Monday, August 3, 2009
And so but then
That rusty, scraping, nails-on-chalkboard sound you hear is the sound of my creative wheels attempting to unfreeze... A substantial amount of lubrication may be required to get this, me, this in motion.
I joined a group of people this summer who are making the daunting attempt to read the massive David Foster Wallace tome "Infintie Jest." I bought a Kindle for the occasion and I have to confess: without it, I seriously doubt I would have gotten past the first chapter - again. You see - this is my second try.
I bought thedoor stop book shortly after it's initial publication because a friend was reading it. At over a thousand pages, it's size wasn't intimidating; I rather like meaty literature. It was Wallace's opening serve 1 that caused me to put it down without attempting a return volley. Whut. The. Fuck.
A few months ago some of my internet friends were tossing around the idea of reading the book together. Not together together like reading in sync together - but at the same time, book-clubish 2 together. It didn't come to be until this summer when some good and brave folks out there decided to launch the Infinite Summer project. A few of us signed up, a forum for discussion was created and then...
Well, amongst each other, there hasn't been much discussion. At least none that I've been party to. Which is okay, really, because more intimidating than reading the book is the idea of trying to Discuss It.
I'm just a speck of an insect floating on the top of the vast sea that is this book - not even my Kindle can define of most of the gold-plated words Wallace pulls out of his lexicon and his intellect is leaving vapor trails it's so far over my head, for chrissakes.
But I am soldiering on. I've relied on our guides over at Infinite Summer to get my head under the surface. Thanks to them I've bruised my forehead with many a V-8 moment which has gotten me to the next chapter, and the next and the next.
I was also greatly relieved to be given permission to hate the novel - which I do, in part. 3 I've developed a dysfunctional relationship with the book. Apropos, I think, because the book is rife with and thrives on dysfunction. So I'm fully expecting to be thoroughly screwed over by the time I reach the end. But, as with any doomed relationship, I'll lick my wounds and do my best to take the lessons learned on to the next literary affair.
I will say this - it is absolutely true that DFW makes you work - and work hard. IJ is not for the feint of heart or those looking for a breezy summer read. He has reminded me why I fell in love with books so long ago. The opportunity to visit the world of another's creation - and especially one of an author like Wallace who is infinitely uncompromising 4 in his depiction of that world - is an opportunity to deepen my relationship to and understanding of my own world.
And in this new era of 140 character weedy snippets threatening to choke our already shortened attention span, IJ is a welcome return to whole days spent reading, exercising nearly atrophied brain-cells and going on an adventure with a great mind and talent. How sad, indeed, that this one is tragically gone from us forever.
If you love literature and haven't done so already, you owe it to yourself to settle in with the IJ experience. Truly.
1 IJ readers will have to forgive the bad IJ metaphor, I just had to. But I promise it'll stop there. I won't abandon punctuation or burden you with sentences that run on for a mile or two up and around behind and through the subject then so come back around and finally exhaustively come to the point dammit. [back to post]
2 I'm compelled to mention Oprah in the same breath as "book club" - kinda Pavlovian and sad in a way. These days an Oprah Book Club nominee is the kiss of death for any book that wants to land on my bookshelf. Or, now, in my Kindle. I'm sorry if that hurts Oprah's feelings. It is what it is. [back to post]
3 Like the footnotes a - this is why the Kindle is essential to reading this book in particular. The footnote is a click away as opposed to flipping ten pounds of pages back and forth. [back to post]
4 Except w/r/t things like w/r/t. He takes shortcuts with trivial references, transitions, impatient to get to the next serve of a capacious word he cannon-balls right to the base line. b [back to post]
a And subfootnotes. [back to footnote]
b Well, as you no doubt have noted, I lied. I snuck in one more IJ metaphor. [back to footnote]
I joined a group of people this summer who are making the daunting attempt to read the massive David Foster Wallace tome "Infintie Jest." I bought a Kindle for the occasion and I have to confess: without it, I seriously doubt I would have gotten past the first chapter - again. You see - this is my second try.
I bought the
A few months ago some of my internet friends were tossing around the idea of reading the book together. Not together together like reading in sync together - but at the same time, book-clubish 2 together. It didn't come to be until this summer when some good and brave folks out there decided to launch the Infinite Summer project. A few of us signed up, a forum for discussion was created and then...
Well, amongst each other, there hasn't been much discussion. At least none that I've been party to. Which is okay, really, because more intimidating than reading the book is the idea of trying to Discuss It.
I'm just a speck of an insect floating on the top of the vast sea that is this book - not even my Kindle can define of most of the gold-plated words Wallace pulls out of his lexicon and his intellect is leaving vapor trails it's so far over my head, for chrissakes.
But I am soldiering on. I've relied on our guides over at Infinite Summer to get my head under the surface. Thanks to them I've bruised my forehead with many a V-8 moment which has gotten me to the next chapter, and the next and the next.
I was also greatly relieved to be given permission to hate the novel - which I do, in part. 3 I've developed a dysfunctional relationship with the book. Apropos, I think, because the book is rife with and thrives on dysfunction. So I'm fully expecting to be thoroughly screwed over by the time I reach the end. But, as with any doomed relationship, I'll lick my wounds and do my best to take the lessons learned on to the next literary affair.
I will say this - it is absolutely true that DFW makes you work - and work hard. IJ is not for the feint of heart or those looking for a breezy summer read. He has reminded me why I fell in love with books so long ago. The opportunity to visit the world of another's creation - and especially one of an author like Wallace who is infinitely uncompromising 4 in his depiction of that world - is an opportunity to deepen my relationship to and understanding of my own world.
And in this new era of 140 character weedy snippets threatening to choke our already shortened attention span, IJ is a welcome return to whole days spent reading, exercising nearly atrophied brain-cells and going on an adventure with a great mind and talent. How sad, indeed, that this one is tragically gone from us forever.
If you love literature and haven't done so already, you owe it to yourself to settle in with the IJ experience. Truly.
1 IJ readers will have to forgive the bad IJ metaphor, I just had to. But I promise it'll stop there. I won't abandon punctuation or burden you with sentences that run on for a mile or two up and around behind and through the subject then so come back around and finally exhaustively come to the point dammit. [back to post]
2 I'm compelled to mention Oprah in the same breath as "book club" - kinda Pavlovian and sad in a way. These days an Oprah Book Club nominee is the kiss of death for any book that wants to land on my bookshelf. Or, now, in my Kindle. I'm sorry if that hurts Oprah's feelings. It is what it is. [back to post]
3 Like the footnotes a - this is why the Kindle is essential to reading this book in particular. The footnote is a click away as opposed to flipping ten pounds of pages back and forth. [back to post]
4 Except w/r/t things like w/r/t. He takes shortcuts with trivial references, transitions, impatient to get to the next serve of a capacious word he cannon-balls right to the base line. b [back to post]
a And subfootnotes. [back to footnote]
b Well, as you no doubt have noted, I lied. I snuck in one more IJ metaphor. [back to footnote]
Labels: Books
Posted at 9:02 PM | |
