Comments on: INFINITE JEST Readalong Week 1

By: Steve McPherson

Steve McPherson — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 04:32:35 +0000

I mean, it’s not like Eggers is an exemplar of knowing what needs to be cut, but I get what he’s saying from the perspective that it needs a certain sprawl to be IJ. Is a 750-page IJ necessarily a better one? From the perspective of someone who likes to get immersed in it, not necessarily.

Although there is one exception to this that I can bring up next week.

By: girldetective

girldetective — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 01:12:37 +0000

I’m not sure I can agree with Dave Eggers’ assertion in the intro that there’s not one word that could be cut, but I agree and can see on this, my second read, that it is focused, though it seems to sprawl. I love the multitude of mysteries–why is Hal mute and weird? Why was he digging up his head? What’s the deal with the years? And why on earth that Wardine section that is so different from all the rest?

I too love his language. It’s poetic, it’s fun, it’s funny. I also think, as with most other writers like shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, (and perhaps Joyce’s Ulysses) that I develop a facility with practice.

By: Steven McPherson

Steven McPherson — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 00:13:22 +0000

Oh and one other thing: It’s much clearer to me now that for all its sprawl, this is a book that has most definitely been edited. I can’t remember exact numbers but I feel like the manuscript he initially submitted was maybe twice this long? A lot of that ended up in endnotes, but I know a lot got cut and it’s very clear when it’s placed next to books like The Instructions by Adam Levin, which starts with a ton of energy and then flags hugely. Apparently, Levin sent it in expecting the chopping block but then they mostly left it. Kind of a comment on modern editing, too, I think.

But like in IJ there is a pull that carries you through it, beginning with the mystery of Hal in the waiting room and then leading into the mystery of what is happening with the medical attachÃ©. For all its digressions into stasis and inaction and stuff in characters’ heads — I’m thinking of the chapter that ends with Erdedy frozen deciding between door buzzer and phone — the book does actually have a plot. Without that, I think it would fall on its face.

By: Steven McPherson

Steven McPherson — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 23:50:11 +0000

Re-reading this book for (I believe) the sixth time now, I’m struck all over again by how easy I find Wallace’s language, in spite of how difficult many people find reading this book. I say this not to brag, but just to observe that for whatever reason I just line up with the way he uses language. I think, as some people have opined with other large, dense works like Ulysses, that the best way to read it (especially the first time through) is to dissect it carefully. In many ways, I think it’s best if you just let yourself be carried along by it.

After all — and this is something that’s striking me newly — this is essentially science fiction in many ways, which is kind of cool to realize. A lot of the involuted history and techspeak is more window-dressing and world-building than anything else. This observation, though, did make me wonder: WHY is it science fiction? I guess the most obvious answer is that Wallace is primarily interested in entertainment and addiction here, and wanted to push the narrative out far enough that those two things became more and more tightly linked.

FWIW, the endnotes are a lot easier in the iBooks version, where you can just bop back and forth with a click. This now means I own three different editions of this book. I have a Wallace problem.

By: Beth

Beth — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 20:46:49 +0000

Thanks for this very informative post and the post outlining character descriptions for each chapter!

DFW is definitely another author with a commanding handle on language, and that’s all I could focus on in this chapter. Still not a fan of endnotes, though (make them footnotes in the next edition, please, publishers)!

Here are some of my favorites:

A summary of an everyday act: “I compose what I project will be seen as a smile.” (5)

A case of repetition and rhyme: “I presume it’s probably facilitate that the tennis coach mistook for account, though accelerate, while clunkier than facilitate, is from a phonetic perspective more sensible, as a mistake.” (6)

An astute observation: “Money created a sense of obligation.” (18)

Another astute observation: “the deprived panic over missing something made no sense.” (26)

An intriguing thought: “people are virtually unlimited in their need to give themselves away.” (53)

This “gentle fiction.” (endnote #10)

And of course, a comedic winner: “He took zero in the way of shit.” (55)

By: V

Wed, 24 Jun 2015 05:15:53 +0000

Some of us still keep those usage points. For a living. Here’s how I remember it: Nauseous is to nauseated as poisonous is to poisoned.