Comments on: Mountaineering

By: Infinite Summer « A Rambling Fancy

Infinite Summer « A Rambling Fancy — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:37:47 +0000

[...] Summer continued to pop up in my daily internet reading, but it wasn’t until I read the guide introductions and saw someone refer to House of Leaves (one of the most amazing books I’ve read) as [...]

By: Colin

Colin — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:47:36 +0000

Ugh, House of Leaves. I read it and found the whole ‘words-shaped like what’s going on’ thing pretty cool, and the basic love plotline was ok, but the whole thing felt rather empty. Secret messages hidden in the text are cool, sure…but not if they’re pointlessly childish like having a list of names where the first letters spell out A LONG LIST.

If you want some real screwy structured novels read some John Barth (who was a large influence one way or another on DFW, who wrote a story responding in sorts to a Barth story)
Chimera by Barth is a book composed of three novellas. The second one has an entire level of narration I didn’t catch until halfway through, and then the third one has the most confusing structure I’ve ever seen. Not to give too much away, but the third story contains a character who reads another character in the form of the second story (???) before turning physically into the third story itself and complaining about how he’s written. Kinda. I left out about 15 levels of confusion so as not to give away the actual ending. But it makes the actual structural complexity of House of Leaves look like See Spot Run.

By: Colin

Colin — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:34:06 +0000

On the topic of bad sentences, an example DFW had of TERRIBLE sentences from “Authority and American Usage”

“If such a sublime cyborg would insinuate the future as post-Fordist subject, his palpably masochistic locations as ecstatic agent of the sublime superstate need to be decoded as the “now-all-but-unreadable-DNA” of the fast industralizing Detroit, just as his Robocop-like strategy of carceral negotiation and street control remains the tirelessly American one of inflicting regeneration through violence upon the racially heteroglassic wilds and others of the inner city.”

Yeah. Now that’s a bad sentence.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:52:30 +0000

I was lucky enough to randomly pick up IJ about six weeks ago. I’ve maxed out my renewals from the library come Thurs., so I’ve got to take the book back for a day or so, or however long it takes for me to refresh my three consecutive two-week checkout periods.
Anyhow, I feel very lucky that I found out about this whole idea last week, because I’ve been making very slow progress (now at about p. 250), and was possibly in danger of giving up. I think I’m going to persevere now that I know a bunch of other Wallace fans are doing it together in his memory.
I discovered him a few years ago when a grad school professor made me read the Harper’s essay about the cruise ship. Since then I’ve read just about every word of nonfiction he wrote, to my knowledge (NF being my main personal and professional interest). In the process, I’ve become one of those quasi-irritating DFW fans that wastes no opportunity to evangelize the uninitiated. After his suicide last fall was the first time in my life where I’ve ever felt actual personal sadness over the death of someone who was a total stranger to me. Which I think is sort of at the heart of why he appeals so strongly to me and others like-minded: his writing is so intimate, exuberant, honest and lively that he did become a friend of sorts.
IJ has been my first try at a DFW novel, and I’m looking forward to this project.
Andrew

By: Infinite Jest as the source of all (of my) fiction « pura pinche agua (DFW and sailing)

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:24:15 +0000

[...] Over at Infinite Summer, the guides are telling us about where they got to Infinite Jest [IJ] (here, here). This post is about where IJ got [...]

By: Shannon

Shannon — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:17:46 +0000

He wore a bandanna in public, mostly at readings, because when he would sweat profusely while reading, causing the pages to become soaked. At least according to Dave Eggers in the foreword to my copy. =)

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:47:39 +0000

OK…so far I love this book (I am on pace) but NO WAY am I going to be able to read it AND the great blog posts AND the in-depth commentary /discussion…

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:28:44 +0000

House of Leaves is an absolutely phenomenal book. A lot of people don’t like it, but I think it’s brilliant.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:35:22 +0000

Linked in here from two different web logs. I heard about the book a few years back but never bought it. Saw this and thought it would help me get through the parts I don’t understand so I figured why not buy it now. The 75 page a week pace is do-able and I prefer long books when they are good. I guess everyone prefers that long books be good, but I get mad when good (shorter) books end. The end also coincides with my summer vacation if I start to lag behind.

I have read some long books that are old, like War and Peace and long non fiction books on economics, but never any of the books newer novels that are generally lumped into this category (not to generalize). So far I am on page 50 and I am supprised that it is pretty easy going so far. Definitely easier than the last book I read, a translated-from-German 1922 economic treatise on Socialism.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:32:29 +0000

Is it weird that your first footnote caused me to hysterically giggle? The bad hysterical, not the fun one.

Thanks so much for doing this. Idea: Can you put a #infsum twitter feed on the sidebar? Might be nice.