INFINITE JEST Readalong! #InfiniTC
EDITED AGAIN! NEW SCHEDULE! Honestly, I cannot figure how the original InfSummers got their page breaks for the original InfSum schedule. I’m doing page breaks that make sense to me. Chapters in Infinite Jest are marked with little moon-lookin’ things. I’m almost always able to end a week’s reading at a chapter break. Where I can’t, I’ve at least done it at a section break. I can’t give you percentages or Location, though I do list text to search for. Kindle or E-reader people, let me know if you need more, or can offer help to others.
I just finished Ulysses, and now it’s on to the next book, which is David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, yet another big book by a dead white male that many start but do not finish.
A few years ago, I read along with the group for the first Infinite Summer, and not only finished the book, but enjoyed the heck out of it, so I’m here to lead a round this summer. I highly recommend the group read, which is why I’m leading it here. I have a number of friends in the Twin Cities who say they’re up for the challenge, but everyone can read along. We’ll be tweeting with the hashtag #InfiniTC.
We start now, around the summer solstice and finish around the autumn equinox. Your assignment, should you choose to accept, is to start reading now and complete the first 63 pages by next Tuesday, when I’ll blog and tweet about them.
I cannot tell you how long I worked at trying to format a readable schedule, but me and tabs and this blog were not able to come to an agreement, so I hope the format below works for everyone. I really wanted to include the little moon-lookin’ thingies, but alas, it was not meant to be. I’ll include it as an image, instead.
Infinite Summer 2015
Tu 6-23 discuss and tweet to 63. Stop at: AS OF Y.D.A.U. “The Enfield Tennis Academy has been in accredited”
Tu 6-30 discuss and tweet to 127. Stop at: “An oiled guru sits in yogic full lotus”
Tu 7-7 discuss and tweet to 181. Stop at: LATE OCTOBER Y.D.A.U. “Open me anothowone”
Tu 7-14 discuss and tweet to 258. Stop at: 6 NOVEMBER Y.D.A.U. “White halogen off the green”
Tu 7-21 discuss and tweet to 321. Stop at: 8 NOVEMBER Y.D.A.U. INTERDEPENDENCE DAY GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
Tu 7-28 discuss and tweet to 398. Stop at: “FREAK STATUE OF LIBERTY ACCIDENT”
Tu 8-04 discuss and tweet to 489. Stop at: PRE-DAWN. 1 MAY Y.D.A.U. OUTCROPPING
Tu 8-11 discuss and tweet to 538. Stop at: “It is starting to get quietly around Ennet”
Tu 8-18 discuss and tweet to 619. Stop at: “Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment: Interlace TelEntertainment, 932/1864”
Tu 8-25 discuss and tweet to 686. Stop at: 11 NOVEMBER Y.D.A.U. “First thing after supper”
Tu 9-1 discuss and tweet to 755. Stop at: 11 NOVEMBER Y.D.A.U. “Part of Mario’s footage”
Tu 9-8 discuss and tweet to 808. Stop at: “The ceiling was breathing”
Tu 9-15 discuss and tweet to 896. Stop at: “I was going to go back up”
Tu 9-22 discuss and tweet to 981. THE END!
At the end of each specified day, you should be at or past the given page number or location. The schedule denotes the Spoiler Line for any given day. For instance, on July 7th please confine your discussion to only those events that transpire on page 181 of the novel and earlier. The Spoiler Line will hold both on the posts here and on Twitter. If you find yourself ahead of the pack and eager to chat with like-minded overachievers, or if you’re already read Infinite Jest and wish to talk about the novel in its entirety, please do so privately.
A note about the endnotes: The above schedule does not take the endnotes into account. And as some endnotes are long (like, 18 pages worth of long), that means the actual amount of weekly reading will vary. But, you know, it’s like agreeing to always divide the check up evenly when dining with friends: you may have to chip in a bit more occasionally, but it’s better than haggling over the math.
A note about editions: As it turns out, all (physical) edition of Infinite Jest have 981 pages: the one from 1996, the one from 2004, the paperback, the hardcover, etc. A big thank you to the men and women in the publishing industry who were kind and/or lazy enough to keep things consistent.
It looks like there is a group on Reddit reading as well, link here. There’s a group in Reno that has a Tumblr for Infinite Reno, and is on Twitter as well, @infinitereno.There’s a group at Infinite Summer 2015 who started before we did. We have a good excuse though. WE HAD TO FINISH ULYSSES.
June 17th, 2015 at 8:45 pm
Thanks for the percentages! They will be very helpful with the electronic version.
June 18th, 2015 at 10:00 am
I would potentially be interested in participating (from afar—I’m currently in Mexico!), but had a question about the percentages: do they take into account the introduction to the ebook? I’ve played with my typeset sizes and can’t get my ebook to 981 pages, so will have to go by percentages instead. If the page counts end alongside chapters, it would be useful to know that so I could use that as a guide.
June 20th, 2015 at 11:02 am
Yay, Steph, it will be fun to read with you! I will get the e-info from the original Infinite Summer site and edit this post to include. Steph and David, are you reading on Kindle, with Kindle on Ipad, or other?
June 22nd, 2015 at 11:28 am
I’m on a Kindle
June 22nd, 2015 at 5:59 pm
I found it great doing a search for the text thanks for that!