Infinite Summer, week 1

I’m the potentially gifted ten-year-old tennis and lexical prodigy whose mom’s a continental mover and shaker in the prescriptive-grammar academic world and whose dad’s a towering figure in optical and avant-garde film circles and single-handedly founded the Enfield Tennis Academy but drinks Wild Turkey at like 5:00 a.m. and pitches over sideways during dawn drills, on the courts, some days, and some days presents with delusions about people’s mouths moving but nothing coming out. (p. 30, Infinite Jest)

I’ve made it to page 63, the first goal for Infinite Summer, and I hope to go all the way. Infinite Jest is challenging, funny, and too heavy to cart around with me, so I may have to get a supplemental book to read when I’m on the go. I was please but unsurprised to find the word “nauseous” used correctly. I’m keeping a list of characters, of year names, and of words to look up. This week, it was “apocope” and “fantods.” Neither, of course, was included in my MMPB dictionary.

Apocope: the loss of one or more sounds from the end of a word, and especially the loss of an unstressed vowel.

Fantods: A state of extreme nervousness or restlessness.

5 Responses to “Infinite Summer, week 1”

  1. Blogenheimer Says:

    Does that mean you’ve read the filmography footnote?

  2. girldetective Says:

    It’s the very next one, and I’m kind of dreading it. Later: just finished it. Leave it to DFW to have a dense, multi-page end note chock full of what I’m sure will be important info, plus little bits of irony and humor sprinkled throughout, like a film version of the conversationalist chapter, or how many of the films center on love triangles and unfaithful wives. Reading endnotes with kids around takes the challenge of reading IJ to a whole new level.

  3. Steph Says:

    If I didn’t already have tons on my plate (reading and otherwise), I think I’d have loved to have taken part in this read-along. But I’m also leery of buying IJ on the chance I wasn’t able to keep up with it, and then would have it sitting there mocking me for years to come. And with a book this size (and the allotted pace) it doesn’t seem like this is going to be conducive to a library loan either!

  4. girldetective Says:

    We had our ten year old edition, and then my husband found one used, so we have his n hers, now!

  5. Jennifer Says:

    I made it to page 63 last Friday, then went on hiatus to finish my book group book. I have a feeling that it may be difficult to get back into it, but I’m enjoying it and want to get to page 200, at least. I’m tickled that some footnotes have footnotes.