depressing. I’m about 250 pages in, and I’m just not enjoying it. I haven’t picked it up in two weeks because reading it feels like such a chore. I keep waiting for it to get as good as everybody says, but it just hasn’t happened. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely moments of laugh-out-loud brilliance (“he stole my heart!”), but over all…I’m just putting way more in than I’m getting out.
Wonderful. Finally, a guide’s post that I can completely get around. I’m not particularly enjoying this book either. I’m enjoying bits & pieces of it, but overall, it is a chore more than an enjoyment.
Is there a story here? None of these characters or stories have come alive off the page for me. It is almost as if I were watching DFW actually writing the words right in front of me as I read them. Takes all the fun out of fiction, right there.
The day I finish this book will be a celebration. I am nearly 500 pages in (over half-way finished) and I plan on finishing, and I encourage anyone who’s still in this thing (Infinite Summer) and not terribly behind yet — keep at it. We’re all getting there, page-by-page, every day.
Just like this project’s name, my summer has been long and lazy. A summer largely free of responsibilities, deadlines, or work. Reading Infinite Jest has been one of the few things I’ve set out to accomplish this summer. And sadly, it has become my single most realistic goal for completing at this point. Even if I ultimately end up approaching this book as “laborious work”, it is a goal I set for myself to read a book such as this. If not now, I may never get the chance to do something like this again.
In the end, I believe I’ll look back on this summer with a certain nostalgia — and the ‘soundtrack’ for my summer would have been this crazy, 1000+ page book with a bunch of bizarre characters, wacky footnotes, presented in a unique prose that I will never come across again.
How often it happens that we can’t truly appreciate our life experiences until after the fact, when we look back on it and think, “That wasn’t so bad after all, I wish I could have fully appreciated that experience while it was happening.”
I find myself completely enjoying the footnotes!
Having resigned my precognitions and having surrendered to the multiple book marks, flipping, heft, obscure vocabulary, and stream of consciousness of this Infinite Jest, I find myself enjoying this book much more for what it is. True, I have felt as if I were squirming through a tautological mouse maze without a clear carrot (or piece of cheese) before finishing the first 360+/- pages, but I have come to feel rewarded by turning that corner.
I hear what you’re saying. But then…
I was really enjoying the book (not as much as some here claim to enjoy it, but still enjoying it) up until I reached the Eschaton section. I absolutely hated that section and, the aforementioned endnote 110, and wound up avoiding the book and falling behind.
But after I struggled through the end of the Eschaton section, I got what he was getting at. And I also understood that while I hated the lead-up, that lead-up exists for the enjoyment of someone who is not me. And that is fine — great, actually — because when something is directed toward a small segment of the population, that small segment falls in love with it. Other parts of the book, I feel, are directed toward segments of which I am a part. And I love them.
I read “The Sun Also Rises” at age 20 and thought it was boring. I read it again at 25 and thought it was the saddest book I’d ever read. I read it a third time at 29 and thought it was hilarious. Maybe it’s just the wrong time for you to read this book.
RE: “…not as much as some here CLAIM to enjoy it…”
Am I wrong, but do I hear something in most of the negative reviewers to this same effect; that those that like the book are really only *claiming* to like it, like (snooty) people accused of *claiming* to listen to Mahler.
Are those of us who like the book being accused of being…POSERS!??
Shame.
Maybe, just maybe, *claiming* not to like the book is just posturing.
I mean, it is also an intellectual *stance* to disagree with an author. And I have to admit that I think Avery antipathy might very well be a pose designed to generate just the type, and degree, or discussion we see here.
At least that is what I claim.
mm
You are getting some really great advice here, Avery.
Except for the stuff about quitting. Let’s not forget that you are under contract.
You gonna send the wheelchair assassins after her? Squeek, squeek.
Three cheers for honesty! A book club isn’t really a book club until someone looks around and suspects everyone is lying about how they feel about the book.
And certainly the most interesting question is why we read anything that is difficult or challenging. This is, of course, a question that IJ itself seems interested in asking throughout. In this regard, twitter jokes about IJ being the Entertainment aside, the novel itself seems to be offering something that isn’t just sheer enjoyment.
But that doesn’t mean the novel doesn’t have its pleasures and rewards. Some have already suggested in the comments that there are things other than plot to enjoy in this novel. Sorrento writes (somewhere above this very comment): “it is the discourse of the novel rather than the plot that makes it compelling.”
To some extent I agree with this; no matter what way you cut it, not much “action” happens in the Maranthe/Steeply sections. But these chapters act as something of a Greek chorus, implicitly commenting on the novel’s action (or perhaps they’re more like Ivan’s “Grand Inquisitor” in The Brothers Karamazov…).
These non-plot pleasures are, admittedly, largely a matter of taste. There is a long passage about a mattress coming up in the schedule (I’m slightly ahead) and man… some will love it, some will hate it.
But I think it would be a mistake to ignore that suspense built in here. Let’s remember that the down payment Wallace makes in the opening chapter–not only “What happens to Hal?”, but how on earth do Don Gately and Hal end up digging up J.O.I.’s head (or whatever’s left of it?). Look at the top of pg. 17 if you don’t believe me! (Saying that almost sounds like a spoiler, doesn’t it?) This dim hint, however, holds out promise that the various threads of the this novel come together.
And then there is what some have called the novel’s “MacGuffin”–the Entertainment itself. I mean, what is on that cartridge? No conceivable answer is going to be good enough; maybe we’ll never know. But Wallace set up this hoop to jump through; and its interesting to see how it will be resolved.
I have not finished the book; but I think I would find it more of slog if it didn’t promise to answer these tantalizing questions. IJ is a big challenging book; but it is also a book that has promised to come together.
What’s on the Cartridge? (What condition is JOI’s head in anyway?) How does Hal meet Gately? Stay tuned!
I have loved the essays of DFW that I’ve read, so I latched on to this project as a first time IJ reader. At about 50 pages in, I was somewhat intrigued, but worried about what I had signed on for, as I was certainly supplying the energy to push my reading project forward. Another 950 pages was looking like a long push and a lot of energy.
In reading some of the posts about how to prepare, I noted the one that advised reading to page 200before quitting. That is what I decided to commit to. By 200 pages I was hooked and the book pulled me forward. Teeny hints of interconnection between characters and plot lines started to appear. When I got to about 300, I realized that the first 200 could fairly be described as stage setting. A LOT of description of the people and settings, with minimal action. After 200, there is still description, but the play has commenced.
I have realized that part of the draw of the book for me is similar to what draws me to the TV (TP?) show “LOST,” of which I am a huge fan. LOST has meandered for many seasons, carefully doling out hints about how the castaway characters are connected and why they are where they are. The intrigue of the show lies in remembering many, many obscure hints from prior episodes and past seasons and trying get puzzle pieces to fit. The story jumps back and forward in time, and on and off the island. Bizarro factoids are slung at viewers without context or connection.
Some people absolutely detest LOST. Fair enough; hating it is not a stain on anyone’s character or an indicator of their intellect. The same should be said of IJ. It’s a shame that anyone would feel compelled to apologize for bailing out. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and deciding not to proceed is not an indicator of lack of intellect or diligence*.
For me, though, I am happy to be gripped, and thrilled to have hundreds of pages of it left to enjoy. I am amazed at how the book is masticating my world view and spitting the effluent into a NASA glass. It feels good. I wish everyone could feel this way.
*Full disclosure: I never got through the Lord of the Rings trilogy (I just hated it)so my defense of deciding to drop out of a planned read is somewhat self serving.
I was describing bits & pieces of IJ to my husband and sister today. He asked, “did this guy write for Lost?” Interesting to hear that analogy twice in one day.
To me, reading this book feels like homework. There are deadlines and it’s something I am Required To Do (thank you, online peer pressure!). However, the crazy thing about me is that I always really liked homework, which is why this is all working out pretty well for me.
Reading the comments, it’s funny to me to see which sections made people want to quit or actually quit reading. I thought the Eschaton section was hilarious and I thought endnote 110 was fascinating. But then, I often get burnt out while reading the Gately/Ennett House sections.
To me, this book is a challenge. Like homework, sometimes I don’t really enjoy it. Like homework, often, I do enjoy it. For me, the triumph I feel when I get through the sections that aren’t as fun carries me through them–along with looking forward to the sections that I do really enjoy, and the anticipation of the sense of accomplishment I’ll feel when I do reach the end.
I Identify.
The book seems to me to be a series of enjoyable, slow, fast-paced, bland, politco-speak drudgery with points of view alternating strange verb speak and back to enjoyable. It’s tiring. I thought Eschaton went on for far too long. It was like reading about someone who was watching a group of people play Risk for the first time. Not interesting. Especially after multiple pages of it.
I like Don. I think I like Hal, but I’m not sure. I’m almost done with the book, and the sad part is, I’m looking forward to it ending, just so I don’t have to continue reading. It’s wearing me down. Every time I see I’m about to engage in reading conversations between Marathe and Steeply, I cringe. Every O.N.A.N. acronymized syllable and newspaper headline and YEAR OF THE ________ leach more energy from me. I’m ready for the book to end. I’m almost there. It’s been a more or less enjoyable ride, but I do get the feeling that at the end of it, I’m going to think: “Huh.”
I’ll bite a little–I understand fully that we’re all going to have different takes on this book, and I appreciate that. But what specifically about the Marathe sections (like the engrossing p. 418-430, which I’m blogging about now) makes you cringe? I’m finding it to be a richly humorous primer to some basic philosophical tenets–I’m assuming you take it as bland exposition?
I read in the hopes that I will be so lost in another perception of the world that finding my way back to “reality” will change, or at least challenge, my overactive gut responses. I’m further in Infinite Jest now than the last time I read, and for me, the AA sections are what really sell it–this idea of Identifying (i.e., empathizing). There are pages so full of ideas that I just want to post a line-by-line annotation, and there are others–like Eschaton–that I just accept for their hilarity, without digging all that deep into the Bigger Message (and there is one).
Listen to the way the characters speak–I mean REALLY speak–at the AA meetings, and you’ll see that that’s what Wallace is doing, digressions, tics, and all: his best effort to transcribe a world larger than himself, to Keep Coming back to material that–given his own depression–probably affected him deeply.
So far as I can tell, nothing is random, and as for the parts that APPEAR random, they manage to stand alone as superb shorts, like Erdedy waiting for the pot, or James’s father’s soliloquy.
You define a story as “a series of interesting events told in a compelling manner.” Well, while I can’t help you if you’re not compelled by the layers upon layers of real world-building (I mean, he invents the Clipperton brigade so he can use it as a parallel for the Concavity/Convexity’s creation!), and eerily predictive writing (videophony, the rise of the anti-hero, well…okay, he says hero of non-action, but getting there!)…. But if you flat out don’t find the individual vignettes to be INTERESTING EVENTS, well then, yeah, you should stop. I have no idea what you’re looking for.
Then again, as I blogged about recently, I was utterly fascinating and interested by the choice of character-defining hats everyone was wearing at the I.-Day celebration at E.T.A.
i think i said 90% of your post in a discussion the other day. this book is boring me to tears. if this were a conversation with DFW i would have made a polite excuse and walked away 200 pages ago. i am well into the 500s at this point and was going to continue just for the sake of not quitting(and in the hopes that it would get better). reading the comments here may have put me over the top and i will likely throw in the towel. i will concede that books speak to all of us in different ways, but if i want crazies babbling on endlessly while i stand transfixed by the spittle and paste building at the corners of their mouth, i will move back to san francisco.
@makingloveface I am laughing at your comparison of the self-righteous responses here and rabid, spittle-flecked San Franciscans. Outstanding.
Here’s the thing; everyone has different taste. If you really don’t like it, there’s no harm in stopping. It’s not like you’re governor of Infinite Jest and have an obligation to your fellow citizens. If you’ll get something out of continuing, even if just to say you finished, then do it. Life is way too short to have online nastiness bring you down. I love the novel. But it’s not a religion, and certainly not one of those religions that says kill all those who don’t believe. Unless I missed that footnote, it’s just not that kind of text. And I’m kind of pissed off at those who are fuming at people who are honest enough to say they just don’t like the book. They’re giving readers everywhere a bad name.
Amen, Avery.
I am getting the impression that Wallace was a very good short story writer, who had no business writing a novel. This book is like 250 short stories, and only a few of them are interesting, none have been particularly compelling. I thoroughly enjoyed Wallace’s story about the burned baby, so I may try some of his short stories. But I decided to quit a few days ago, and it is more of a relief than anything.
While you may find IJ only somewhat interesting and not-at-all compelling, I think you’re plainly wrong to say that Wallace had no business writing a novel. Just as we shouldn’t expect one novel to appeal to everyone, we also shouldn’t think that a novel that doesn’t appeal to us can’t appeal to anyone.
Alas, his short stories tend to be rather more impenetrable than IJ. Maybe try his first novel (Broom of the System) instead? It’s lighter (in tone and heft) and is less of an investment. His essays tend to be a good introduction too.
I know it’s irrational, and so I’m resisting it really hard, but I’m having trouble not feeling somehow affronted that people don’t think this stuff is as great as I do. It’s like they don’t deserve it. That’s a snotty thing to say, and I really don’t quite mean it, but a part of me (the part I usually don’t allow to speak) almost means it. For any other author, I wouldn’t care. DFW speaks to me like no other author has, so I have this weird emotional investment in having other people like his work.
I’ve tried to get myself out from under the chore-ishness of reading IJ while simultaneously I’m trying to keep pace with the schedule so that I can benefit from the on-line chatter. What’s worked for me is to read pretty much one section at a sitting (stopping at either the big space break or the next header). Sometimes that means I’m reading 20 pages, sometimes just a couple (actually, if the section is too short, I tend to cheat and read another).
Each day’s reading becomes a relatively brief commentary, in the inimitable David Foster Wallace voice, on one aspect of life in the IJ universe. In my humble opinion, DFW always gives us enough context to extract some pleasure (or pain, or both) from each section, but as we get further along, the pleasure is compounded (Ah, that’s how sponsored years saw the light of day). Almost every time I shut the book for the night, I’m wishing I could read on, but, remembering the principle of leaving the audience wanting more, I stop, and salivate over the prospect of tomorrow’s reading.
LOL someone doesn’t like modernity amirite guyz?
That was a great post. Keep coming back!
Even though I’m also a first time IJ reader this post makes me feel like a Crocodile at a White Flag AA meeting listening to Don Gately admit that he’s struggling with the concept of a Higher Power. Good to Hear You. Keep Coming Back.
Infinite Summer is making reading this book that much more fun. Kudos.
Hear, hear. That was exactly my reaction.
Good to Hear You, Avery. Keep Coming Back.
Maybe IJ was too big a project for me to begin with. I love reading, I love reading in English (although it is not my first language) and I love big books – the more pages the better. Infinite Summer seemed like a great project and I started with every intention of reading and finishing the book.
But I now realize that for me reading is not about work and chores and milestones. Looking at my copy and seeing my placeholder does not make my heart jump with joy (‘still so much story to enjoy’) but makes me feel heavy realizing there is still so much work to do.
My ratio wants me to keep reading because I want to keep up with this great bunch of people on IS. But my heart is not in it and has definitely refused to grow fond of IJ.
But I have tried, I have really tried.
My name is Ingrid and today I quit reading Infinite Summer…..
Well, we can’t all agree on everything. I love IJ more than any other book I’ve read, and on a personal level I can’t really understand that anyone would feel otherwise. But I also recognize that that’s a remarkably self-centered attitude, and that plenty of people have read IJ (or much of it) and hated it for perfectly legitimate reasons.
I don’t really like the Marathe/Steeply bits, but love the Gately sections. I liked the endnotes. I think IJ says more about what it is to be human than any other book written. However, via la difference!
Funnily enough, I’m trying to read “Ulysses” for the first time this summer for another book club, and your post could describe my feelings about it to a T. I’m not enjoying it much, beautiful prose notwithstanding,
Hey, Dan, try reading Ulysses with The Bloomsday Book, or another academic guide (not a Cliff summary kind of thing). Really helps with the Odyssey references, the sociohistorical references, and all the stuff that made Ulysses for Twentieth Century Ireland what IJ is to a few of us now.
I have upwards of a 40 year career in filmmaking as a cinematographer. Most of the films I have made conform to the rigid three act structure dictated by the studios and taught by the film schools. I have been keenly aware of how limiting these parameters are in presenting any narrative that meshes with real life. The old saw is that we seek in the arts a distillation of life not its true representation. Perhaps this is what so mesmerizes me about I/J. It seems to ignore all the rules of fiction writing; it doesn’t distill anything. So, I can sympathize with Kevin and everyone who shares his frustration. All I can offer from my own perspective is this—surrender every stricture and rule you have about reading what we call a novel. Whatever I/J is, it is unlike anything I have ever read and that is what keeps me going. You never know what direction it is headed or what “plot point” will be next. This is the antithesis of classic fiction or cinema.
Yet for me the irony is also that this is not only the most literate (challenging vocabulary) book I have ever read but the images, the pure visuals of physical detail, of geography, action and people can only be compared to watching a film in extreme slow motion where you can see things missed at normal speed. To me I/J is a kind of word movie with detail that no film unspooling in two hours could ever hope to engage. And it is this close-up observation, the details that grab me moment by moment into the story of each character– not as plot figures but as unique human beings.I feel not on the outside as a reader but pulled into their story– funny, bilious, confounding, confusing, deeply moving.
I can see them, hear them, almost smell them — in the way that Joseph Conrad said all writers should aspire to. Kevin, hang in– wait til you get inside Gately’s head.
I just realized i confused Avery’s name with Kevin’s. Sorry, guys.
You _have_ to keep reading because I really look forward to your posts!
Maybe it would help if you also participated in the daily discussion forum, even just to vent?
Anyway, if you don’t like the AA sections coming up which explores questions of empathy and more of the wages of addiction, but from the point of view of people _recovering_ than I for one would be very interested to hear your take on why. But I think you will like them as they are marvelous.
its like AA, just keep coming.
this is what I tell myself.
You mentioned early on (your first post?) that you don’t usually read books this long. So, as a fellow slow reader, I applaud you for taking this on. (As you’ve noticed, giant books don’t necessarily worry about a lot of forward motion in the first few hundred pages… they’ve got time for that later.)
I agree that it’s okay to quit if you want to. But as others have said, this Infinite Summer thing seems like a rare chance to travel through a strange land with a lot of supportive people. (Who knows, maybe with this crowd around me, I could’ve gotten through Bolano’s 2666, instead of throwing in across the room after Part 1.)
I’m somewhere in between those who love the book and those who aren’t enjoying it. I told one of my friends it’s difficult, but more in the way a human being is difficult. This I.J. person came with a great reputation, but we’ve been hanging out for a while, and I’ve noticed I.J. doesn’t always smell so great, and sometimes it seems like we don’t have a single thing in common. And then I.J. will say something that just blows me away, and I suddenly can’t remember what my life was like before we met. I’ve gotten to know his life story, in no particular order, and some of it bores me to tears, but I realize now I’m in it for the long haul. Now I’ve got to know the rest.
(Besides, just get to page 400, Avery, and then you’ll REALLY know the score. 😉 )
Keep Coming and Thanks for Sharing!
When you catch up, it will all make sense.
Just Keep Coming Back. One Day at a Time.
I dunno – the fact that you are comparing the chore of reading IJ with the chore of going to an AA meeting to beat an addition…speaks volumes if you ask me 🙂
THANK YOU, Avery. I so appreciate your candor. For years, Infinite Jest is the only book I’ve exempted from my longstanding “Rule of 80” — if I’m looking at the page numbers before I get to pg 80, I’m out of there. I have so little time to read fiction, I simply refuse to spend it on some literary Bataan Death March, even if that means some super smartly smarto people will think I’m not as super smart as they are. (I write books. I had a near perfect SAT. I’m smart, okay? F you.)
I’ve started IJ half a dozen times, and now — at pg 366, I’m remembering why I keep setting it aside. Everything you said above, plus a harsh (and wrong, I know) personal feeling I have toward the guy because he killed himself. That’s just fucking selfish and cruel, and we all know it. As a mom, I can’t stand that this brilliant, ungrateful boy did that.
That said, I keep trying to read IJ for the exact reasons John Bailey talks about above — it dares to speak in a way that fiction almost never does. That’s why I was excited to participate in the Infinite Summer thing. And truthfully — I’ve enjoyed y’all’s comments more than I’m enjoying the book.
So for that, I shall press on.
Peace, love and grooviness to all.
(Sigh.)
I don’t want to start anything… I just want to note that I think it’s really offensive and misguided to call someone who suffered from depression (and lost the battle) ungrateful and selfish. Whether you like the book or not.
Um, yeah. This is getting totally weird. And leave me out of your presumption that “we all” consider suicide/the author “selfish and cruel”.
No, she was saying that she knew her feelings about the suicide were selfish and cruel.
Look at the sentences on either side of that one. I think you’re wrong.
that’s not even close to what she was saying. she said that the suicide was selfish and cruel – followed up by calling him “ungrateful.” as if depression had anything to do with gratitude.
joni, i hope no one in your family ever has to deal with mental illness, as they clearly cannot count on you for compassion of any kind.
Everything you said above, plus a harsh (and wrong, I know) personal feeling I have toward the guy because he killed himself. That’s just fucking selfish and cruel, and we all know it. As a mom, I can’t stand that this brilliant, ungrateful boy did that.
As far as I can tell, she was saying that the act of suicide is selfish and cruel. If the “that” in the last sentence of the above paragraph is signifying the same “that” in the next to last sentence. Totally OT now, sorry wonderful blog-people, this is the last.
This is the first time I have felt this way in the Infinite Summer community, but I’d like to remove myself from that “we” as well.
Its fair that not everyone agrees with Joni’s statements about DFW but I don’t agree with alli that a harsh attitude toward suicide has no compassion in it. To family he left behind, to the person (presumably his own wife) who found him and to all who are left to mourn him, his suicide was cruel. Compassion for the victims of his suicide is only appropriate and I think that is what Joni is trying to express.
For me, the ugliness of his final action poses a significant barrier to my ability to enjoy the book, especially where it seems to attempt to advise and philosophize to the reader about life. I plan to keep going with IS because I enjoy the communal nature of the project and the lively discussion it gives rise to, but am I the only person who really struggles with the problem of devoting so much time and attention (to the exclusion of so many other books) to the writings of someone who held himself and the world in such contempt?
I guess it was inevitable that this topic would come up for discussion. I think an important thing to keep in mind is that none of us knew him personally (with a few exceptions, it seems like) and can only make assumptions about his character and actions. We can’t say whether he did or didn’t hold the world in contempt. I have my own opinion (that he didn’t) but no one is qualified to speak for him. It seems unfair to take the liberties to judge him from a distance, especially when the judgments are less than empathetic.
This is a book about empathy, ultimately. And about how desperately we want to communicate to each other but are unable, and about how valuable it is to truly hear each other.
So I’m going to do my best to follow along and say that I don’t know where anyone else is coming from either, and while some of the comments seemed angry and provocative, I don’t want to respond to them tensely because I don’t know the people personally or where they’re coming from. The book has brought out so many positive aspects of community and humanity during our discussions, and I think it would demean its point to argue.
you can be compassionate towards the people who suffer as a result of someone’s suicide without blaming the victim for their disease. you wouldn’t condemn someone with heart disease for going into cardiac arrest. depression has biological roots and manifestations – it’s not about holding the world in contempt, it’s about disturbed brain function. it’s sad, not shameful, and implying otherwise just stigmatizes the disease and prevents people from reaching out for the help they need.
Uh, aren’t we supposed to refrain from swearing on this message board?
By page 366, which is what the OP says she’s read to, there are several sections which contain consummate descriptions of mental suffering which, if you had that opinion of suicide before would surely open your heart and mind. Such is their genius. It she missed that she should certainly read them again.
I’d like to add a perspective that I don’t expect to change your mind but maybe you might see a little from the other side. And it’s not offered as any sort of attack on you.
I used to feel the same way, that people who killed themselves were selfish. And then one day I found myself in their position. I didn’t succeed, obviously. But I learned that there are things about that level of depression that you simply cannot understand without experiencing it. Pages 71-74 of IJ are the best description I’ve ever read of how I felt at the time. There’s a cliche that people who worry they’ve gone insane haven’t, because people who are insane think they’ve gone SANE. That’s what it’s like. Inside the depression, suicide seems like the ultimate SELFLESS act. All you feel is pain and horror, and you believe fully that you can only be causing pain to everyone around you. So, if you just take yourself out of the equation, just cease to exist, then everything else can return to normal.
I know you may read that and it sounds idiotic, but when you’re in the pit, it makes PERFECT SENSE. In fact, it’s the only thing that does make any sense. It’s the only thing you can feel any clarity about. You just know it’s the right thing to do. Suicide is not, by and large, about angsty teens who just want some attention. Most of the people who do it for attention don’t succeed, because for them it’s about attention and obviously you’re not going to get any if you’re dead. Serious, clinical depression is absolutely different. Your brain has ceased to think “normally,” and the decisions you make will appear incomprehensible outside, selfish and ungrateful. Clinical depression is an ILLNESS, and the ‘decisions’ we make when the depression is at its worst can’t be logically reasoned with, and its victims shouldn’t be stigmatized for their decisions any more than a victim of a severe brain tumor should be for the sudden personality changes that can result.
Oh boo hoo. This book isnt like all the other books you’ve read. Expand your mind a bit. You have to make your mind work a little. I have a pretty good idea of the world all these characters live in and the stories so far are great insight into how everyone fits together. Im on page 400 and love how different this book is from much of the other cookie cutter stuff in the book stores these days. Open your mind pay attention and you will find the story. The story is in your perception its not in whats typed on those pages. I say dont give up but I think you can still salvage something of enjoyment if you just change your poopy attitude.
Open your mind pay attention and you will find the story. The story is in your perception its not in whats typed on those pages. I say dont give up but I think you can still salvage something of enjoyment if you just change your poopy attitude.
Beautifully put. The story is hidden in there amongst the exhaustive details, but it’s not going to be told you straightforwardly. You have to actively make something of the information that you are given. It requires ACTUAL WORK on the part of the reader. If you try to passively consume the book you will find yourself drowning.
I’m on pg 338 and am struggling to stay with it. Ironically, I begged a friend who rarely reads fiction to do this with me and he’s on pg 900 and loving it. What I don’t like is all the high-tech jargon and over-use of acronyms. I know this is done for a reason but to me it takes away from the story quality. DFW is at his best when he deals with raw human emotion – just wish there was more of that and less tech-talk. I honestly think the whole point of this book is for DFW to prove that we will entertain ourselves with the most nonsensical things – one of which is reading IJ. I can’t quit b/c I talked my friend into this so I will continue. I’m an avid tennis player so the tennis parts alone are worth my time. Also, I want to know what causes Hal to behave like he does in the beginning of the book in the college admissions office.
It really is like an AA meeting. The power of a group read, and a promise made, means that many people will continue reading just because they said they would. This is a horrible way to read any book. This book is NOT a trophy. I love it by the way.
I talk a little bit about the pleasure of IJ here, motivated in response to this post as well as some others on the question of whether or not the book is science fiction. It seems to me that there is a literary-linguistic pleasure in reading this text not unlike that you’d find in a traditional science fiction novel; the pleasure of reading the book comes in learning how to make sense of it all. The jargony gobbledegook and the acronyms are not a bug, they’re a feature.
I wish this weren’t such a slog for you, and I hope it gets better. But I applaud loudly at your willingness to articulate your opinion. I can completely see why you feel the way that you do. Kudos for being self aware enough to know what is bugging you about the book. And for being a strong enough writer to articulate it well.
The thing that helps me love a book, sometimes, is feeling the excitement that others are experiencing. One crucial part the pleasure of reading IJ this summer is the benefit of the amazing commentaries and discussions happening in the extra-IS-blogosphere. Because these postings are deeply-considered opinions, they serve as a better book “group” than any in-person one I’ve ever been in. And while I like the IS forums, and stay up with the no-spoiler Dailies, the blogs are richer. They are more like a seminar, where folks bring in a precis to class – but without the exclusivity.
If you’re not “enjoying” the book, be sure to spend a few weeks participating in (or at least lurking along with) discussions with Chris F., Daryl H. at I. Zombies, Gerry C., Detox, Paul D., and the Supposedly Fun Blog before you give up. All are spoiler free. All are linked at my blog or discussed in the IS-Roundups. It’s an opportunity not to be missed.
And a P.S.: “How good it is to hear you. For God’s sake, Keep Coming!”
How could any lover of language and wit not find this book orgasmic?
a young woman is described as ‘a nubile and wraith-like figure…shy, iridescent, coltish, pelvically anfractuous’
self-conscious thoughts are ‘twisting around like a snake on a stick’ sneakers are ‘decay-colored’ a young man is ‘exhaling palely’ etc. etc.
This work of art is a feast and DFW is the preternaturally gracious King/host with the complex moodily charismatic voice; we’re lucky to have a seat at the banquet table – drink it in!
I read IJ in June, and, in a typical bit of bad timing, was just finishing it when IS was announced. Even though I’m not following the schedule, I’m really enjoying the discussion – it already makes me nostalgic for reading the book, and it’s great to see the range of readers’ responses.
I came to IJ after reading all DFW’s essays and journalism – I had fallen in love with his voice, and that sustained me through the early stages where I really wasn’t sure what was going on.
Echoing Barrett Chase, I don’t think I would have understood IJ at 20 or 25. But having turned 30 and become a dad for the first time, IJ was one of those things that suddenly seemed to make sense – it expressed exactly what I felt about vulnerability, and loss, and fear for the future. It’s one of those sad ironies that I only became aware of DFW through news of his death.
As many others have said, IJ makes you work. That’s its point. For me, it was worth it, and one of the pleasures of this blog is the continuing series of tiny revelations that ricochet back and forth through the novel: the “meaning” of IJ, the “what happens”, appears like a hologram, shimmering in 3-D behind the text, formed from the reflected light of a million footnotes.
This post is the best rebuttal to IJ’s fandom that I’ve seen, specifically the idea that you have to keep reading to page XXX because “that’s when it kicks in”.
Umm, I really don’t think that fandom has much to do with advice on plot development or -advancement.
*Spoiler alert* Actual plot-advancing action will commence at some time in the future…
But if IJ hasn’t clicked for you in some manner some of the time up until now (intellectually, aesthetically or emotionally), well, may God bless your barren soul.
And the more I read Avery’s post, the more I wonder about how perceptive or attentive she is as a reader. Just technical details? Passages that only serve as timewasters or make the reader confused? Maybe a reader feels that way up to page 100 or so, but after that clues about the significance and intertwining of plot lines are abundant.
Surely most people by now have picked up on some kinds of interconnectedness in themes and plot. And what’s up with the complaint that DFW is ‘explaining the wrong stuff’? All the details make the world of the novel seem more real to me. And stuff really is happening, as someone has pointed out above.
But of course I’m just a partisan fanboy (having read IJ 4 times) trying to rationalize all the wasted time I spent on this underedited, juvenile and chaotic book 😉
[…] imagine my surprise when I read Avery Edison’s Infinite Summer post yesterday and found myself becoming defensive and doing this weird rare thing that I think may have […]