In 1992 I bought a copy of that year's Best American Short Stories and was blown away by this story called "Forever Overhead." It was told in the second person which is something that I usually really hate but this story was so simultaneously gorgeous and nauseating that I raced through it and had no time to be annoyed. After reading it I flipped immediately to the back to read the author statement and that was when I fell in love. Right then and there. This guy, David Foster Wallace, had written this ridiculous, wonderful, and hilarious author's note that was a complete 180 from and even more brilliant than the fraught and delicate story I had just read. And it had footnotes. Footnotes in an author statement. I was smitten.
When Infinite Jest came out I bought it right away. I'm pretty sure they released it in paperback because I remember buying it at a now defunct Brentano's on 6th avenue a few days after it came out and I remember it was a paperback. I went home dewey-eyed with excitement to start reading. I started that day and I think I got to page 160 or so. And then stopped. This was back when I devoured books, staying up all night to read even mediocre books. Once I got started on a book I read it constantly until I was done. That never happened with Infinite Jest. I put it down and it stayed down. I remember picking it up again a few years later and getting to right about the same spot again and again stopping. At some point I must have lent out my copy because the next time I felt up to reading it I couldn't find it anywhere. After this I walked around with a tiny little part of my brain that felt guilty for never finishing, hell, barely starting, the magnum opus of my favorite contemporary writer.
When I heard the news last September, cryptically via Twitter, that David Foster Wallace had hung himself I found myself crying almost instantly. Suicides make me very upset anyway but to lose such a mind to that fucking villainous black hole, depression, shocked me to tears. I couldn't shake the dread and sickness that plumed up whenever I thought about if for a long time afterwards. That day though, partially because it had been on my mind again since getting Consider The Lobster and partially because I am a narcissistic douche who can't help myself, I had the thought: shit, now I have to finish Infinite Jest.
Enter Infinite Summer, a brainchild of Defective Yeti's Matthew Baldwin and also guided by my favorite Internet sensei, Eden Kennedy. As soon as I heard about it, again via Twitter, I knew I was in. Here was another chance for me to prove how susceptible I am to peer pressure AND fulfill one of my lifetime goals. Fun! The gist is that a bunch of people from around the globe will be reading it this summer from June 21st to September 22, 75 pages a week. (Not including the extra 300 pages of endnotes.) I am 50-some pages in and feeling good. Just knowing that I will be finishing it this time (as God and the Internet as my witness) definitely helps. I will be occasionally blogging about it, I guess, so I hope you don't mind. Not sure how I'll do that as I am so spoiler-averse it borders on psychosis, but I'll figure out something. If anyone out there is participating in this summer project too, please pipe up and let me know.
My friend Sarah L (David Rees' wife) is doing this same thing - Sam loaned her our copy, then immediately asked for it back b/c he is going to do something else with Infinite this summer(?). I think you guys would like each other - she's a poet, too & does a poetry spot on a radio show. Shall I hook you guys up on FB?
Posted by: Sarah U | June 25, 2009 at 01:58 PM
I just finished "Infinite Jest" a couple of months ago. There are two secrets to know about making it through:
1) If it normally takes you an hour to read 60 pages, it will take you two hours to read 60 pages of "Infinite Jest." Don't be discouraged. (Keeping two bookmarks for your copy helps too - one for marking your place in the regular text, and one for marking your place in the endnotes.)
2) It really does start making more sense about page 200. And more and more of the beginning makes sense the farther in you get. As soon as I finished it I wanted to pick it up again to read the beginning now that I had read the end.
I hope you'll love it as much as I did! It was well worth the, probably, 40 hours it took me to finish it. "Infinite Jest" holds a truly special place in my heart.
Posted by: Deanna | June 25, 2009 at 02:37 PM
Sarah - definitely! Imagine, a live person with whom to discuss a book we are both reading at the same time. Crazy!
Thanks for the tips Deanna - especially the two bookmarks. Genius.
Posted by: LetterB | June 25, 2009 at 09:41 PM
I'm definitely reading it this summer. When he died I was surprised to
realize I'd only read one story of his. More, more..
Posted by: maggie may | June 30, 2009 at 12:28 AM
Dude. It seems I cannot click over to your blog without reading something that connects directly to a specific and important element of my life. I'm on p. 785 right now. I didn't know about Infinite Summer, but I guess I've unwittingly overlapped with it (I started IJ at the beginning of May.)
"Forever Overhead" was my favorite story in _Brief Interviews with Hideous Men_, which I read last winter. I love DFW (who I mostly knew through his nonfiction. _A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again_ is one of my favorite books) and was totally devastated by his death. And now, reading IJ, I'm mourning all over again. I can't believe this funny, observant, trenchant, bizarre, brutal, and generous genius isn't with us anymore to gift us with more of his inimitable work.
I agree with the two bookmarks advice. And don't be tempted to skip footnotes. Some key plot points occur there.
Posted by: E. | June 30, 2009 at 10:07 PM
Skip footnotes? Never. No way. I already had the thought "didn't I see some movie about this" and of course, no, I had merely read the description of the completely fictional film in the footnotes. But because I hadn't read it in the linear (take that lightly) story my mind had filed it differently. That DFW, he was one crafty motherfucker. Knew the way the mind works so well.
That said I have balked when the footnote directs you to another footnote. Mostly because I am afraid of spoilers. I am cuckoo about the spoilerz!
Also, E., let me just be frank, bit of a crush over here. *Bat, bat*
Posted by: LetterB | July 01, 2009 at 11:57 PM
The crush is mutual. I dream someday of coffee and a chat about DFW. (Or maybe a margarita and a chat about DFW?)
Posted by: E. | July 06, 2009 at 10:27 PM