So yeah, I decided to participate in Infinite Summer. For those of you not in the know (and too lazy to click on the link), some people on the internets are all reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace at the same time. It has a bunch of pages – I’d give you the exact number but I’m too lazy to go grab the book. It has at least 1000 pages and extensive footnotes.
I’ll be the first to admit, I like light reading. I read a lot of fiction and a variety of fiction – chick lit, Stephen King, Nora Roberts*, etc. I don’t want to put a lot of effort into my reading. This was especially true when I was working on my dissertation. I needed something to keep my brain busy, but not tax it.
Well let me tell you, this book ain’t easy. The narrative is hard to follow, there are tons of run-on sentences, and he uses big words (to the extent that someone had to make a dictionary). The Infinite Summer blog says to trust DFW, to stick with it, and I’m trying. There have been moments in the book where I’ve laughed out loud, which I rarely do when reading. But for the most part, it’s just hard (and I skipped the footnote that was 8 pages long).
So why am I doing it? I don’t know. But I’m going to try to stick with it.
It may truly feel like an infinite summer.
* I read her until I worked at Books-a-Million and realized she was classified as “Romance.” That’s where I draw the line.
