The following was drafted by Matt Bucher (maintainer of the wallace-l listserv and author of this post), and augmented by input from Nick Maniatis (administrator of The Howling Fantods, a site devoted to DFW), and Kathleen Fitzpatrick (professor at Pomona College, who teaches a course entitled David Foster Wallace).
There’s no wrong way to read Infinite Jest: front-to-back, upside-down, cut in half, or skipping around. But here are a few tips for the Infinite Jester.
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Read the endnotes: Please. They are not boring bibliographic details, but rather an integral part of the text. And the bouncing back-and-forth is a feature, not a bug.
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Use bookmarks: Yes “bookmarks”, plural: one for the main text and one for the endnotes. Doing so will save you hours of searching, and the aggravation of losing your place several times an hour.
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Persevere to page 200: There are several popular way stations on the road to abandoning Infinite Jest. The most heavily trafficked by far is “The Wardine Section”. Where the opening pages of IJ are among the best written in the book, page 37 (and many pages thereafter) are in a tortured, faux-Ebonics type dialect. “Wardine say her momma ain’t treat her right.” “Wardine be cry.” Potentially offensive (if one wants to be offended), and generally hard to get through. Hang in there, ignore the regional parlance, and focus on what the characters are doing. Like most things in the book, you’ll need to know this later. Likewise for the other rough patches to be found in the first fifth of the novel.
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Trust the author: Around page 50, you’re going to feel a sinking sense of dread, as it dawns on you how much stuff you’ll be asked to keep track of: lots of characters coming and going, subplots upon subplots, page long sentences, and more. You have to believe that what seems at first like a bunch of disconnected vignettes (like The Wardine Section) will in fact come together; that the connections among what seem like radically disparate plot lines really do make themselves apparent in time. But at first, it requires something of a focus on the local plot lines, and a leap of faith in the fact that the global picture will eventually resolve.
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Flag, copy, or bookmark page 223: Page 223 of the novel contains some information that you will either need to internalize or refer to frequently to make sense of the narrative. Once you reach it, flag the page with a stickie, dogear the corner, photocopy the material, stick a (third) bookmark there–whatever will ensure that you can find this information when you need it.
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Don’t do the thing you’re dying to do right now: Namely, flip to page 223 to see what we’re talking about. David Foster Wallace ordered the book the way he did for a reason, and part of step 4 above is respecting that. In fact, we encourage you to take the fingers-in-the-ears “LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU” approach to spoilers in general.
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Abuse your copy: When you are finished, 223 should be just one of many mutilated pages in your novel. Liberal use of tape flags, post-it notes, highlighting, or your anal-retentive page marking device of choice, as a means of keeping track of key passages you think you might like to come back to (or share with others), is encouraged. (Note: the preceding advice is not recommended for those reading on the Kindle.) If you can’t bring yourself to work over your only copy of Infinite Jest, consider investing in a second.
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Keep notes: As if lugging around a book the size of a 2 br. 1¼ bath apartment isn’t enough, you may want to carry a notebook as well. You won’t always have the requisite Oxford English Dictionary within arm’s reach, you know.
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Brush up on your Hamlet: It’s no coincidence that the first two words of Hamlet are “Who’s there?” and the first two words of Infinite Jest are “I am”. Even the novel’s title was lifted from the play.
As you read, it behooves you keep in mind the relationships between the characters in Shakespeare’s drama (the ghost, poor Yorick, etc.) and the central themes of the play. You can find a brief primer here.
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Employ a reader’s guide: There are two companion guides that you may find helpful. One is Stephen Burn’s David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: A Reader’s Guide. Burn’s guide is rather short (96 pages), but it includes a helpful chronology , as well as sections on the novel’s critical reception and key plot points.
Another guide is Greg Carlisle’s Elegant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. [Full disclosure: Bucher is the editor & publisher of the Carlisle book.] Elegant Complexity is different than the Burn guide in that it offers a summary and exegesis on every section of the novel–and that it’s 512 pages long. Also included are chronologies, family trees, thematic discussions, and a map of the tennis academy.
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Use online references: There are copious webpages out there that the first-time Jesters will find useful. Here are a a few:
- An IJ glossary.
- The Infinite Jest index.
- Infinite Jest Character Profiles.
- The Infinite Jest Utilities Page, which includes chapter thumbnails and an endnote finder.
- The IJ page at The Howling Fantods.
- Posts on kottke.org with the infinitejest tag.
- The Infinite Jest wiki.
- the index page for Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s David Foster Wallace course, and the Wiki her students built.
You can find links to more resources at The Howling Fantods.
Obviously many of these sites contain spoilers, so poke a hole in an index card and only view your monitor through that while visiting one.
Comments
75 responses to “How to Read Infinite Jest”
Something tells me that I’m going to write my thesis about this book, while reading this book, and I’m not even in my senior year of college yet!
[…] 17th, 2009 | Uncategorized me: “It’s no coincidence that the first two words of Hamlet are ‘Who’s there? and the first two […]
I liked the Wardine section. I thought the writing was phenomenal, the story was interesting (and tragic), and yeah. That section kinda sold me on the book, actually.
Well, that section AND the early Kate Gompert and Ken Erdedy sections
[…] I have accepted the challenge. This summer I will read “Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace. The kind people at Infinite Summer. Update: They have also posted 11 tips for read Infinite Jest. […]
pretty sure that last reference to “elizabeth fitzpatrick’s” course should be kathleen fitzpatrick.
How … did … that happen … ?
Yikes.
I’m 300 pages in, and if I was about to tackle IJ from page 1, this post might actually dissuade me from reading it. Because, well, I’m three years out of college, and the last thing I want to do while reading a book (a huge sprawling novel, at that) is to treat it like homework.
But, of course, none of this mentions the fact that the number one people read and should read Infinite Jest is that it’s entertaining.
A little help, for those of us reading it on a Sony Reader with font set at 12 point? As in, I have no idea where page 223 is? Maybe a sentence or two as a hint?
[…] Infinite Summer is almost here! Just a few more days. I have to finish House of Leaves already. […]
!!! Hamlet !!! I’ve read IJ already, but I never made the Hamlet connection. One more thing to remember during the reread.
I read IJ when it came out but I’ve never made the connection to Hamlet and my jaw just dropped.
What did I miss guys? I read Hamlet and caught similarities, but nothing to warrant a floor-bound jaw…
Cody, Dan, Kerry, and especially Jason: Thank you for the Hamlet tip. I’ve led my senior English students through Branagh’s film version, with play in hand, for two years. In my second full pass through ‘Jest I’ll be tracking intertextuality with the Bard’s best.
I would love to engage the novel on that level, but there’s just no time this summer. Jest has to be my light reading. As crazy as that sounds, its true. I’ll have to come back around again next summer.
I’m doing a (hopefully) complete reading of the work of Saul Bellow this summer, and I’m thinking of doing Wallace next summer. It’s really fun to read a whole arseload of one author all together.
So, no crazy in-depth Wallace for me just yet. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how deep the disc. does get though. The idea of a collective read is just the coolest. Thanks for doing this, ya’ll.
I dig that idea! I’ve never been the type to devote myself to one author exclusively for spell. If you don’t mind me asking: why Bellow?
I have the Stephen Burn reader’s guide and I’m finding the timeline very useful. Another book that looks interesting is “Understanding David Foster Wallace,” some of which you can read at Google Books. It’s due out in paperback at the end of August. .
I gotta second the Wardine comment from Jim. Urban life of the late 90’s is something I get. The culture of the Tennis Academy is as related to my life as Olde English Gentry fox hunts are. Meaning not at all.
Suburbanites and all ye sheltered, please reference The Wire for most of your necessary slang type definitions. The ones not covered come up later in IJ.
Daunting How To. Was planning to read Infinite Jest, but after this don’t know.
Don’t let it scare you off!! I’m 500+ pages in and–without the aid of the super-specific “How-To”–I’ve been faring just fine. Pretty much, all the advice could be consolidated into #3. PERSEVERE PERSEVERE PERSEVERE. You’ll love it!
Persevere until page 200?!?!? This book is brutal, too many characters, too many run on sentences, and after the brilliant opening, the marijuana part is far too repetitious and makes my eyes bleed. If there is another 180 pages of this I may jump off a bridge.
Any piece of advice that has the word “behooves” in it is worth listening to. Saying that I’ll probably ignore most of what you’ve said, but I have accepted the challenge! See you on the other side.
What? No 12th step?? I thought you were going for some meta-reference to the central recovery/AA themes of the book.
*golf clap*
Oh, very helpful! Thank you. And yes, I was tempted to skip the footnotes, so I very much appreciate the two-bookmark and flagging tips. Elegant and sensible assists, these.
Where where you folks when I was reading Don Quixote? Can we do Joyce next year?
I second this completely! The local Don Quixote group ended with only one member finishing. Definitely down for Joyce!
[…] June 18 tags: David Foster Wallace, Hamlet, Shakespeare by iantrevor At the suggestion of some seasoned IJ readers, I plan to hurry through a reading of Hamlet before I commence the Infinite Summer. […]
I think it’s a very bad idea to suggest those reader’s guides and websites to first-time readers. They are fine resources,but there is almost no way to avoid spoilers through most of these sources, especially the recommended chronology in Burns’ book. I know that if I happened across a critical spoiler halfway through an 1100-page book I would fucking explode. Moreover, suggesting first-time readers turn to some outside source for a tidy linear chronology seems out of keeping with the mandate of “trusting the author”, an author who definitely knew what he was doing when he avoided just such a sequencing.
For the record, I don’t think there are any “critical spoilers” in Infinite Jest. Some of the most basic facts of plot are still disputed, 12 years after the novel came out. Besides, I think there is a limit to what you can protect from “spoilers”. IJ is not solely plot driven and is not told in linear time. In effect, what you learn about the novel as you read only adds to your sense of having already uncovered some previous secrets that make sense. I don’t think we’d have the same expectations about spoilers when reading As I Lay Dying or Light in August. Besides, isn’t there some statute of limitations on spoilers? 10 years? 20 years?
THis post just makes me more excited about infsu! Thank you moderators for the inspiration!
Thanks for the battle plan!
oops, sorry! I meant this as a general comment, not one directed at you!
[…] page will be discussed in the posts or in the general discussion area. They followed up with a post How to Read Infinite Jest, which recommends using bookmarks, several of them.So I got the idea to make bookmarks. My […]
[…] your world in only 75 pages a week. You can do it. @infinitesummer http://infinitesummer.org/archives/215 […]
If I buy a reader’s guide or check out any of those websites, will there be spoilers along the way? I don’t want anything to be ruined, but I imagine I will need some help. At the same time, if I look at the Infinite Jest wiki or something for a character or timeline / chronology, I’m afraid that it might include too much information.
My 2 cents… Since there will be people in this group-read who’ve read the book, as well as people who’ve read the book and the reading guides, a first-time reader is probably better off just sticking to their own reading and the input from others. It’s after the book is finished (and, to be honest) when you start your second trip through IJ) that the reader guides are most helpful. Again, though, this is my 2 cents. I just think the book’s meant to have, well, let’s say a whole lot of question marks when you’re done, which question marks get reduced by at least half the second time around.
Thank you!! Will do.
I think first timers should read the book as if it is just a “regular book”. Albeit a book where you need two bookmarks! This is not homework. This is not a PhD dissertation. Just read it and enjoy the book. You will miss some timeline inferences and you will miss some of the underlying motifs but that does not in any way, shape or form take away from the basic story or the crazy fun characters. Just enjoy!
Obviously, there will be differing opinions when approaching this book (or anything for that matter). But Matt, if you don’t mind me saying, I feel you made points under #’s 3 & 4 that give valid reasons for why using a guide or chronology that might “clear some things up” would be a bad idea for many of us wanting to approach each page with a clean slate and the ability to consider things before having the influence of any other interpretation.
To be honest, I’m a little disappointed with your response to jute in general.
It was my impression that this was the point of “Infinite Summer”: a way to discuss these things after having the chance to consider them on our own. Also, the reason that you have asked for no spoilers in sections of the message board.
As we stated in the introduction, Matt wrote the first draft of this article, but it was supplemented with input from two other people. In particular, the bulletpoint about spoilers (and the avoidance thereof) came from someone else. Matt has stated, here and elsewhere, that he does not feel as strongly about spoilers as stated in this article. Any confusion on this point is a result of our editorial decision to amalgamate the tips into a single essay.
Also, the spoiler restrictions on the forums come a completely separate source: the editors of the Infinite Summer website.
It’s going to be an interesting summer! This website is doing a great job of whetting the appetite and building the suspense until we all start this massive project together.
Can anyone comment on the feasibility of using the Kindle to take this on? Referring to footnotes and endnotes and whatnot can be difficult on the Kindle. (The one non-fiction book I’ve read on Kindle – Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris – had hyperlinks for asterisks, but not for numbered footnotes.) Has anyone tried this and were the foot/endnotes properly hyperlinked?
It sure would be great not to have to carry the book around!
I thinf Infinite Jest was made for the Kindle. Much easier to access the endnotes than with the cumbersome paper edition I started (and did not complete…because of the endnotes) a decade ago. Plus, you can add your own notes to the text…take that, IJ!
I had the same concerns about the Kindle but the Kindle version makes it very easy to jump from text to footnote and back to text (even the footnotes to the footnotes). I’m also looking up a lot of words in the dictionary with the lookup function, which is a big plus.
What is the Kindle equivalent of page 223? I can tell from The Schedule that it is somewhere between location 4844 (pg. 210) and location 5561 (pg. 242). Can anyone be more specific?
I think location 5121 does the trick … I assume that they are talking about the Chronology that is on page 223, or the paragraphs immediately thereafter.
I am not sure if the advice about resisting page 223 until it comes up in the sequential order of pages is good or not. DFW did set the book in the order we have it, but he disliked the idea of linearity, of a conveyor belt humming nicely and delivering a stream of plot and theme and dialogue and satisfying conclusion. He has us flipping between text and endnotes all damn day for god’s sake! I wonder if he had hoped to break at least some of his readers away from the tyranny of page numbers and just go ahead and skip around a bit. There are several passages in this book that I’m certain are not only part of the story, but DFW’s effort to tell the reader about the story as well; about the ordering of the book (or apparent lack thereof), about his own degree of confidence that the book is complete and its vicinity to perfection, and even why he wrote it in the first place. I guess what I mean is that there is no sin in glancing at 223. I think DFW is alright with people heeding the advice of others who have gone the way before (Consider the character Lyle when you come to him), so I’ll just say that the chunk in question on 223 won’t spoil things for you, it’ll just help you a bit with the book’s organization. I’m sure people will disagree with me both strongly and in that “meh, agree to disagree” kinda way so first time readers, do what you want and know that there are consequences to either approach.
As to the spoilers talk on this comment page, I’m on the side that there are few spoilers in the traditional sense because this is not a traditional, tidy book. This book is more about the “Did DFW really just do that? And get away with it?!” moments than a plot that concludes like fireworks finales.
[…] or tennis players or recovering drug addicts or those with astronomical IQs. Don’t sweat all the Hamlet stuff; you can worry about those references on the second time through if you actually like it enough to […]
This is great! I’ve had this book on my to-read list for so long! My plan is to try to follow the schedule through, reading just the book itself with the help of only a dictionary and discussions on this webpage with others who are reading along at the same pace. I think I will take the advice about the 2 bookmarks too.
I’d like to avoid the IJ reference materials suggested, because I’d like to see what I can get out of the first read myself without influence from critics. Then I suppose I can check out the reference materials later and re-read. Of course, I work at Little Brown so may be tempted to ask the editor questions as I go. We shall see.
And the bouncing back-and-forth is a feature, not a bug.
Could someone please explain this to me? Because I’m only about 60 pages in, and all the flipping back and forth is already driving me up a wall. I don’t mind reading footnotes, but endnotes are a real pain–even with two bookmarks, which I’m using. I’m willing to accept that they might be integral to the plot and therefore that I should just suck it up and read them, but I’d really like to hear some justification for this claim that endnotes, specifically, with the flipping, are a feature rather than a bug. Because if someone could help me understand that, maybe I could become less annoyed about it.
Tom, I understand your sentiment on this (the endnotes and the flipping back and forth aspect of them).
Personally, as a reader, my feelings on the subject have so far… have varied.
When the flipping back and forth started appealing to me, I began to see it as an important part in making the reader as active a part in the process of the book itself as possible (the writing-…-reading continuum).
Made me think of Umberto Eco, and his concept of the open work, which however still somewhat escapes me; could mean something like:”the artist’s decision to leave arrangements of some constituents of a work to the public or to chance”, as defined on the Harvard University Press website, here.
But that’s just a quick intuition that may or may not make sense, I have yet to study the matter further (and read “The Open Work” itself).
I’ve recently read “The Name of the Rose” so the images of monks do come to mind as well, with their particular approach to text.
IJ comes to me in a moment when I’m rediscovering books, and is an interesting part of making the reading process as fun and profound and complex and personal and – I repeat – fun, as it was when I was a kid and lived in my own little library universe. Time to reclaim that, I say. But that’s just me.
You, on the other hand, probably perceive this differently. Hope it becomes fun in the end, the flipping back and forth thing, in whatever way makes sense to you in particular.
Doubts are a part of life, and I’m only starting to explore the DFW universe, so I won’t risk making any further hasty assumptions, and prefer to leave you with some words from the IJ author himself, that might shed some light on the issue. He speaks of his being very erudite yet particularly attracted to some aspects of pop culture, which results in his ending up being glued to the TV set if he should own one, and how this has affected the book:
“If you’re torn in these two different directions,” he says, “it’s very odd. The project, at least with this book, was to do something long and difficult that was also fun. I’m not saying it succeeds. I wanted to write something that would make somebody say, `Holy, shit, I’ve got to read this,’ and then seduce them into doing a certain amount of work. And that — if I can be pretentious for a second — is what art ought to do.”
It’s from the The Boston Phoenix interview (I’ve skipped the last paragraph since it appears to refer to the ending – I’m a bit spoiler-phobic, obviously), March 21 – 28, 1996, by Anne Marie Donahue, can be found here or here, I’ve discovered it through the Infinite Summer Forums’ “DFW/IJ Links” page, here that links this list of “Reviews and Interviews” found here and the interview is also linked on The Howling Fantoids website “Interviews and Audio” list, this one.
What a mess of a comment, and no preview either, I’ll just post it then and apologize in advance for any mistakes or silly theories.
Thanks. That’s helpful. But–I dunno. I’d still gladly pay double or more for a copy with footnotes instead of endnotes. Just to cut down on the aggravating labor of flipping back and forth and back and forth. So I could just hold the book comfortably, and let each page entertain me without my having to physically interact with it. Not entirely unlike an InterLace entertainment cartridge…
I think it might have something to do, even, with the game of tennis: the bopping back and forth, the challenge, the having to perservere to the end (fitting, too, that my first read of Tom Dunkin’s below comment read “I’d still gladly play doubles”).
[…] pages per week, meaning an approximate end date of September 22. The Infinite Summer website offers several tips which range from the absolutely necessary to the seemingly dubious, as well as testimonials from […]
OMG, I followed the link to the class on DFW taught at Pomona this Spring and was shocked to see that they were apparently assigned ALL of his work:
http://machines.pomona.edu/166-2009/syllabus/
It’s ALL there: IJ, Broom, GWCH, Breief Interviews, Oblivion, ASFT, Lobster, even Everything & More and some of the uncollected stuff.
That’s either really impressive or totally crazy and unrealistic. I kinda don’t think it would be possible for many students to do all of that reading in one semester while taking 3 or 4 other classes. Many had probably read some of his work already, and I have to imagine some skipped a short story here or there.
The course blog is really good reading, though. What a neat experience these students were able to having immersing themselves in DFW’s work and learning from a professor who knew him personally.
I started this book back in the late 90s and never finished it. I’m not sure I even made it to the famous page 223, but I never threw it either. Somehow, I always thought I’d go back to it because I always finish a book a start.
However, after seeing your post, I wonder, “Is it really worth all that?” Really??? Why can’t a deep book just be easy to read lkie “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”? or even lie Wallace’s earlier book, “Broom of the System”?
[…] tried the book before and given up, you might already be ahead of schedule): Get a primer on how to read the book, download your handy reading-schedule bookmark, and check out impressions from guest […]
[…] tried the book before and given up, you might already be ahead of schedule): Get a primer on how to read the book, download your handy reading-schedule bookmark, and check out impressions from guest […]
[…] think too hard, just hard enough. And if I can leave you with one piece of advice, follow these rules for reading […]
I started with two bookmarks, but I lost both of them. It’s an awesome book, so pack a ginormous dip of Kodiak in your lip and read on.
I just built a blog called “Infinite Tasks, Infinite Summer” and did an introductory post on reading IJ this summer. Please drop by and let me know what you think!
I loved the Wardine section: it made me cry profoundly the first time I read it and then it was reread every time I lost faith in Dave Wallace. I still quit the book halfish way through because there were not enough Wardiney sections where frustration ended beautifully instead of with me having to google “how to freebase cocaine” repeatedly. Which makes for interesting internet history.
I am head over heels for DFW. His clear love of and devotion to the written word is inspiring. He has given me some of the best belly laughs ever (his essay on a sea cruise from A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again was insanely funny). So, I’m in for a penny and in for a pound with Infinite Jest. I had already begun earlier this spring, but I did feel a bit lost in the wilderness….
[…] a) past where I believe I stopped the first time, b) at the point where we finally unearth some fairly important information, and, c) also along the guidelines laid out here, past page 200, at which point things apparently […]
[…] summer, which adds up to about 75 pages per week. Infinite Summer provides playful (but helpful) tips and guest essays — largely personal accounts, including one from a seasoned four-time reader […]
[…] you may have seen mentioned in a countdown post here, this past spring I taught a single-author course focused entirely around the work of David […]
[…] 4:59 am on July 20, 2009 Permalink | Reply I always wanted to Infinite Jest, but clearly downloading the PDF might not be good enough in this instance. […]
[…] sometimes impenetrable and 1,078 page long The Infinite Jest by the end of this summer. Check here for some tips on digesting this avant garde novel, and best of luck! Let us know how you make out, […]
[…] How to Read Infinite Jest Keeping flagged for when I re-read (again? so soon?) within the next year or so. (tagged: via:fogus InfiniteJest reading literature todo ) […]
[…] How to read Infinite Jest Jump to Comments Here’s the link to How to Read Infinite Jest. […]
[…] or spirit, that which returns to haunt or otherwise horrify the living, I was confused. From the Hamlet-referencing lines DFW penned to begin IJ, we knew that some ghost or other would play a role, and of course the […]
[…] had suggested in the previous post that while I thought most of Infinite Summer’s tips for reading were necessary, a few seemed dubious. To elaborate: I find the suggestion that a […]