Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace discussion

Following Moira's excellent suggestion, this is a thread to post online or print resources on DFW and/or IJ.

At Kris's request, here is a (v slightly modified) version of the comment here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9...


Some nice online resources (this is in no way definitive, there is a LOT out there - just stuff I like):

http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/ The one-stop "everything DFW" site. Lots of great essays, uncollected DFW, the latest news.

http://infinitesummer.org/archives/215 A v good how-to guide from the Infinite Summer group.

http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/... For people who've read it before: how to read it in chronological order.

http://kottke.org/09/07/how-to-read-i... This isn't as good a guide to how-to IJ but it has one piece of invaluable advice....

....you should use the three bookmark method. One bookmark for where you are in the main text, another for your current footnote location, and a third for page 223, which lists the years covered by the novel in chonological order, from the Year of the Whopper (which corresponds to 2002) to the Year of Glad (2010).

Yes. USE A BOOKMARK. USE SEVERAL BOOKMARKS. One guy came up with a super-neat bookmark that lets you track your place in both the text and the footnotes. http://infinitesummer.org/forums/view... Someone else came up with a bookmark that doubles as a list of 'chapter thumbnails.' http://russillosm.com/ij.html You can make your own bookmark. You will really need one. (I think my first time through, I didn't use anything fancy, just a double-folded piece of typing paper).

http://russillosm.com/ijndx.html There is also an index. Yes, you will want to use this.

http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/d... The wiki. Yes, there is a wiki. Do not try to read through it all at once, it will explode your brain. But it's helpful to have if you just can't find one specific detail. There's a spoiler-free way to look at it, too. It also has word definitions, a character diagram, page-by-page annotations, and other neat stuff.

http://ask.metafilter.com/133828/How-... Some pretty good suggestions.

Moira wrote: "At Kris's request, here is a (v slightly modified) version of the comment here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9...


Some nice online resources..."

Thanks Moira!!

Bird Brian wrote: "I have this book. I haven't read that much of it, so I can't attest to its quality, but what I know of it seems pretty good.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16..."

Thanks Brian! I have a copy of it waiting here as well. I haven't started it yet, but I''ve heard good things about it.

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Infinite Boston has recently been posting an excellent photo essay of the locations where IJ was shot:

http://www.infiniteboston.com/


Re-readers may be interested in comparing the first draft of..."

Thanks so much Nathan - great links.

Happy to join you.

Here's a little something from my favorite public radio station:

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/david-foster-...

Christine wrote: "Happy to join you.

Here's a little something from my favorite public radio station:

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/david-foster-..."

Thanks Christine! It's great to have you with us!

People have probably already seen this: the huge diagram of characters and their connections in IJ http://sampottsinc.com/ij/ I want this poster.

Speaking of awesome posters, check this out:

http://www.flavorwire.com/184754/a-vi...

I printed the one of subsidized time on photo paper and it looks great.


This soundtrack is kinda cool too.

http://www.flavorwire.com/171793/lite...

Oh, very cool! You could put that in the soundtrack post....

Some more online resources:

The New York roundtable on Lipsky's DFW book-length interview: http://nymag.com/arts/books/bookclub/... Features D.T. Max, whose DFW biography is coming out really soon. Lipsky interviewed DFW "in 1996, at the very end of his Infinite Jest book tour," so they talk a lot about Infinite Jest, not just Lipsky. (I read the Lipsky book. I don't really recommend it.) No real spoilers for IJ, I don't think.

This is the sorta infamous New Yorker article Franzen wrote ostensibly about birdwatching and Crusoe or whatever but he lets fly some thoughts about DFW as well. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/20... WARNING, he seriously doesn't understand how depression works and gets into some nasty blame stuff. But it's interesting all the same because I think it does touch some on the central preoccupations of IJ - whether transcendence of the self is possible, what happens when your consciousness becomes a prison, "the conflict between the selfless self and the selfish self" as someone in the roundtable linked above puts it.

Moira wrote: "Oh, very cool! You could put that in the soundtrack post...."

I love this group already. A music page! Brilliant! Hat tip to Ian G.

Thanks Christine and Moira for more great resources! Yes, I thought the music thread was an inspired addition, so I will now add one to any group I moderate. That flavorwire playlist is very creative and eclectic. I'm interested to see what our group members come up with once we get going.

Kris wrote: "I'm interested to see what our group members come up with once we get going."

I vote any DFW playlist ever must have "Ironic" on it, in dual honour of DFW's twin obsessions with Alanis and painful sincerity (his "inner sap").

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jne9t8...#

If people use Spotify, you could create a collaborative playlist of IJ songs. Or I could create it and just provide the link to it if people want me to.

Jason wrote: "Or I could create it and just provide the link to it if people want me to."

OMG do it! Yes! (Heh, I mean, uh, if Kris approves....)

Jason wrote: "If people use Spotify, you could create a collaborative playlist of IJ songs. Or I could create it and just provide the link to it if people want me to."

I think that's a great idea - I am a user too. Perhaps we should post something on the music thread to check about whether we have other users around?

All right. I'll provide the link and then maybe Kris can just ammend "message 1" (in the music thread) with the link so others can subscribe & contribute to it.

Perfect - will do!

Here is the link in its entirety:
http://open.spotify.com/user/ancatdubh2/playlist/6oKZOglo7cRvJSKxRPrIPG

Jason wrote: "Here is the link in its entirety:
http://open.spotify.com/user/ancatdub..."

.....//tries to find login

Jason wrote: "Here is the link in its entirety:
http://open.spotify.com/user/ancatdub..."

Great - link posted!

Moira wrote: "Jason wrote: "Or I could create it and just provide the link to it if people want me to."

OMG do it! Yes! (Heh, I mean, uh, if Kris approves....)"

If I ever get that autocratic, please call me on it! Stage a coup.

Kris wrote: "If I ever get that autocratic, please call me on it! Stage a coup."

HAH! We could be like the freaky legless Quebecois terrorists (about whom I never managed to read more than a page before flipping on. I'm really going to try to do better this time).

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Infinite Boston has recently been posting an excellent photo essay of the locations where IJ was shot"

Ohh damn, these are cool.

I'm late chiming in here, but I want to emphasize how good a few of the sites Moira mentioned are.

http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/d...

has a very complete page-by-page set of definitions and references that help a lot. Plus, the Infinite Summer site is exceptionally good. Between those and the discussions that are sure to come from this group, we'll have more than enough perspective.

Steve wrote: "I'm late chiming in here, but I want to emphasize how good a few of the sites Moira mentioned are.

http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/d...

has a very co..."

Thanks Steve (and Moira)! And given the fact that we are months away from the start date, I actually think you're early! :)

Infinite Summer is AMAZING - and especially some of the blogs linked to it, like Infinite Detox. I just about cried when I found out about it, because it had like just finished.

Okay, so apparently I am being overambitious to think I could read this in a month? I read about a book a week, so isn't this like a quadroupley sized book? No? I am underestimating? Is anyone going to read Hamlet?

Jason wrote: "Okay, so apparently I am being overambitious to think I could read this in a month? I read about a book a week, so isn't this like a quadroupley sized book? No? I am underestimating? Is anyone goin..."

From what I have seen, a lot depends on how many other books you may be reading at the same time, as well as your reading speed. I think that 3 months was a ballpark estimate - some could finish more quickly, and some will need more time. From what I understand, some of the most difficult parts of the book come in the first 200 pages re. juggling a lot of different names, plot lines, etc. I think if we can get nicely past that point by the start of January, it will be easier to manage the rest of the book even when starting Proust.

Of course, I haven't read it yet, so I'm probably the last person to be saying anything about this. IJ veterans, please correct me!!

The Infinite Summer guide says

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.

For me the book starts to get amazing in patches around p 300 or 330, and really takes off on about page 340 (Boston AA). I did not give even the tiniest dried mouse turd about all the terrorist stuff so those pages were a total SLOG. But yeah, on page maybe 700? 750? or even earlier, there starts to be this amazing momentum. Which is partly the result of all the tough reading earlier.

I'd say six weeks is a pretty good ballpark, yeah. Maybe two months. Three months seems a little long, unless you're also reading other stuff. When I was first reading it, I didn't read anything else.

Jason wrote: "I read about a book a week, so isn't this like a quadroupley sized book? No?"

Aaaaaaahahaha, no. Trust me. No.

Thanks so much, Nathan, Brian and Moira - your comments are very helpful. We may end up developing a schedule around 2 months, with the understanding that people can always read more quickly - if so, nothing will stop them from posting on the relevant thread.

Ali wrote: "Two months sounds good. The other group I'm reading IJ for soon is giving us exactly that long. The moderator(s?) also keep all threads for any books they read open indefinitely, and the official r..."

I think this approach is perfect. I like the idea of members posting when they want - and that the schedule is more a suggested approach and a way to organize the threads than something set in stone. With this many group members, it would be impossible to come up with a lockstep schedule that suits everyone - and I think insights and ideas never keep to a schedule, or to a linear framework for that matter.

Ali wrote: "The moderator(s?) also keep all threads for any books they read open indefinitely, and the official rule over there is that if for any reason you read or want to discuss the book past the finish date, no matter how long it has been since the group finished with it (I saw someone posting about Ulysses a few months after they finished it), they have no problem talking with you about the book if you post something to the relevant thread. "

I really like that approach too - I think it's the way the Anna Karenina group I was in a while back worked, and it's a great way to keep people who are either ahead or behind from feeling left out. I think it's neat when people revisit threads later, too.

Moira wrote: "People have probably already seen this: the huge diagram of characters and their connections in IJ http://sampottsinc.com/ij/ I want this poster."
I did too... Prints out too small to read, and tried printing it out in quarters, but couldn't get the thing to line up right.