In The Infinite Jest

My life started falling apart. I started reading a 1079 page book. 

[intheinfinitejest]

Saturday. Day 105, pages 972-981 (END)

I just finished The Book. Infinite Jest. I felt as though I needed a ceremony to the thing so I went to my favorite coffee shop, got my favorite drink, and settled in for the last 9 pages. I have so much to say about the actual book, I may have to save that for another post. For now, I’m just surprised that it ended on a pain-induced hallucination/flashback. Or rather, didn’t end. There were no conclusions, no climaxes, just more story. There could be another 1000 pages to this book and I wouldn’t be satisfied. Now onto some literary criticism. I need a moment to process.

Favorite Lines:

Page 974 “His bones felt full of busted glass.”

Page 980 “The very air of the room bulged. It ballooned.”

Page 980 “His legs were, like: opting out.”

Page 981 “It was obscenely pleasant.”

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Friday. Day 104, no pages

Why are feet smellier than the rest of the body? How do they cut rings off of fingers? Does my cat like me? Does my cat think I’m a cat? Is sleeping with my phone next to my head bad for me? Will I always think myself 10 years ago is a stranger? Why did purses evolve to be a women’s accessory? What is that bump on the roof of my mouth? Are allergies a sign of weakness? Why are people always wearing jumpsuits in the future? Why doesn’t your belly button get fat with you? What is your belly button attached to on the inside? Is my deodorant killing me? Could I sell my old clothes for money? Is “start” a family a weird phrase? Should it be “expand” or “continue” a family? Why are red heads from such a small area? If all potatoes are clones, how do you not clone a potato? Is renters insurance really worth it? How casual can I get away with dressing at work? Why do toiletries cost to much? Is expensive lotion going to make me look better? What is collagen?

[intheinfinitejest]

Thursday. Day 103, no pages

I have less than 10 pages left and I’m not reading them until Saturday. For some reason I don’t want to just read the last page, close the book, turn my light out and go to sleep. Frankly, I want the environment to match the occasion. It should be momentous.

[intheinfinitejest]

Wednesday, Day 102, pages 958-972

Something that just made me chuckle was imagining David Foster Wallace picking out the cover art for Infinite Jest. What is that process like? Does anyone know? Do the publishers come to the author with proposals and the author approves? Did DFW just say “yeah whatever I don’t care, blue? green? a cloud? I don’t have time for this. I’ll see it when you print it.”  That feels right. On the other hand, he could have had anxiety about this cover for months.

Favorite Lines:

Page 965 “There were fart-accusations and -denials.”

Page 967 “Wagenknecht apparently really did fart.”

[intheinfinitejest]

Tuesday. Day 101, pages 950-958

I have one favorite line today. And it describes not only me on a micro level, but me on a macro level. And not only me, but everything.

Favorite Lines:

Page 957 “I decided to get up but then did not in fact get up.”

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Monday. Day 100, pages 941-950

It’s day 100 and only 40 more pages to go. The appeal of finishing it in exactly 100 days had me think I might marathon it to the end today. But then I didn’t. Because whatever that urge is, is the same one that makes me separate my m&ms into pairs by color and always eat two of the same color at once. And that urge is meaningless. And I also don’t want this book to end. Ever.

Favorite Lines:

Page 947 “Cars were shown abandoned at hasty angled, and we got to see the universal white VW-Bug-shape of snow-buried cars.”

Page 947 “Pedestrians were shown bent over and floundering; remote-report journalists were shown trying to flounder over to them to get their thoughts and reflections. One floundering reporter in Quincy on the South Shore abruptly disappeared from view except for a hand with a microphone protruding bravely from some sort of sinkhole of snow; the bent back of technicians were then shown floundering away from the remote cameras to his aid.”

Page 950 “I was trying to align myself along some sort of grain in the world I could barely feel, since Pemulis and I stopped.”

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Sunday. Day 99, pages 914-941

I woke up before everyone else at the airbnb and read Infinite Jest by the pool. The day started out lovely. Then my remarkable ability to swing between emotions showcased itself in full regalia. By 5:00, I was back home feeling like I wanted to fall into a leisurely 3 month coma. I rallied, made it to a work mixer I needed to attend, drank some free booze, and returned home feeling pretty great. My emotions on a typical day average out to be pretty unremarkable, only because my peaks and valleys are at the rate of an erratic heart monitor.

Favorite Lines:

Page 934 “His fever is way worse, and his little snatches of dream have a dismantled cubist aspect he associates in memory with childhood flu.”

[intheinfinitejest]

Saturday. Day 98, pages 906-914

Beautiful 12 mile hike followed by burgers, football, and hard cider by the pool. Would that every Saturday were like this.

Favorite Lines:

Page 907 “A noteworthy thing turned out to be that the mound of earth on a freshly-filled grave seems airy and risen and plump, like dough.”

[intheinfinitejest]

Friday, Day 97, pages 903-906

An oft overlooked key to happiness is surrounding yourself with people who plan things. I rarely get my act together enough to get other people’s acts together. But when everyone does get together, I’m so excited and wish it would happen more often.

I left today for a weekend hiking trip. Drove with a friend (a planner) a couple hours outside of the city after work and met up at an airbnb with six other people. I got really into hiking last year and did quite a bit of it, small 11 mile / 10,500 ft hikes… a couple 18 mile / 11,500 ft hikes... and then a failed attempt at a 23 mile / 14,500 ft hike. I’ve been itching to do more of it this year, but see above re: planning. This hike is a small one, 12 miles 10,800 ft, but pretty. I love being outdoors. And of course I brought Infinite Jest with me. As I settled into the top bunk of a bed, in what frankly seemed to be a former halfway home and/or orphanage, I read myself to sleep.

Favorite Lines:

Page 904 “Quaaludes and 16-oz. Hefenreffers awakened Gately and his new droogs to the usually-dormant-but-apparently-ever-lurking ill will of innocent-seeming public sidewalks everywhere. You didn’t have to be brainy Trent Kite to figure out the equation (Quaaludes) + (not even that many beers) = getting whapped by the nearest sidewalk…”

[intheinfinitejest]

Thursday, Day 96, pages 898-903

Remember when you realized you could quit something? That ecstasy of freedom? The wind blowing through your hair as you run wildly away from the constraints of a whatever you don’t want? Basking in the realization that if you don’t want it, that’s reason enough to quit? Backing out of social engagements is like reliving a peanut sized version of that. And god, I love it.

Favorite Lines:

Page 900 “It now lately sometimes seemed like a kind of black miracle to me that people could actually care deeply about a subject or pursuit, and could go on caring this way for years on end. Could dedicate their entire lives to it. It seemed admirable and at the same time pathetic. We are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe. God or Satan, politics or grammar, topology or philately— the object seemed incidental to this will to give oneself away, utterly. To games or needles, to some other person. Something pathetic about it. A flight-from in the form of a plunging-into.”

Page 900 “…just the thought of getting up made me glad I was lying on the floor.”

[intheinfinitejest]

Wednesday, Day 95, pages 892-898

I’m realizing that it’s perhaps a bad sign that I’m embarrassed to write on here that I’m talking to my ex again. Current mindset illustrated below by a mosquito’s inner dialogue:

MOSQUITO: “Ugh, there’s that light again, always trying to lure us in and kill us. So over it.” MOSQUITO: (Damn, that light tho) MOSQUITO: “It’s so bright, like could it be any more bright? So fake.” MOSQUITO: (OMG so bright, shiny, I think I love it!) MOSQUITO: “I’m going to be cautious and save myself and fly over here. I’m so above this.” MOSQUITO: (Oh, I’m definitely 100 percent buying what this light is selling, I wish I could fly faster towards it! I hope I can get there fast enough—) **ZAP**

Favorite Lines:

Page 896 “The world seemed suddenly almost edible, there for the ingesting.”

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Tuesday. Day 94, pages 883-892

I’m so close to finishing this ecstasy of a tome now, and I’m torn between wanting to slow down- extend the last hundred pages over as long as possible, and looking forward to re-reading it. I’ve never been anxious to start over before I’ve even reached the end.

I’ve also never measured the progress in my life by the duration of a book. I’ll be done reading this book soon. Is my life still falling apart?

Favorite Lines:

Page 885 “His nose is large and cucumber-shaped and wide-pored, and pretty much its whole circulatory system is visible.”

[intheinfinitejest]

Monday. Day 93, pages 874-883

Not many favorite lines today, but there was a whole portion that’s a transcript of a meeting where someone goes into an epileptic fit every time they’re embarrassed, including when someone shows concern re: their epileptic fit. DFW’s mastery of the absurd is brilliant.

Favorite Lines:

Page 876 “I looked sketchy and faint to myself, tentative and ghostly against all that blazing white.”

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Sunday, Day 92, pages 843-874

Sometimes I feel like I’m 1/3 of the way through with my life and all I’ve learned to do is burn shit to the ground.  Is making your own bed and uncomfortably laying in it a life skill? If so, I’ve got that one down pat.

Favorite Lines:

Page 850 “…of a total female angel, not sexy so much as angelic, like all the world’s light had gotten together and arranged itself into the shape of a face.”

Page 864 “I could hear faint sounds of early-morning weeping in certain rooms beyond my line of sight. Lots of the top players start the A.M. with a quick fit of crying, then are basically hale and well-wrapped for the rest of the day.”

Page 865 “…C.T.’s forehead a washboard and lips moving soundless as he brainstormed his way toward a state of Total Worry.”

Page 868 “I hadn’t noticed before that he had an odd little teardrop of extra flesh low down on his right jowl, like a bit of skin with mole-aspirations.”

[intheinfinitejest]

Saturday, Day 91, pages 836-843

I wish humans would embrace their chimp side more freely. And not because I have some grand dream for humans to embrace their roots and become more free. But because of one major facet of life. Grooming. I think it should be one hundred percent acceptable to go up to someone and pick at them. Especially people you care about. I have a dream where the intimacy of grooming isn’t relegated to nail salons and spas, but is practiced— and celebrated— openly. I want people to brush my hair and pluck my eyebrows and pick at my nails. And I want to return the favor. An expression of love through grooming.  Take a good look around the next time you’re at a nail salon and tell me that’s not what we’re all yearning for.

Favorite Lines:

Page 837 “Are they words if they’re only in your head, though?”

Page 841 “The intensifying rose-colors behind Gately’s closed lids are from the hospital room lightening as the light outside the window gets licoricey and pre-dawn.”

[intheinfinitejest]

Friday, Day 90, pages 831-836

Tonight I saw a comedy show called “Tonya Harding: The Musical.” So much fun, I wish I had written it. Maybe I’ll do “Randy Lenz: On Ice!”  There’s an Infinite Jest joke for ya.

Favorite Lines:

Page 831 “He normally couldn’t ever get Ewell or Dy to sit down for any kind of real or honest mutual sharing, and now that he’s totally mute and inert and passive all of a sudden everybody seems to view him as a sympathetic ear, or not even a sympathetic real ear, more like a wooden carving or statue of an ear. An empty confessional booth. Don G. as huge empty confessional booth.”

Page 833 “It’s like being strangled somewhere deeper inside you than your neck.”

Page 385 “i.e. it wasn’t just the crafted imitation of aural chaos: it was real life’s real egalitarian babble of figurantless crowds, of the animate world’s real agora, the babble of crowds every member of which was the central and articulate protagonist of his own entertainment.”

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Thursday. Day 89, pages 827-831

There are certain situations where I feel I’ve reverted back into a child. Oddly enough, the older I get, the more frequently they occur.  Maybe this is why Benjamin Button-esque stories are so popular. We’re all mentally aging in reverse. There are so many times I think, goddamn when I was 12 I was so GOOD at life.

Favorite Lines:

Page 828 “But his right side hurts so bad he can barely hear. It’s gone from a fiery pain to cold dead deep tight pain with a queer flavor of emotional loss to it.”

Page 828 “It seems like Don G.’s gotten way more popular as somebody to talk to since he’s become effectively paralyzed and mute.”

Page 830 “The city’s aggregate nighttime lights lightened the sky through the room’s