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August 2009

The Archives

• Matthew Baldwin, Miscellaneous

  Join the Tunnel Club

  08.31.09 | Permalink | 129 Comments

  This is cross-posted to the forums. We’ll be featuring guests for the remainder of the week, but I’m appropriating my Monday slot for a discussion on the future of Infinite Summer. the sub-14 E.T.A.s historically have a kind of Tunnel Club. Like many small boys’ clubs, the Tunnel Club’s unifying raison d’etre is kind of [...]

• Summaries

  Infinite Summary – Week 10

  08.29.09 | Permalink | 10 Comments

  And welcome to week 10. Milestone Reached: 738 (75%) Sections Read: Page 666 The Tunnel Club searches the catacombs under E.T.A. for rats. Page 673: Thierry Poutrincourt joins Steeply and deLint in watching the Hal Incandenza v. Ortho Stice match. Page 682 – 14 NOVEMBER / YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT: Matty Pemulis, prostitute [...]

• Avery Edison

  The Biblical Experience of Reading Infinite Jest

  08.28.09 | Permalink | 33 Comments

  Avery Edison is in transit today, so Nick Douglas is subbing in. Nick Douglas is the editor of Twitter Wit: Brilliance in 140 Characters or Less, a collection of witty tweets, which was released earlier this week. I’m an atheist – if I were in AA, I’d get on my knees with far less openness [...]

• Kevin Guilfoile

  Irony, It Has Happened To Me

  08.27.09 | Permalink | 37 Comments

  Someone recently sent me an unpublished manuscript to read and while the book itself had many things to recommend it, there was one sentence that made me laugh. I won’t use the same context because I don’t want to embarrass the author, but the gist of it was something like, “It’s so ironic that you [...]

• Guests

  Matt Bucher: The Anxiety of Influence

  08.26.09 | Permalink | 28 Comments

  Matt Bucher is the administrator of the David Foster Wallace mailing list and publisher of Elegant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. He is an editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, runs a weblog about writer Roberto Bolaño and the novel 2666, and has read Infinite Jest at least three times. Infinite Jest [...]

• Miscellaneous

  Oops

  08.26.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  Two months ago Matthew Baldwin told the Guides that August 24-28 would be devoted to guest posts and Kevin Guilfoile, who is a professional, wrote this on a calendar, and Matthew Baldwin, who is not, did not, and, long story short, Kevin doesn’t have a post prepared, so we’re running the weekly guest post today [...]

• 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) [...]

• Elsewhere Jest

  Roundup

  08.23.09 | Permalink | 5 Comments

  Man, everyone is doing this Infinite Summer thing. Here is a still from this week’s episode of Weeds. “I’ll do that delivery for mom after I finish my chapter.I’m sure this Erdedy guy won’t mind waiting ten minutes.” (Thanks to Ed for sending us the screenshot.) Matt of Wood-Tang is on page 700 of the [...]

• Summaries

  Infinite Summary – Week 9

  08.22.09 | Permalink | 4 Comments

  Milestone Reached: 664 (67%) Sections Read: Page 575:: Randy Lenz and Bruce Green continue strolling around Boston. We learn that Green’s mother died of fright after opening a novelty snake-in-a-fake-can-of-nuts gift that young Bruce had given her at his father’s urging, and that Green’s father went insane (and was executed for sending out deadly exploding [...]

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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