http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons

I heartily agree with the rate-of-project-completion-in-general observation as it relates to the perceived attrition. Also regarding posting activity – normally there are probably more “lurkers” or “listeners” than posters in any venue. I find the deeper into the book I get, the harder it is to find a starting point to write about it, its sprawl and complexity has me in my own cage when it comes to articulating…

On the other hand, I have a “problem” in the day to day, where I can’t stop myself from making references to IJ all the time despite the fact that NO ONE I know has read or is reading it.

1. Can I say Brawndo?
2. I too, like checking in once in a while, but am finding that I would rather mull over the book this first time through than discuss it (sorry).
3. I recall reading/listening to a discussion about “classics” that pointed out a lot of the books that are considered classics are read, these days, in junior high and high school classrooms. Most people would come up with Tom Sawyer as a classic (which a child can read and understand, at least on some level); Ulysses would probably never occur to the average American reader. I’m on board with the whole “acceptance by the Academy” thing as far as what ends up being timeless. Also, I think I’d sooner compare IJ to Gulliver’s Travels than to Shakespeare.

A lot of it runs together for me, after it’s all said and done. I am, however, really enthusiastic about the book, and so happy to have stumbled across this. So finish up already! I want to talk about the ending

I do check in around here every couple of weeks just to see what’s going on and I’m enthusiastically telling all my friends about IJ (and finding that I blather like an idiot because how do you explain that feeling of being caressed by someone else’s imaginary world?). I like to think that I am revving their engines for the, ahem, one thousand six-hundred (1600) page German release next month, but I don’t know for sure.

Now, where are my glasses?

Weak pun on: In Here, Out There; also, Be Here Now. Does anyone else go back that far w/r/t popular culture reference? Many references in IJ are news to me, since I have skipped about the past 30 or so years of popular culture. Yet I, as a “downstream” reader, can catch on. If folk in the future can, so much the better for them. The work is phenomenal, the reader must work for it, and I agree that only time will tell. Let us abide.