Infinite Summer

I'm scared (and slightly proud) that I'm the youngest person I know reading Infinite Jest. My (high school) sophomore English teacher got me hooked on DFW, lending me a copy of Best American Essays, 2005, because I happened to walk in on him, his former student and now the senior Enlgish teacher, and my Precalculus teacher watching an interview with DFW on Charlie Rose. I asked who the dude with the long hair was, and my teacher responded by lending me the aforementioned anthology. I just finished my junior year, and no one else at my school has heard of either DFW of Infinite Jest. So are any fellow high-schoolers reading this too, or is everyone here grad-school+?

ABRIDGED: I'm 16. How old are you guys? (out of curiousity and a desire to see who I'll be discussing Infinite Jest with)

I am 25. I was 21/22 when I first read Infinite Jest but I've been reading DFW since high school.

16 and reading IJ. Good for you.

I am 39.

I'm just like you, 16 and just done with junior year. I signed on for an independent study with this brilliant teacher at my school next year, I'm reading this and The Idiot to compare Wallace & Dostoevsky. Right now I'm scared shitless, but steadily getting over it. 200 pages into the book and loving it. I think I get what you're saying, this semi-fear that we're maybe too young to be delving into this stuff but I think Wallace is precisely the person to read here. It's like he's willing to take care of you, take you under his wing. He's very very unpretentious in this otherwise frighteningly pretentious literary world. Well, anyway, I'll stop rambling. Nice to meet you, looking forward to discussing the book!

By the way, if anybody's interested with the Dostoevsky thing, I'm more than happy to share. Matter of fact Wallace has a lot to do with the Russian and is maybe even in a way the next Dostoevsky. I don't know. Maybe. Anyway I found this one article ("The Brothers Incandenza", not online, but I can email if you're interested) which is more than enlightening on the subject. Highly recommended if this stuff floats your boat, as it does mine.

Alright, I'm out.

I'm almost 30.... but I teach high school! I can't imagine any of my students reading IJ. My hat's off to all of you!

46 (someone please top me!) - I was born in the same year as DFW. Since GWCH, I have read his works as they were published.

No problem, denisess! 49, here, will turn the big five-O at the end of this project. I got introduced to DFW a few years ago. I was mostly a nonfiction reader prior to that. I find myself identifying with the deeper themes in his writing about slowing down, being kinder to ourselves and to others, especially at this time of my life. I'm sick of the rat race we live in today, with everyone so self-absorbed in getting ahead, making more money and buying more "things". We need to focus on the here and now, as he states so well in "This is Water".
I think we'll all feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of this. One of the wonderful things about the internet is it brings people together with common interests, despite disparate ages and distance. I'm very glad to be sharing this book with all of you.

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"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you." DFW

20 years old, and this is my first read-through of Infinite Jest. Props to all - you're never too young or too old for it... and a wide range of reader ages will make for some very nice discussion on these boards! Different stages of life, different levels of experience...

25 here i snickered a bit in the introduction when it mentioned being 25 and reading IJ.

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:: still living cyberpunk in the post-apocalypse

I'm 51, but this is the first time I've read any DFW.

I majored in English Lit., but that was a long time ago.

Impressive how young some of the people reading this book are! IJ reminds me of my first encounter with _Catch 22_. Wonderfully absurd!