It's been a month since Infinite Summer began. How am I doing? ...I am in the thick of it. Specifically, page 259 of the thick of it, slightly behind the group, not quite a third of the way -- but I think we can all agree, definitely in the thick.
There are so many ways I could write about my experience with this book so far; the Wallacean method would be to write about all of them, but I have a lot to get through yet! So instead, today I will comment on the process of beginning this long book and where to find the time. Tomorrow I'll talk about narrative and style a little bit with an eye to exposing those of you who haven't read the book to what it is, in the most general sense, "about."
(Also, I give you carte blanche to skip this post if you truly don't care; somewhat more so than others here, I'm getting this down so I can remember and go back to it later.)
The truth is that even after living on my bookshelf for two and a half years, INFINITE JEST then spent two weeks on my nightstand being slowly buried by magazines and library books, just another sedimentary layer. Then I was heading home for the Fourth of July, and well, what was the point of bringing it, I had so many other things to read, who brings a 1000-plus page book on a 3-day trip along with other stuff?
I took the book. I read the intro, in which Dave Eggers wrote that he read it at the same age I am now. I will not be defeated by an Eggers! I started reading, and then a glorious thing happened: I really enjoyed it. It didn't hurt that I had a few blocks of unscheduled time or that I hit a tennis section just after watching the Epic Battle of the Andies from this year's Wimbledon. (More on that later.)
Yesterday on the Infinite Summer blog, Brittney Gilbert, who blogs for a living, wrote about the immersive experience she had had in reading the novel, which she strove to "really commit to... the way one commits to a college course or a part-time job or a new lover." She describes taking it into a quiet room, closing the door, lighting some candles. That's her approach, whereas mine, to extend the metaphor, is dragging the book into a coat room at a party for a couple of pages. (Not that I've literally done that with the book. Yet.)
What I'll do is take it with me everywhere for a few days when I don't have an imminent review due, and get as far as I can in those few days. The night I did the biggest chunk was the night I got home from a concert with my ears ringing past the point of sleep. I have read it in a number of morally indefensible public places, including on the subway during rush hour and in the lobby of a movie theatre before watching "Brüno." (There's probably a law against that.) At some point, I wanted to read it more than I wanted to not be self-conscious, and it's amazing when a book can do that, isn't it?
I haven't lost the romance of reading, but to treat this book differently from everything else I read would go against the plot of this blog. Of course I worry about whether the book is being polluted by giving it less than my full attention, but I have determined to draw the line when that worrying cuts into my reading time. My fellow Infinite Summerers, how are you coping?
And the rest of you, what was the last book you wanted to take with you everywhere?
There are so many ways I could write about my experience with this book so far; the Wallacean method would be to write about all of them, but I have a lot to get through yet! So instead, today I will comment on the process of beginning this long book and where to find the time. Tomorrow I'll talk about narrative and style a little bit with an eye to exposing those of you who haven't read the book to what it is, in the most general sense, "about."
(Also, I give you carte blanche to skip this post if you truly don't care; somewhat more so than others here, I'm getting this down so I can remember and go back to it later.)
xxxxx
The truth is that even after living on my bookshelf for two and a half years, INFINITE JEST then spent two weeks on my nightstand being slowly buried by magazines and library books, just another sedimentary layer. Then I was heading home for the Fourth of July, and well, what was the point of bringing it, I had so many other things to read, who brings a 1000-plus page book on a 3-day trip along with other stuff?
I took the book. I read the intro, in which Dave Eggers wrote that he read it at the same age I am now. I will not be defeated by an Eggers! I started reading, and then a glorious thing happened: I really enjoyed it. It didn't hurt that I had a few blocks of unscheduled time or that I hit a tennis section just after watching the Epic Battle of the Andies from this year's Wimbledon. (More on that later.)
Yesterday on the Infinite Summer blog, Brittney Gilbert, who blogs for a living, wrote about the immersive experience she had had in reading the novel, which she strove to "really commit to... the way one commits to a college course or a part-time job or a new lover." She describes taking it into a quiet room, closing the door, lighting some candles. That's her approach, whereas mine, to extend the metaphor, is dragging the book into a coat room at a party for a couple of pages. (Not that I've literally done that with the book. Yet.)
What I'll do is take it with me everywhere for a few days when I don't have an imminent review due, and get as far as I can in those few days. The night I did the biggest chunk was the night I got home from a concert with my ears ringing past the point of sleep. I have read it in a number of morally indefensible public places, including on the subway during rush hour and in the lobby of a movie theatre before watching "Brüno." (There's probably a law against that.) At some point, I wanted to read it more than I wanted to not be self-conscious, and it's amazing when a book can do that, isn't it?
I haven't lost the romance of reading, but to treat this book differently from everything else I read would go against the plot of this blog. Of course I worry about whether the book is being polluted by giving it less than my full attention, but I have determined to draw the line when that worrying cuts into my reading time. My fellow Infinite Summerers, how are you coping?
And the rest of you, what was the last book you wanted to take with you everywhere?
ETA 7/27: Welcome to everyone coming over from Infinite Summer! Here's a funny story: I told my mom about the project a few weeks ago and today I found out she had picked up a copy of INFINITE JEST on vacation, only she hadn't started it yet because "it's not the sort of book you can read in 2 minutes here or there." I was still proud. Anyway, thank you so much for reading and make yourselves at home.
4 comments:
People who blog for a living may have time to go to their candle-lit room and read a 1000 page novel, but people with jobs need to read on the train and while the water boils and during commercial breaks if they want to complete a novel of that length. I prefer to read serious literary stuff in a quiet room or coffee shop, there's not enough time in my week to read everything serious in that sort of environment.
I would have thought the author of the piece would lose the Infinite Summer audience at the point where she reads blogs all day for a living and we're all, "Wait, how do I get that job?" But most of the commenters sound as single-minded as she is.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, right?
Hmmm, I thought Brittney's point was the opposite: being a meta-blogger has made it that much MORE difficult to address a book like IJ (or any substantive book, for that matter). I think her job sounds horrible and frightening, and I think many other readers of Infinite Summer thought so as well. Easier for a department store clerk or an insurance agent or any other "undesirable" job to dig into a serious novel, surely. Though I also understand and agree that Total Work (as Wade's blogsite has it) has by all means made an "ordinary" job both extraordinary and extraorinarily demanding.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES!
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