Saturday, June 27, 2009

Infinite Pages

I've decided to participate in Infinite Summer, a project in which people are committing to tackling David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest as their summer reading project. And hoo boy, it is hefty. The book clocks in at 1,079 pages, so it's no light summer beach read. I figure if I can conquer Remembrance of Things Past, I can do anything right?

(Remembrance of Things Past is over 3,000 pages long. And yes, it takes 3 books to house the entire novel. I did NOT read it voluntarily. It was the book for my Senior Lit Seminar during my undergrad studies. And I read every last page of that puppy. It was like a badge of honor. Except that I have managed to LOSE the books. Can you believe that? I guess that's what I get for moving every year for six years, but still. Marcel Proust haunts me, the least I could do is have his mammoth book(s) in my house.)

As for Infinite Summer, there aren't really rules. There are page guidelines every week so that the guides and forum posters can write about the novel so far. On Monday, we are supposed to be at page 94. I am currently on page 14. I'm hoping I can squeeze 80 pages in tomorrow while Alex and Jack* are off playing golf/hanging out with Grandma. I'm excited to take on a fun reading project that doesn't revolve around grad school. And I'm also excited to finally read something by DFW. I have some serious English grad guilt over not having read a single thing by him yet. So hopefully it goes well! I may or may not post my thoughts on the book here. We'll see how the project pans out, shall we? But so far, the first 14 pages have been captivating and I'm eager to delve into DFW's style, crazy footnotes and all.


*Jack is our baby's blog name. It just doesn't seem fair to use his real name when Alex and I don't use ours on our blogs. It's fitting since Jack was one of my top names on our list, but had to be thrown out because I didn't want people to think I named my son after Keifer Sutherland.

2 comments:

Mel said...

Just wanted to say, I have no idea who DFW is. So that should boost your English grad confidence. See if could be much, much worse...

Christy said...

I also have never heard of DFW, but that probably doesn't mean much. :)
I still think Jack would have been a rockin' cool real name. Maybe for baby brother? :)