This year will be the year that I read Infinite Jest. I’ve been planning to do this on and off for ages, but now it finally feels like the right time. Normally I read a lot – I’ve always got a book on the go, but for the past 3-4 weeks I’ve been finding it very difficult to get anywhere with a book. I’ve started a few, got a few chapters in, and given up, lost interest. I’m not sure why, but I can’t seem to engage. So why turn to a book that is notoriously difficult to read? Am’t I just setting myself up for failure?
I’m a big fan of David Foster Wallace, though I’ve gone about reading him arse-end-over-backwards. Last year, I wrote a review of DFW’s The Pale King. When I decided to review The Pale King, D laughed at me, saying that I would be bored and never finish it. But the laugh was on him! Not only did I finish it, I loved every second of it – every second of the unending, breathless tedium. There is something in DFW’s writing that is transformative beyond any other writer that I’ve read. The Pale King is a book that changes not only your connection to literature, but your connection to the world. And I think that’s what I need right now.
Unable to return to the world of tax returns in The Pale King, I’m finally going to read Infinite Jest. I feel like I’m starting out on an epic journey. I feel like a little kid that’s packed her backpack full of sandwiches, binoculars, pieces of string, stuffed monkey, notepad and pen. I feel like I’m shouldering that backpack and going out into completely unknown world and I have no clue at all what awaits me (except a slight inkling of 30-page footnotes). I know that there will be an element of endurance, and of persistence. But we all know that it’s the most difficult things that are the most rewarding. There’s something exciting and terrifying about approaching a book like Infinite Jest, of embarking and knowing that when you return things will be every-so-slightly different.
Last night I pulled Infinite Jest from our bookshelf. The paperback version, not the 1st edition signed hard back that D would divorce me for reading. It’s a weighty thing, weighs more than my Macbook Air. I got two magnetic owl bookmarks, one for my place in the body of the book, one for the footnotes. I got into bed, the two bookmarks clipped over the cover, and sat there, staring at it, fanning the yellowing pages and inhaling the old book smell. Then I fell asleep.
This morning, I got up, clutching the book, and went to pack my bag to go away for the week to work at a client’s office. I couldn’t actually fit the book into my bag along with my laptop, so I had to ditch the lovely object and buy Infinite Jest for my iPad instead. In some ways, I feel like I’ve already betrayed the book, but in others I’m relieved to avoid the aching wrists, and constant awareness of just how many of the 1000+ pages I’ve got to go.
Off I go on my Infinite Adventure. I’m pretty excited about it. I’ll be blogging about the book over the next few months – hopefully blog posts of joy, and not blog posts of defeat. I think, though, that this book will be very much with me during 2013.
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