So the whole plan to blog about the entire Infinite Jest reading process clearly fell apart. Blame it on life.
But just because I haven’t been blogging doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading. In fact, I’m well ahead of schedule. I’m currently on page 434, and I only need to be on page 295 if I want to finish on time. Hooray for that!
I feel especially accomplished because my initial enjoyment for the novel faded pretty quickly. I adore Wallace as a prose stylist. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to see him deliver the 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College. I think his nonfiction is brilliant. But I’m not particularly enjoying Infinite Jest.
There are moments of stylistic brilliance, of course, and that’s what keeps me hanging on. Well, that, as well as sheer determination to finish the book, to be able to say that I read it all the way through, from first page to final endnote. And there are plot points I enjoy. Just about everything that has to do with Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House has me hooked. But the plot about the Enfield Tennis Academy bores me. I don’t know if it’s because I generally find high school boys to be uninteresting literary subjects (Lord of the Flies and The Catcher in the Rye both bore me), or because not enough is happening to sustain my interest, but those sections just don’t do it for me. Nor do the bits about international intrigue.
*shrug* Well, it’s not for everybody. At least I’ll be able to say I gave it a fair shake.
Poetry and Practice 