Saturday, June 13, 2009

The Jest's On Me

I'm not sure what I've gotten myself into. Urged on by verbatim, I've agreed to participate in the Infinite Summer. Between June 21 and September 22, I will read Infinite Jest. 981 pages in 92 days means I have to read about 10.5 pages a day. No problem, I hope.

I had never read anything by David Foster Wallace before. After reading about the challenge, I requested A supposedly fun thing i'll never do again from the library. The book has 7 essays and so far I'm impressed with Wallace's writing. I love words and he puts them together well, drawing great pictures.

Most people in Philo didn't comb their hari because why bother. Ladies wore those plastic flags tied down over their parlor-jobs so regularly I thought they were required for a real classy coiffure; girls on the East Coast outside with their hair hanging and tossing around looked wanton and nude to me.

The people I know from outside it distill the Midwest into blank flatness, black land and fields of green fronds or five-o'clock stubble, gentle swells and declivities that make the topology a sadistic exercise in plotting quadratics, highway vistas so same and dead they drive motorists mad.


ASFTINDA is all non fiction and IJ is fiction so I'll be hoping Wallace is as good at plot as he is with words. I requested the book from the library but they will only let me renew it twice - 63 days. I suppose if I can't finish it by the time I have to return it, I can just pay the fines. Or buy it. I don't typically buy books anymore unless I think I'll read them again so we'll see.

2 comments:

JohnnyB said...

Again, I am inspired by my sister and have gone off on a tangent about your post.

word verification:
"thiezess" - opposite of thiozess
or
the wife of the royal Thiez

Jenny said...

Phew. I got guilted in to reading the Alchemist and I was afraid it'd be HUGE (I'm already in the middle of reading other things). However, it's tiny (167 pages) and a breeze to read.