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Matthew Ted's Reviews > Infinite Jest
Infinite Jest
by
by
Matthew Ted's review
bookshelves: 20th-century, 1001-list-2006-ed, lit-american, read-2021
May 02, 2021
bookshelves: 20th-century, 1001-list-2006-ed, lit-american, read-2021
41st book of 2021.
My father’s been constantly asking me: Why would you want to read that? as I’ve been reading Infinite Jest. The usual baulking at its complexity, its endnotes, its length, its countless characters and whatever else it’s infamous for. I haven’t really given him a reason. Though, I have been calling him Mad Stork [1] as the Inc. boys call their father. I excitably told them both today I would finally be finishing the novel and they said nothing about that. Moms was more annoyed that Annoying Stork had bought a loaf of bread for £3, considering how small the loaf was [2].
Finishing it has left me feeling wiped-out/brain-mushed. I can’t/won’t spoil anything about it, only that the novel is, of course, very complex and requires concentration in abundance, particularly at the end. There’s a joke I’ve seen a few times (not a very good one[3]) about readers: A reader is only taken seriously when they’ve read Ulysses, Gravity’s Rainbow and Infinite Jest. Take that however you want, even as a pseudo-intellectual’s joke which it probably is, dug up from the depths of the pseudo-intellectual internet. But the joke does outline the general idea about this novel, that really, its own infamous reputation proceeds it. That this novel is very long and complex and no one has enough time in their life to read it. This novel is only about 1000 pages long but with the endnotes too, it does feel about 2000 pages long. It took me longer to read this than it took me to read Finnegans Wake, let’s put it that way [4].
The book must be read w/ three bookmarks. The first bookmark must go on a certain page around the 200-page mark [5] where Wallace sets out the chronological “years” in the novel; the second must go where you are in the novel [6]; the last must go at the point you are in the endnotes [7], of which there are nearly 400 entries [8]. It is a book centred around tennis and entertainment and drug-use and depression and loneliness. And, because it is a novel of this size, there are innumerable other things that come into it. Among them, a weird obsessiveness about dental hygiene. Interestingly, I read (before starting IJ) that Wallace was obsessive about his own teeth [9] (apparently he used to carry a toothbrush in his sock).
I would suggest liking tennis somewhat [10] for the pages and pages of tennis descriptions, but that being said, one isn’t necessarily interested in everything they read, it is the author’s job to make it interesting. There is a lot of tennis, a lot of drugs and a lot about fictional avant-garde movies [11]. Also a lot of suicide, violence, paranoia [12], rape, sex, etc.
These are the stages of the book’s progress: Until about page 200, I did not understand much (as in, why I was reading it, rather than the content itself) and considered giving-up frequently. Around the 200-page mark, Wallace gives a giant section of beautiful and profound little sentences [13]; these are wonderful. Then, till about page 400, I continued flirting between enjoying myself and wanting to give up, back-and-forth, back-and-forth. And then, from 400-700, I began enjoying myself and feeling a certain and deep affinity and sadness about the novel, which I hadn’t felt before. Then last few hundred pages become quite dense, block paragraphs for pages, semi-stream-of-consciousness [14], but once one finds a rhythm with it (like anything) they are enjoyable, and have some great lines still. Overall it is a long (very long) rewarding and multifaceted read. Sometimes it feels almost-more-than-Pollockian [15].
Wallace adopts the ultimate postmodern pendulum that swings between high-brow and low-brow. The prose itself is colloquial. He uses w/ and w/o often, uses like in like a conversational way, and like frequent swearing. All of them, from crap to cunt. If not for the acronyms which clog most pages in a Pynchonian way, Wallace’s love of big and unknown words from the very bottom of the dictionary [16], or even just words he has invented himself in true Joycean (in turn Kerouacian) manner, or the many, many, immeasurable number of characters (again in Pynchonian fashion [17]), it wouldn’t be like that hard to read w/ his colloquial language. You may even think to yourself at times, Shit, who said this was hard to read? [18] It never lasts too long though. After all Infinite Jest is infamously hard to read but famously funny. It is funny, in a way; I never laughed aloud [19] but I think it does have quite a good sense of humour. It also has a poor one. I’m not going to pretend DFW was a morally brilliant man (it doesn’t take many Google searches to discover that) and this novel is often regarded as being homophobic/racist/sexist/etc. Anyone who crosses their legs in the novel is referred to as faggy, Lenz, for example, presents many racist thoughts towards all sort of people, particularly old Chinese ladies. There’s a lot of sexism too. Some bits are almost physically hard to read, rape/child abuse/the works [20].
I distrust postmodernism [21] on the whole, but also find myself addicted to reading postmodern novels. The fact we are now in so called “post-postmodernism” [22] makes me more cynical than postmodernism ever did. Postmodernism can be brilliant but it can also be horrible. Infinite Jest is known as an encyclopaedic novel. I think why is fairly obvious by now. It’s set in the “near” future, no, the “not-so-distant” future. I think its vagueness works well, not pinning it down to a specific date coming up in our own futures [23]. America and Canada are a superstate. There’s quite a lot of political stuff going on in the novel, not all of it I understand. Same w/ the calculus, like in the Eschaton scene. As with any mammoth book like this, going in with the expectation of understanding absolutely everything is delusional and somewhat arrogant; this requires multiple readings. The amount of different threads are hard to keep track of, but that’s not necessarily anything new with a novel of this size. Despite the number of characters, there are really only two settings in the novel: Ennet House, a Boston house for recovering addicts and the Enfield Tennis Academy, down the road. He almost makes it simple.
It's one to be reread, without a doubt. My plan is to read Ulysses again at some point, and then next year, maybe two years, I’ll read this again. Of course, there are things that one cannot understand in one reading, many things in the beginning are answers to things at the end. There’s plenty of interviews out there with Wallace [24], one can find him talking about the book, its structure and all that. Is it a brilliant book? Yeah, I think it is. I don’t think it’s perfect. It’s Sternean structure is brain-melting at times, and when you’re in the wrong mood, this can be horrible. Wallace says in one of his interviews that people don’t sit and read anymore, that people are afraid of the quiet—there’s some great quote somewhere about silence in a Huxley novel [25]—and I think it’s even more apt than it was when Wallace said it. It’s a novel that requires a lot of work and time and quiet. It’s fascinating that it’s known as being a very funny novel and a very sad novel and that’s just because of that giant heavy pendulum swinging, taking you off-guard every page, from awful rape to people getting their foreheads stuck to windows. I wish I could fill this review with quotes and describe some of the craziest scenes but it wouldn’t be worth it. A great novel, without a doubt, constructed by a genius. Not a perfect man, no, but as Rochefoucald said, “None but great men are capable of having great flaws.” Nor should DFW's life distract from this literary doorstop, which, at the end of the day, teaches us about being alone, about being afraid, turning to drugs, and all the while attempts to make us smile with one half of our face and cry with the other.
L I F E--I S--L I K E--T E N N I S
T H O S E--W H O--S E R V E
B E S T--U S U A L L Y--W I N
[26]
___________________________________
[1] I reported this to my mother and she said more like Annoying Stork, as a name for my father. I told her that the Inc. boys call their mother Moms and she had nothing to say about that, neither for nor against.
[2] “£3 for this, Matty! What a waste of money! There’s nothing to it. £3.”
“I thought the same. When I saw it in the cupboard yesterday I wondered why it was so flat, it’s like those flat fish, what are they called?”
“Flat fish.”
“Oh, right.”
[3] Vonnegut once said in a Paris Review interview that him and his sister decided the funniest two jokes in the world.
The first one is this:
“Two Black Crows joke. The Two Black Crows were white guys in blackface—named Moran and Mack. They made phonograph records of their routines, two supposedly black guys talking lazily to each other. Anyway, one of them says, “Last night I dreamed I was eating flannel cakes.” The other one says, “It that so?” And the first one says, “And when I woke up, the blanket was gone.”
The second one is this:
“Do you know why cream is so much more expensive than milk?”
“No.”
“Because the cows hate to squat on those little bottles.”
These aren’t funny either.
[4] I had some semi-grand idea that would involve me comparing IJ to Ulysses and Finnegans Wake and other big tomes but really I don’t think they are comparable [a], and I can’t be bothered to try anyway.
[a] This is a cheap answer, probably.
[5] In my edition it is page 223.
[6] You can’t pin this down because it inevitably moves as you read the book, unless you don’t read the book, in which case, if you forget about the bookmark or decide to leave it there, it will stay in the same place for a great duration of time, but probably not forever and ever as it’ll fall out or maybe decompose or something.
[7] This also moves as you read the book, though slower than your place in the novel. Likewise, if you stop reading the book and leave the bookmark somewhere, it will stay there almost indefinitely. Almost. Eventually it’ll fall out or maybe decompose or something as well.
[8] Let’s be specific: there are 388 endnotes.
[9] Interestingly, teeth problems/fears are common in great writers. From the top of my head, Martin Amis, Vladimir Nabokov and James Joyce all had problems with their teeth. I only know this because I’m ironically quite obsessive about my own dental hygiene too. I worry that my teeth are always in perpetual danger of crumbling, falling out whole, exploding, anything. My parents mock my semi-routine checks of them.
[10] I was never exceptional [a] but my brother and I grew up having private tennis lessons with a small man named O. O’Shea; naturally, we often chanted things like O’Shea Ricochet. He eventually emigrated to Australia and we didn’t bother finding another instructor, so our tennis careers ended there [b]. Though, I must say, reading this has piqued my interest again in the subject and I have asked Annoying Stork if we can go and play at some point soon. In the novel somewhere tennis is described as moving chess. I like that.
[a] I had a mean backhand but I was a poor server.
[b] I’ve played since, infrequently, and can confirm that O’Shea would be horrified.
[11] One exceptionally long endnote details every single short film made by J. Incandenza. Near the end one realises why we’ve read them all. I’m not a big movie fan, or TV fan in general, but one of my favourite professors did try to get me into art-cinema. He suggested a load of movies, Ivan’s Childhood, M, etc.
[12] Pynchonian paranoia, one could argue, but instead of this—
—it’s people in wheelchairs.
[13] Famously: That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realise how seldom they do. Among others, That the cliche 'I don't know who I am' unfortunately turns out to be more than a cliché, or, That everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else, or, again, That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak, or, finally, That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable. They sting a bit.
[14] Almost Mollybloomian.
[15] Reading it is nice and all but your brain is sort of going like this too:
[16] This is a metaphor. A dictionary does not have a bottom. You could argue which part of a dictionary, as an object, is the bottom, but the actual contents of the dictionary has no perceivable bottom. I mean the deepest caves of the dictionary.
[17] After all my copy of Consider the Lobster claims on the front cover, “The heir apparent to Thomas Pynchon”. Not to be confused with “The apparent heir of Thomas Pynchon”, which would be less declarative in its claim. And you’d ask, apparent? Who said? They said. Who is they??
[18] This is à la DFW. I can’t know for sure if you swear in your own head. Or even think in English in your own head.
[19] My friends claim I never laugh. They say, “Handel, you never laugh! You never find anything funny.” I was friends with M for six-or-so years before he saw me laugh for the first time, apparently, by his own definition of laughing.
[20] If you’ve read Ellis’ American Psycho then it’s almost nothing you haven’t seen before. The problem with it in IJ is how sincere it is. Ellis’ is so over-the-top that it’s almost numbing to read. This isn’t.
[21] I also distrust people who shower with the bathroom door wide open, people who put the milk in before the teabag, people who “don’t like The Beatles”, etc.
On some days: (modernism > postmodernism)
On other days: (postmodernism > modernism)
[22] Or even metamodernism, which at least sounds better. Right?
[23] DFW does essentially predict some things though in true dystopian Orwellian/Huxleyan fashion though. At one point he pretty much predicts Zoom/Skype, in a sense, and other things like Instagram, as people can put filters on their faces, change the way they look and edit themselves through an online communication platform.
[24] Silverblatt’s is probably the best, of course.
[25] Antic Hay, his second novel. And the jazz bands, the music hall songs, the boys shouting the news. What’s it all for? To put an end to the quiet, to break it up and disperse it, to pretend at any cost it isn’t there…
[26] I better get my serve a lot better then. Thanks, Wallace.
My father’s been constantly asking me: Why would you want to read that? as I’ve been reading Infinite Jest. The usual baulking at its complexity, its endnotes, its length, its countless characters and whatever else it’s infamous for. I haven’t really given him a reason. Though, I have been calling him Mad Stork [1] as the Inc. boys call their father. I excitably told them both today I would finally be finishing the novel and they said nothing about that. Moms was more annoyed that Annoying Stork had bought a loaf of bread for £3, considering how small the loaf was [2].
Finishing it has left me feeling wiped-out/brain-mushed. I can’t/won’t spoil anything about it, only that the novel is, of course, very complex and requires concentration in abundance, particularly at the end. There’s a joke I’ve seen a few times (not a very good one[3]) about readers: A reader is only taken seriously when they’ve read Ulysses, Gravity’s Rainbow and Infinite Jest. Take that however you want, even as a pseudo-intellectual’s joke which it probably is, dug up from the depths of the pseudo-intellectual internet. But the joke does outline the general idea about this novel, that really, its own infamous reputation proceeds it. That this novel is very long and complex and no one has enough time in their life to read it. This novel is only about 1000 pages long but with the endnotes too, it does feel about 2000 pages long. It took me longer to read this than it took me to read Finnegans Wake, let’s put it that way [4].
The book must be read w/ three bookmarks. The first bookmark must go on a certain page around the 200-page mark [5] where Wallace sets out the chronological “years” in the novel; the second must go where you are in the novel [6]; the last must go at the point you are in the endnotes [7], of which there are nearly 400 entries [8]. It is a book centred around tennis and entertainment and drug-use and depression and loneliness. And, because it is a novel of this size, there are innumerable other things that come into it. Among them, a weird obsessiveness about dental hygiene. Interestingly, I read (before starting IJ) that Wallace was obsessive about his own teeth [9] (apparently he used to carry a toothbrush in his sock).
I would suggest liking tennis somewhat [10] for the pages and pages of tennis descriptions, but that being said, one isn’t necessarily interested in everything they read, it is the author’s job to make it interesting. There is a lot of tennis, a lot of drugs and a lot about fictional avant-garde movies [11]. Also a lot of suicide, violence, paranoia [12], rape, sex, etc.
These are the stages of the book’s progress: Until about page 200, I did not understand much (as in, why I was reading it, rather than the content itself) and considered giving-up frequently. Around the 200-page mark, Wallace gives a giant section of beautiful and profound little sentences [13]; these are wonderful. Then, till about page 400, I continued flirting between enjoying myself and wanting to give up, back-and-forth, back-and-forth. And then, from 400-700, I began enjoying myself and feeling a certain and deep affinity and sadness about the novel, which I hadn’t felt before. Then last few hundred pages become quite dense, block paragraphs for pages, semi-stream-of-consciousness [14], but once one finds a rhythm with it (like anything) they are enjoyable, and have some great lines still. Overall it is a long (very long) rewarding and multifaceted read. Sometimes it feels almost-more-than-Pollockian [15].
Wallace adopts the ultimate postmodern pendulum that swings between high-brow and low-brow. The prose itself is colloquial. He uses w/ and w/o often, uses like in like a conversational way, and like frequent swearing. All of them, from crap to cunt. If not for the acronyms which clog most pages in a Pynchonian way, Wallace’s love of big and unknown words from the very bottom of the dictionary [16], or even just words he has invented himself in true Joycean (in turn Kerouacian) manner, or the many, many, immeasurable number of characters (again in Pynchonian fashion [17]), it wouldn’t be like that hard to read w/ his colloquial language. You may even think to yourself at times, Shit, who said this was hard to read? [18] It never lasts too long though. After all Infinite Jest is infamously hard to read but famously funny. It is funny, in a way; I never laughed aloud [19] but I think it does have quite a good sense of humour. It also has a poor one. I’m not going to pretend DFW was a morally brilliant man (it doesn’t take many Google searches to discover that) and this novel is often regarded as being homophobic/racist/sexist/etc. Anyone who crosses their legs in the novel is referred to as faggy, Lenz, for example, presents many racist thoughts towards all sort of people, particularly old Chinese ladies. There’s a lot of sexism too. Some bits are almost physically hard to read, rape/child abuse/the works [20].
I distrust postmodernism [21] on the whole, but also find myself addicted to reading postmodern novels. The fact we are now in so called “post-postmodernism” [22] makes me more cynical than postmodernism ever did. Postmodernism can be brilliant but it can also be horrible. Infinite Jest is known as an encyclopaedic novel. I think why is fairly obvious by now. It’s set in the “near” future, no, the “not-so-distant” future. I think its vagueness works well, not pinning it down to a specific date coming up in our own futures [23]. America and Canada are a superstate. There’s quite a lot of political stuff going on in the novel, not all of it I understand. Same w/ the calculus, like in the Eschaton scene. As with any mammoth book like this, going in with the expectation of understanding absolutely everything is delusional and somewhat arrogant; this requires multiple readings. The amount of different threads are hard to keep track of, but that’s not necessarily anything new with a novel of this size. Despite the number of characters, there are really only two settings in the novel: Ennet House, a Boston house for recovering addicts and the Enfield Tennis Academy, down the road. He almost makes it simple.
It's one to be reread, without a doubt. My plan is to read Ulysses again at some point, and then next year, maybe two years, I’ll read this again. Of course, there are things that one cannot understand in one reading, many things in the beginning are answers to things at the end. There’s plenty of interviews out there with Wallace [24], one can find him talking about the book, its structure and all that. Is it a brilliant book? Yeah, I think it is. I don’t think it’s perfect. It’s Sternean structure is brain-melting at times, and when you’re in the wrong mood, this can be horrible. Wallace says in one of his interviews that people don’t sit and read anymore, that people are afraid of the quiet—there’s some great quote somewhere about silence in a Huxley novel [25]—and I think it’s even more apt than it was when Wallace said it. It’s a novel that requires a lot of work and time and quiet. It’s fascinating that it’s known as being a very funny novel and a very sad novel and that’s just because of that giant heavy pendulum swinging, taking you off-guard every page, from awful rape to people getting their foreheads stuck to windows. I wish I could fill this review with quotes and describe some of the craziest scenes but it wouldn’t be worth it. A great novel, without a doubt, constructed by a genius. Not a perfect man, no, but as Rochefoucald said, “None but great men are capable of having great flaws.” Nor should DFW's life distract from this literary doorstop, which, at the end of the day, teaches us about being alone, about being afraid, turning to drugs, and all the while attempts to make us smile with one half of our face and cry with the other.
L I F E--I S--L I K E--T E N N I S
T H O S E--W H O--S E R V E
B E S T--U S U A L L Y--W I N
[26]
___________________________________
[1] I reported this to my mother and she said more like Annoying Stork, as a name for my father. I told her that the Inc. boys call their mother Moms and she had nothing to say about that, neither for nor against.
[2] “£3 for this, Matty! What a waste of money! There’s nothing to it. £3.”
“I thought the same. When I saw it in the cupboard yesterday I wondered why it was so flat, it’s like those flat fish, what are they called?”
“Flat fish.”
“Oh, right.”
[3] Vonnegut once said in a Paris Review interview that him and his sister decided the funniest two jokes in the world.
The first one is this:
“Two Black Crows joke. The Two Black Crows were white guys in blackface—named Moran and Mack. They made phonograph records of their routines, two supposedly black guys talking lazily to each other. Anyway, one of them says, “Last night I dreamed I was eating flannel cakes.” The other one says, “It that so?” And the first one says, “And when I woke up, the blanket was gone.”
The second one is this:
“Do you know why cream is so much more expensive than milk?”
“No.”
“Because the cows hate to squat on those little bottles.”
These aren’t funny either.
[4] I had some semi-grand idea that would involve me comparing IJ to Ulysses and Finnegans Wake and other big tomes but really I don’t think they are comparable [a], and I can’t be bothered to try anyway.
[a] This is a cheap answer, probably.
[5] In my edition it is page 223.
[6] You can’t pin this down because it inevitably moves as you read the book, unless you don’t read the book, in which case, if you forget about the bookmark or decide to leave it there, it will stay in the same place for a great duration of time, but probably not forever and ever as it’ll fall out or maybe decompose or something.
[7] This also moves as you read the book, though slower than your place in the novel. Likewise, if you stop reading the book and leave the bookmark somewhere, it will stay there almost indefinitely. Almost. Eventually it’ll fall out or maybe decompose or something as well.
[8] Let’s be specific: there are 388 endnotes.
[9] Interestingly, teeth problems/fears are common in great writers. From the top of my head, Martin Amis, Vladimir Nabokov and James Joyce all had problems with their teeth. I only know this because I’m ironically quite obsessive about my own dental hygiene too. I worry that my teeth are always in perpetual danger of crumbling, falling out whole, exploding, anything. My parents mock my semi-routine checks of them.
[10] I was never exceptional [a] but my brother and I grew up having private tennis lessons with a small man named O. O’Shea; naturally, we often chanted things like O’Shea Ricochet. He eventually emigrated to Australia and we didn’t bother finding another instructor, so our tennis careers ended there [b]. Though, I must say, reading this has piqued my interest again in the subject and I have asked Annoying Stork if we can go and play at some point soon. In the novel somewhere tennis is described as moving chess. I like that.
[a] I had a mean backhand but I was a poor server.
[b] I’ve played since, infrequently, and can confirm that O’Shea would be horrified.
[11] One exceptionally long endnote details every single short film made by J. Incandenza. Near the end one realises why we’ve read them all. I’m not a big movie fan, or TV fan in general, but one of my favourite professors did try to get me into art-cinema. He suggested a load of movies, Ivan’s Childhood, M, etc.
[12] Pynchonian paranoia, one could argue, but instead of this—
—it’s people in wheelchairs.
[13] Famously: That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realise how seldom they do. Among others, That the cliche 'I don't know who I am' unfortunately turns out to be more than a cliché, or, That everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else, or, again, That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak, or, finally, That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable. They sting a bit.
[14] Almost Mollybloomian.
[15] Reading it is nice and all but your brain is sort of going like this too:
[16] This is a metaphor. A dictionary does not have a bottom. You could argue which part of a dictionary, as an object, is the bottom, but the actual contents of the dictionary has no perceivable bottom. I mean the deepest caves of the dictionary.
[17] After all my copy of Consider the Lobster claims on the front cover, “The heir apparent to Thomas Pynchon”. Not to be confused with “The apparent heir of Thomas Pynchon”, which would be less declarative in its claim. And you’d ask, apparent? Who said? They said. Who is they??
[18] This is à la DFW. I can’t know for sure if you swear in your own head. Or even think in English in your own head.
[19] My friends claim I never laugh. They say, “Handel, you never laugh! You never find anything funny.” I was friends with M for six-or-so years before he saw me laugh for the first time, apparently, by his own definition of laughing.
[20] If you’ve read Ellis’ American Psycho then it’s almost nothing you haven’t seen before. The problem with it in IJ is how sincere it is. Ellis’ is so over-the-top that it’s almost numbing to read. This isn’t.
[21] I also distrust people who shower with the bathroom door wide open, people who put the milk in before the teabag, people who “don’t like The Beatles”, etc.
On some days: (modernism > postmodernism)
On other days: (postmodernism > modernism)
[22] Or even metamodernism, which at least sounds better. Right?
[23] DFW does essentially predict some things though in true dystopian Orwellian/Huxleyan fashion though. At one point he pretty much predicts Zoom/Skype, in a sense, and other things like Instagram, as people can put filters on their faces, change the way they look and edit themselves through an online communication platform.
[24] Silverblatt’s is probably the best, of course.
[25] Antic Hay, his second novel. And the jazz bands, the music hall songs, the boys shouting the news. What’s it all for? To put an end to the quiet, to break it up and disperse it, to pretend at any cost it isn’t there…
[26] I better get my serve a lot better then. Thanks, Wallace.
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Reading Progress
March 10, 2021
–
Started Reading
March 10, 2021
– Shelved
March 16, 2021
–
18.54%
"I'm a big fan of listening to DFW speak. I think I've watched pretty much every interview he's done. We are not alike in the slightest but I find something compelling about him and his intellectual mind. That being said, this has not impressed me so far. I've been told that'll change after page 200; so, here we are. Let's see."
page
200
March 17, 2021
–
21.32%
"That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realise how seldom they do.
Wallace gives us a section of pure delight. I underlined a lot. The tenderness hidden in this novel is already completely disarming."
page
230
Wallace gives us a section of pure delight. I underlined a lot. The tenderness hidden in this novel is already completely disarming."
March 22, 2021
–
27.8%
"It took four rings to find the receiver in the bedding and pull out the antenna out.
'Mmmyellow.'
'Mr Incredenza [sic], this is the Enfield Raw Sewage Commission, and quite frankly we've had enough shit out of you.'
'Hello Orin.'
'How hangs it, kid.'"
page
300
'Mmmyellow.'
'Mr Incredenza [sic], this is the Enfield Raw Sewage Commission, and quite frankly we've had enough shit out of you.'
'Hello Orin.'
'How hangs it, kid.'"
March 28, 2021
–
29.66%
"Footnote 110 has been the longest yet, a convoluted 20-something page Bible-sized text extravaganza. After putting in a fair amount of time with whole days between for breaks and finishing, one returns to the main novel to find they are still on the same page they left three days ago."
page
320
April 3, 2021
–
34.75%
"Well, that was disgusting and messed-up: a woman reports her foster father's incestuous "diddling" of his "totally paralyzed and retarded and catatonic" biological daughter. But, hey, if they say it's the GAN."
page
375
April 5, 2021
–
41.71%
"On "basic American dreams and ideals":
Access to transport. Good digestion. Work-saving appliances. A wife who doesn't mistake your job's requirements for your own fetishes. Reliable waste-removal and disposal. Sunsets over the Pacific. Shoes that don't cut off circulation. Frozen yogurt. A tall lemonade on a squeak-free porch swing.
I'm not American but I can get behind most of these. Especially the last."
page
450
Access to transport. Good digestion. Work-saving appliances. A wife who doesn't mistake your job's requirements for your own fetishes. Reliable waste-removal and disposal. Sunsets over the Pacific. Shoes that don't cut off circulation. Frozen yogurt. A tall lemonade on a squeak-free porch swing.
I'm not American but I can get behind most of these. Especially the last."
April 6, 2021
–
46.34%
""This wise old whiskery fish swims up to three young fish and goes, ‘Morning boys, how’s the water?’ and swims away; and the three young fish watch him swim away and look at each other and go, ‘What the fuck is water?’ and swim away.""
page
500
April 9, 2021
–
50.97%
"'What you do is you hide your deep need to hide, and you do this out of the need to appear to other people as if have the strength not to care how you appear to others. You stick your hideous face right in there into the wine-tasting crowd's visual meatgrinder, you smile so wide it hurts and put out your hand and are extra gregarious and outgoing and exert yourself [...]'"
page
550
April 11, 2021
–
55.61%
"Not and never love, which kills what needs it. It feels to the punter rather to be about hope, an immense, wise-as-the-sky hope of finding a something in each Subject's fluttering face, a something the same that will propitiate hope, somehow, pay its tribute, the need to be assured that for a moment he has her, now and has won her as if from someone or something else, something other than he..."
page
600
April 22, 2021
–
58.39%
"There was something almost unbearably touching about a bald spot on a handicapped man."
page
630
April 23, 2021
–
61.17%
"E.g. the U.S.S. Millicent Kent, sixteen and phenomenal on the incline bench-press, with breasts like artillery and a butt like two bulldogs in a bag..."
page
660
April 27, 2021
–
64.87%
"'Mary had a little lamb, its fleece electrostatic / And everywhere that Mary went, the lights became erratic.'"
page
700
April 28, 2021
–
74.14%
"'Boo, I think I no longer believe in monsters as faces in the floor or feral infants or vampires or whatever. I think at seventeen now I believe the only real monsters might be the type of liar where there's simply no way to tell. The ones who give nothing away.'
'But then how do you know they're monsters, then?'
'That's the monstrosity right there, Boo, I'm starting to think.
'Golly Ned.'"
page
800
'But then how do you know they're monsters, then?'
'That's the monstrosity right there, Boo, I'm starting to think.
'Golly Ned.'"
April 30, 2021
–
78.78%
"The leader's made the cage again on his poor bear's squashed head. 'Can you share what you're feeling, Kevin?' he says. 'Can you name it?'
Kevin's voice is muffled by the hand he hides behind. 'I'm feeling my Inner Infant's abandonment and deep-deprivation issues, Harv,' he says, drawing shuddering breaths.
[...]
'Let the Infant out!'
'Let your infant do the walking, Kev."
page
850
Kevin's voice is muffled by the hand he hides behind. 'I'm feeling my Inner Infant's abandonment and deep-deprivation issues, Harv,' he says, drawing shuddering breaths.
[...]
'Let the Infant out!'
'Let your infant do the walking, Kev."
April 30, 2021
–
88.04%
"Death says the woman who either knowingly or involuntarily kills you is always someone you love, and she's always your next life's mother. This is why Moms are so obsessively loving [...] why they seem to value your welfare above their own [...] they're trying to make amends for a murder neither of you quite remember, except maybe in dreams."
page
950
May 1, 2021
–
94.53%
"And I finish tomorrow. One drinks a pint of Guinness for finishing Ulysses, but what does one drink on finishing IJ? Perhaps something a lot stronger."
page
1020
May 2, 2021
– Shelved as:
20th-century
May 2, 2021
– Shelved as:
1001-list-2006-ed
May 2, 2021
– Shelved as:
lit-american
May 2, 2021
– Shelved as:
read-2021
May 2, 2021
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-39 of 39 (39 new)
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May 02, 2021 09:18AM
What a review, Matthew! Not merely a candid, brilliantly judged appraisal of what is ostensibly one of the watershed moments in post-modern literature, not merely a superbly written, empathetic and even erudite review of a book teeming with what seems to be sensational writing, surprising tenderness and even pop cultural and literary references but most crucially, and I mean it from my heart, this is nothing short of a literary achievement. And it is not just because of the wacky, witty and superbly picked end-notes but also how superbly, how skillfully have you deconstructed the novel's fame and notoriety, how you have examined its prose, the pendulum swing between high and low, between one moral extreme to another and how this pendulum swing does not rob it of its uniqueness is just exemplary and I am falling short of more words to describe the brilliance of your review. Let me just say that no matter what others might say, you, my dear friend, are indeed an extraordinary reader and even more than that an extraordinary writer of great promise.
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"It's one to be reread, without a doubt. My plan is to read Ulysses again at some point, and then next year, maybe two years, I’ll read this again."Alexa, set a reminder: in two years, check what he thinks after a second read.
Good review! This book became an unexpected favorite of mine, a real love/hate relationship, and so I love to hear from people as they finish it for themselves.
Interesting review Matthew. I had a similar experience. There are some very entertaining, humorous moments throughout this book. I ended up reading it as a collection of connected short stories. There are lots of weird unlikeable characters and oddball events. The weak aspect of the novel for me was the overall plot.
Zoeb wrote: "What a review, Matthew! Not merely a candid, brilliantly judged appraisal of what is ostensibly one of the watershed moments in post-modern literature, not merely a superbly written, empathetic and..."Such kind words, Zoeb, thank you. A difficult book to review for many reasons.
Tom wrote: ""It's one to be reread, without a doubt. My plan is to read Ulysses again at some point, and then next year, maybe two years, I’ll read this again."Alexa, set a reminder: in two years, check what..."
I feel like I'll get a lot more out of it the second time around. The first readthrough felt a little like groping around in the dark at times, but having been through it once, I think I'll be able to discern Wallace's hallway through the novel next time.
George wrote: "Interesting review Matthew. I had a similar experience. There are some very entertaining, humorous moments throughout this book. I ended up reading it as a collection of connected short stories. Th..."Yes, and some characters that appear once and then that's it, they're gone for good. A real smorgasbord of a book.
Brilliant review, Handel. You had me scrolling back and forth like a yo-yo from your endnotes. I always enjoy your style impersonations in your reviews and this was a joy to read.
Tom wrote: "Brilliant review, Handel. You had me scrolling back and forth like a yo-yo from your endnotes. I always enjoy your style impersonations in your reviews and this was a joy to read."Thanks, Herbs. Goodreads was near-on begging me to stop, I think I had under 100 characters left of the limit. Yikes. Hope you got v dizzy.
Matthew wrote: "Tom wrote: "Brilliant review, Handel. You had me scrolling back and forth like a yo-yo from your endnotes. I always enjoy your style impersonations in your reviews and this was a joy to read."Tha..."
I did indeed, though no doubt it's nothing compared to the arduous fluttering back and forth of IJ. Must've been quite the arm work out!
Tom wrote: "Matthew wrote: "Tom wrote: "Brilliant review, Handel. You had me scrolling back and forth like a yo-yo from your endnotes. I always enjoy your style impersonations in your reviews and this was a jo..."A needed one. I read somewhere how the flipping back and forth, to and from the endnotes, is like a tennis match in itself. Like a ball being struck over an imaginary net. I've found no reference of Wallace saying this himself as his intention, but I wonder if it was. Clever if it was.
Brilliant review Matthew, honestly this made me want to start it all over again but I cant!! This is one of the best reviews I've read since joining goodreads.
I saw the first [1] before I scrolled down, and I immediately thought "This bastard is gonna do footnotes thing isn't he?" And sure enough, footnotes. Well you know what? I read it all. And it was FANTASTIC. I wish I could just read this instead of the actual book.
reading your review ( footnotes and all) is the closest I will ever get to the novel. I guess I will never be a true reader, having no intention to read any of the 3 tomes mentioned in the joke. I am mildly curious about them but actually reading them would probably put me off books for a year or so. I enjoy reading reviews about these books though.
Anthony wrote: "Brilliant review Matthew, honestly this made me want to start it all over again but I cant!! This is one of the best reviews I've read since joining goodreads."Such high praise from you, Anthony, which means a lot, being such a stellar reader yourself.
Alan wrote: "I saw the first [1] before I scrolled down, and I immediately thought "This bastard is gonna do footnotes thing isn't he?" And sure enough, footnotes. Well you know what? I read it all. And it was ..."Thanks, Alan. Did you expect anything less from me? I've got to say, they are strangely addictive/enjoyable to use, I see where DFW is coming from.
Adina (taking a break from literary fiction) wrote: "reading your review ( footnotes and all) is the closest I will ever get to the novel. I guess I will never be a true reader, having no intention to read any of the 3 tomes mentioned in the joke. I ..."Thank you, Adina. I wouldn't worry, the joke has no worth whatsoever. You read some fantastic books anyway. Life's too short, read what you want to read, that's what I say.
Love the footnotes. Wish I had a virtual bookmark to help myself navigate them.
Rachel wrote: "Love the footnotes. Wish I had a virtual bookmark to help myself navigate them."Thanks, Rachel. I gotta say, they are quite addictive to use.
Brilliant review, Matthew! I am so surprised you have read it in a relatively short time! Well, yes, why not call it post-postmodernistic. Sounds like a very precise denomination. And, really, it is the only novel ever in which I truly enjoyed the footnotes. Yes, good idea you had to use 3 bookmarks. I only used the obvious 2. May I end with the wish that you will never hear those screeching wheelchairs rolling in your direction!
Hanneke wrote: "Brilliant review, Matthew! I am so surprised you have read it in a relatively short time! Well, yes, why not call it post-postmodernistic. Sounds like a very precise denomination. And, really, it i..."Thank you, Hanneke. It didn't feel fast, but glad I read it, without a doubt. And I hope you never hear that screech either.
On of the most brilliant reviews I have ever read.
Kenny wrote: "On of the most brilliant reviews I have ever read."Thank you, Kenny. My long journey with this book needed a long review. Means a lot.
Ha, brilliant! And so fitting. It must have taken you as long to write as it's take me to get through parts of this novel.
I should have known this book would be trouble, and I admit I'm humbled at my own apparent ignorance. I will persevere, for now.
I should have known this book would be trouble, and I admit I'm humbled at my own apparent ignorance. I will persevere, for now.
Jared wrote: "Ha, brilliant! And so fitting. It must have taken you as long to write as it's take me to get through parts of this novel. I should have known this book would be trouble, and I admit I'm humbled ..."
It did take a while, but I enjoyed it. I can say this now too: writing with footnotes is a lot more enjoyable than reading footnotes. I love books that humble us, the best kind.
I adore this book and I just came across this review, man you did a brilliant job.
Dylan wrote: "I adore this book and I just came across this review, man you did a brilliant job."Thanks, Dylan. I had a lot of fun with it.
I haven’t read this book yet, though I will be through summer 2024, but I have to say what a brilliantly constructed review. I can’t believe I just spent a half hour or more reading this, but I come out of it feeling enlightened 😂
King wrote: "I haven’t read this book yet, though I will be through summer 2024, but I have to say what a brilliantly constructed review. I can’t believe I just spent a half hour or more reading this, but I com..."Well, thanks for sticking out to the end. And glad it was worthwhile, at least for mild entertainment! Good luck when you get to it.
And enjoy, King! There is no novel like it!
Hanneke wrote: "And enjoy, King! There is no novel like it!"Yes, and that, thanks Hanneke. Saying only 'good luck' is a little foreboding...
Matthew, no, not really. I just wanted to relay how completely unique IJ is! Forever one of my favorite novels, perhaps my most favorite!
Gonçalo wrote: "What a review! amazing!"Thanks, Gonçalo.
Hanneke wrote: "Matthew, no, not really. I just wanted to relay how completely unique IJ is! Forever one of my favorite novels, perhaps my most favorite!"I already look forward to reading it again.
Yes, Matthew, I will definitely read it again too. It will be very interesting what will strike you on the second read. Could be quite unexpected forgotten ideas.
I can now say I have finished this book myself - read from mid-April up through till this morning in early August. I still love this review and fear I will not come even close to its brilliance in my own review, but I am making reference to it and hoping I can achieve a similar level of quality nonetheless.
King wrote: "I can now say I have finished this book myself - read from mid-April up through till this morning in early August. I still love this review and fear I will not come even close to its brilliance in ..."Congrats on finishing, King (name suitable), and thank you for your kind words. I had a lot of fun writing this review, and my review of Gravity's Rainbow, too. Footnotes are fun, basically.
This must've taken forever to review. Impressive. And I am only a .3333 serious reader, having only read the Joyce. Not sure I own three bookmarks, either.(Just when you think you're "well-read," someone comes along and makes an infinite jest of your hubris.)
Ken wrote: "This must've taken forever to review. Impressive. And I am only a .3333 serious reader, having only read the Joyce. Not sure I own three bookmarks, either.(Just when you think you're "well-read,"..."
If it makes you feel any better, Ken, I beat myself up daily for not having read as much as I want to. I think that's the curse of the reader. Certainly, an infinite jest.
