Peggy’s Comments (group member since Jun 22, 2016)

Peggy’s comments from the Infinite Jest: First timer group.

Just finished IJ yesterday. Took me 6 months. Have never read anything like it nor do I think I ever will again. Most amazing book ever. So much so that because it ended so abruptly I'm going to start to read it all over again. Some things that helped me get the most out of my first read:

*go slow...no more than 10-20 pages or so a day so you absorb.

*I read the book on my kindle as the hard copy was too unwieldy to read comfortably, but I kept the hard copy next to me as I read so I could jump to the footnotes (can't do that on my old kindle)

*DO read the footnotes. There's a lot of arcane stuff in there but also some very important detail.

*I also kept the IJ wiki page open on my iphone open as I read so that I could double check characters, especially students at the ETA and the residents of Ennet House. Hard to keep them all straight.

*Avoid spoilers at all costs, especially discussions of the ending. It will ruin the book for you. Try your best to piece it together on your own. I was surprised how much sense I was able to make of things on my own without any outside help.

*Read carefully and slowing and watch for clues. DFW sticks very important little tidbits here and there and if you're not careful you'll miss them. I'm sure I'll find many of these on my 2nd read that I missed on my first.

*Savor and enjoy. What a book. I'm so very sad today knowing that DFW isn't around to give us another like this.