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Guides

• Eden M. Kennedy

  It Didn’t Make Me Happy but I Couldn’t Stop Watching

  08.25.09 | Permalink | 1 Comment

  As your least insightful and hands-down laziest guide, I fully admit that I’m 100 pages behind this week and I’m not even going to try to fake it. But I did spend a fruitful hour this morning browsing DFW reviews and interviews. This from Newsweek: NEWSWEEK: What’s your history with tennis? WALLACE: I played serious […]

• Matthew Baldwin

  Else { Default }

  08.24.09 | Permalink | 32 Comments

  As details emerge about The Pale King, it’s becoming clear that the 2005 commencement speech David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College is something of a bridge between Infinite Jest and his final, unfinished novel. Michael Piesch, Wallace’s editor, goes so far as to call “This Is Water” (as the commencement speech is commonly known) […]

• Avery Edison

  Everybody Hurts (Except Mario Incandenza)

  08.20.09 | Permalink | 52 Comments

  I am coming to believe that there is not one normal character in this book.77 We see characters with physical deformities (the wheelchair assassins, Mario); mental problems (Himself, Kate Gompert, others); substance addictions (the Ennet house gang, a vast number of students at E.T.A); sociopathic tendencies (Lenz, Lenz, Lenz); obsessive compulsions (Avril Incandenza, Lateral Alice […]

• Kevin Guilfoile

  I’ve Seen the Future, Brother, It Is Murder

  08.19.09 | Permalink | 66 Comments

  In the underrated Mike Judge film Idiocracy, Luke Wilson is unfrozen centuries in the future where people have become so stupid that a two-hour video of a man’s naked, farting ass wins four Oscars, and Wilson has to run around desperately trying to convince everyone on the planet that humans will go extinct unless they […]

• Eden M. Kennedy

  Thanks, but I Don’t Particularly Like to Hug

  08.18.09 | Permalink | 13 Comments

  I’m a little behind in my reading, I’m smack in the middle of the whole Lenz thing and it’s kind of making me sick, so I’m going to backtrack a little. Last week I accused Infinite Jest of having kind of a Kubrickian sterility about it at times, but as I continue reading and the […]

• Matthew Baldwin

  The Peril of A.P.

  08.17.09 | Permalink | 19 Comments

  It’s always strange to hear a term you thought you “owned” in a complete different context. Case in point: as a board gamer, I have been using the phrase “analysis paralysis” for years, completely unaware that the term was affiliated (and perhaps originated) with A.A. Most Substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they […]

• Avery Edison, Eden M. Kennedy, Kevin Guilfoile, Matthew Baldwin, Rountables

  Midsummer Roundtable, Part V

  08.14.09 | Permalink | 7 Comments

  This is the fifth of a five-part roundtable discussion with the Infinite Summer Guides. Infinite Summer: Any predictions as to what will happen in the second half of the novel? Matthew Baldwin: I’ll tell you what I’m not expecting: anything resembling a standard climax or dénouement. In nearly all of Wallace’s non- and short-fiction I’ve […]

• Avery Edison, Eden M. Kennedy, Kevin Guilfoile, Matthew Baldwin, Rountables

  Midsummer Roundtable, Part IV

  08.13.09 | Permalink | 22 Comments

  This is the fourth of a five-part roundtable discussion with the Infinite Summer Guides. Infinite Summer: Kevin, do you find Wallace’s style influencing your own? Will the title of your next novel (The Thousand) refer to the number of endnotes you went back and inserted? Kevin Guilfoile: I’m pretty easily influenced by anything that I […]

• Avery Edison, Eden M. Kennedy, Kevin Guilfoile, Matthew Baldwin, Rountables

  Midsummer Roundtable, Part III

  08.12.09 | Permalink | 41 Comments

  This is the third of a five-part roundtable discussion with the Infinite Summer Guides. Infinite Summer: Does anyone have a favorite character? Avery Edison: I’ve written before about liking Hal the most, whilst suspecting that he may be a dick. That’s still holding true. I tend to like the smarter characters, and in a book […]

• Avery Edison, Eden M. Kennedy, Kevin Guilfoile, Matthew Baldwin, Rountables

  Midsummer Roundtable, Part II

  08.11.09 | Permalink | 36 Comments

  This is the second of a five-part roundtable discussion with the Infinite Summer Guides. Infinite Summer: Have you been sticking to the schedule? Avery Edison: For the first time since the project started I’m sticking to the schedule. I had been catching up in 75-page burst the day before my posts were due to be […]

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The Book

the challenge

Join endurance bibliophiles from around the world in reading Infinite Jest over the summer of 2009, June 21st to September 22nd. A thousand pages¹ ÷ 92 days = 75 pages a week. No sweat.

1. Plus endnotes^a.
a. A lot of them.

The Search

The Last 10 Posts

• Infinite Index
• Acknowledgements
• Summer’s End Roundtable, Part IV
• Summer’s End Roundtable, Part III
• Summer’s End Roundtable, Part II
• Summer’s End Roundtable, Part I
• The End
• Roundup
• Greg Carlisle: Reading Infinite Jest Changed My Life (and Now It Will Change Yours)
• Mission Improbable

The Last 10 Comments

• Pemulis' Yachting Cap on Mission Improbable: Ooh, I’m thinking maybe Gately’s ginormous head has to do...
• Pemulis' Yachting Cap on I Got This Fire In My Heart, Won’t Let Me Sleep, Can’t Concentrate…: Nucks...
• Pemulis' Yachting Cap on Summer’s End Roundtable, Part III: I just realized that Mario reminds me a bit of Owen...
• Pemulis' Yachting Cap on Summer’s End Roundtable, Part III: I’m finished! I’d started last summer...
• Peer on Acknowledgements: Thanks for the link. I will check it out. I was just hoping for some announcements here...
• Prolixian on Acknowledgements: Peer – if you are interested in 2666, check out bolanobolano.com. A group read...
• Peer on Acknowledgements: When will we start the new book?
• Todeswalzer on Acknowledgements: RIP Infinite Summer. It was great while it lasted.
• Medusa4303 on Join the Tunnel Club: Thanks. Scott! I have just joined the Bolano group, and I am looking forward to...
• ariel on Join the Tunnel Club: thank you scott!!

The Directory