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Hey TL, I have a quick blog for you guys today. I need some help when it comes to reading right now.
David Foster Wallace
I've been reading Infinite Jest. I'm on about day 5 or so of Infinite Jest and I'm on page 250. I should be on page 500 right now. I can't seem to read the book, and, while I'm not getting frustrated at the difficulty of the book because I realize the book well above my reading level, I'm getting frustrated at the slow speed that I'm reading the book. To read 100 pages of any other book I've read, I'll read about 30-40 pages per hour, leading to about 2 hours and 30 minutes to 3 hours of reading per day, total; Not so with Infinite Jest. Infinite-fucking-Jest takes about 5 hours to read 100 pages for me to understand what is happening. I'd say I'm trying to enjoy the book, but at this point, I'm trying to survive it. The lack of linearity in the telling of the story compounded by both Wallace's verbosity and love of english engineering (I'm talking about serious enginuity, use of the make-something-different-but-its-kind-of-the-same-but-not-really hyphens, and the use of informal language paired with formal language paired with changing writing styles varying from surrealism to uptight formal writing but there are never any commas so you can never really tell if the character is just going through stream of consciousness or are just panting from tennis practice). The book is genius, and sadly I don't think I'm at the level of genius to understand enough to make the read "fun."
Don't misunderstand me, I'm learning a lot from the books I'm reading. My writing is significantly better after reading these last 14 books + extra literature read, but this is the first author since Proust to so overwhelm me with prose that I lose my bearing and the first book since In Rememberance of Things Past to make me want to quit reading it because I'm not feeling the fun-factor. After reading 250 pages of Infinite Jest, the way I see literature has completely changed, and I don't know what to think. I don't think books should be told linearly all the time, but it certainly makes understanding the story conceptually easier, even the least linear book I read, (either The Joke where the characters meet in the past but only meet each other through mutual conections in the present or Kafka on the Shore where characters meet more through metaphor and dream than physically) I would consider extraordinarily linear compared to Infinite Jest. The book's end notes, the book is teeming with them, tell the story as much as the text does; the book's reading style consists of: Read the book's text, see a footnote, flip to past the end of the book to read the footnote which is tantamount to understanding the prose, try to understand the prose of the footnote which is written in the same style as the text it is cited in, return to the text, repeat. Similarly to the way I view linearity in novels now, the way I view writing now has completely changed. I don't think that authors should even let the reader understand the whole personality of their characters, nor do I think that authors should give all the details of how a story transpires in a timely fashion; if Wallace breaks into stream of consciousness styles writing, he will tone it down by introducing a new voice into the speaker using a paragraph break, which will introduce not only a new style of writing, but also new information that explains the previous passage to the reader in a tacit way.
I'm just overwhelmed. As I'm reading this book, it's like my life is a lie, TL. I don't know how to read this book without either not knowing what to think, or not knowing what the fuck is going on. That combined with my slow reading and the novelty of Wallace's writing does not seem to be adding up to help me with this. I'm most likely not going to read any books as hard as this one for the rest of the summer, but I'm honestly stumped right now. I refuse to give this book up, I'm learning too much to do that. I refuse to give up on this book, it's changing my views on writing too much. This book is a rare book. It's making an impression on me; not just as a reader, but as a writer. The book and I are frenemies as of now.
Thanks for reading guys 
On a totally related note, Korean BBQ short ribs are SO GOOD and so is Kimchi (first time having kimchi in my life). Also, I'm trying to start writing my first fiction novel, I think it's going to be around 200 pages just because I can't write a ton  . I'm just looking for something to begin my writing and to expand the way I view prose and poesy.
 
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United States24799 Posts
I like how you say a 'quick' blog and then it's a wall of text haha. Korean BBQ is indeed quite good... can't speak for Kimchi, though.
What type of novel are you thinking on writing? I wouldn't worry about how many pages... that's one of the least important aspects of it.
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why don't you read something you can understand and enjoy? What am I missing
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Clearly, your best option is to pick up Gravity's Rainbow and start right away 
Just don't let the work get the best of you, and remember, meaning comes and goes, so don't worry about putting the book down only to return another day.
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On June 30 2013 01:31 marttorn wrote:
why don't you read something you can understand and enjoy? What am I missing
A sense of adventure! And masochism... ok maybe 90% masochism.
Also, Micronesia, I always short blog, thinking it will be like 1 paragraph, and it always ends up being 3+ lol. The book is pretty undefined, I'm not even trying to think of a story, I'm just thinking of characters and the story will come from how I think the characters would interact with each other. I'm also kind of waiting to take some writing courses in college to see what else I can be exposed to. Side note, though kind of pointless, the page # thing is just something I thought of as I was writing, so I threw it in.
Farva, on the inner cover of Infinite Jest it says that Wallace's work is compared to "John Irving, Thomas Pynchon, and Tom Robbins," and now guess which I've made a pact never to read books from for this summer lol.
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I think DoctorHelvetica wrote Infinite Jest from a different perspective.
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=113012
Do you ever read something and feel ashamed of yourself? Like what if instead of a book it was someone's blood that we called Infinite Jest then got mad at them when they raised an issue?
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when i started reading the pale king (also dfw) i couldnt really 'get started' or 'get into it' the first couple times i tried, then once i started working i really buckled down and every break&lunch i had i would read from the book until i got to the point where i would be reading it and just get really ecstatic/excited about the things that i was reading, like i could finally start to 'grasp it' and really appreciate it/see why other people liked it.
i have a friend who had a similar experience with infinite jest.
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Hey I'm reading this too! Really incredible book; fun to work through although honestly I'm a little confused as to why you're tracking how long a book takes you? It takes as long as it takes, books aren't uniform creatures. If you're reading infinite jest at the same pace as every other book you've ever read you're not reading it right. Take it slow, enjoy it; god forbid you finish it and the thing you take away is "fuck that was a tough to read".
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Canada6002 Posts
On June 30 2013 02:09 docvoc wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2013 01:31 marttorn wrote:
why don't you read something you can understand and enjoy? What am I missing A sense of adventure! And masochism... ok maybe 90% masochism. Also, Micronesia, I always short blog, thinking it will be like 1 paragraph, and it always ends up being 3+ lol. The book is pretty undefined, I'm not even trying to think of a story, I'm just thinking of characters and the story will come from how I think the characters would interact with each other. I'm also kind of waiting to take some writing courses in college to see what else I can be exposed to. Side note, though kind of pointless, the page # thing is just something I thought of as I was writing, so I threw it in. Farva, on the inner cover of Infinite Jest it says that Wallace's work is compared to "John Irving, Thomas Pynchon, and Tom Robbins," and now guess which I've made a pact never to read books from for this summer lol.
You should do an extreme post-modern book that meets Seinfeld. A book about nothing, with no events, just characters.
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If you want a very easy to read book go read James Joyce's Ulysses.
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Wow, I'm actually halfway through Infinite Jest myself! I think a lot of reading literature comes down to expectations and literary philosophy. Personally, I'm not particularly a plot person and I love dialogue and subscribe firmly to the belief that books shouldn't directly advocate a worldview (read: Animal Farm, The Stranger, anything by Ayn Rand), so I'm having a blast with Infinite Jest's scatterbrained but always interesting discussions. I will say that I don't particularly connect with any of the characters, but they're interesting enough that I don't mind. I hope you warm to the book or decide to stop and find something you do like before you've sunk too much time into it.
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EPT
