New Reading Schedule for Infinite Jest
Here’s a proposed new reading schedule for Infinite Jest, since 70 pages a week plus endnotes is a pretty punishing pace. In this, the longest section is 63 pages (one of the complete chapters, so a good reason to read that much) while the longer chapters are split over multiple weeks, and the pages about 45-55.
For those of us ahead, it will give us some breathing room in August. For those just getting to 321, this might be easier to keep up with.
What do you think?
8/11 pp 321-379
8/18 pp 380-442
8/25 pp 442-489
9/1 pp 489-538
9/8 pp 538-575
9/15 pp 575-619
9/22 pp 619-665
9/29 pp 665-711
10/6 pp 711-755
10/13 pp 755-808
10/20 pp 809-854
10/27 pp 854-902
11/3 pp 902-941
11/10 941-981 THE END
August 6th, 2015 at 12:28 pm
I’m sorry. I thought I could swing this book over the summer..why, I don’t know. I had to quit. So, for those keeping track, I quit Ulysses and now I quit IJ. I’m not normally a quitter when it comes to reading. I let down the team!
I will keep looking at the blog, though, I get such good ideas for titles here. Good luck to the rest of the IJ readers!!
August 8th, 2015 at 3:08 pm
Revision seems welcome. Particularly for the perpetually tardy IJ reader(s). Thx for the consideration.
August 9th, 2015 at 11:45 am
Janet, no apologizing. there are great reasons these two books are some of the most abandoned–they’re difficult and long. But, I found that even beginning books and stopping makes me more likely to try again. IJ, at least, I recommend unreservedly. Ulysses was more of a mixed bag, but I’m glad I did it.
August 11th, 2015 at 10:04 am
Hey there,
Just stumbled on this blog because someone tweeted about the latest post, on the Eschaton chapter, and someone I follow RT’d it.
I’m a journalist and have written a great deal on DFW and happen to be re-reading IJ right now, just for kicks, though slowly (started 6 months ago and am 550 pages in or so, since I am reading other books at same time). Glad to find this– I’m going to try and follow along with you and jump in where I can and join the discussion. Thanks for doing this, always great to discuss IJ as a group with like-minded folks.
I also just wrote this last month, might be of interest to the readers here:
https://medium.com/just-words/the-democratization-of-david-foster-wallace-80ebc96caffb
August 12th, 2015 at 9:04 am
Welcome, Dan! I’ll check it out.