Infinite Jest -Vimal,Psmith [and....Manju after finishing with Storm of Swords]

[Srividya]

When are you people starting this mammoth?

All the best! :)

[Vimal]

Yeah right. Even the character names r quite weird n uncommon.. Harold incandenza, Aubrey Charles delint, Maury klamkin,Erdedy etc..And looks like there r scores of them in the book.. Designed with some vicious purpose.. I never jot down character names n stuff, but for this one, I think I have to

[Vimal]

Srividya wrote: "When are you people starting this mammoth?

All the best! :)"

Thank you! A mammoth in the very sense of the word.

[Ahtims]

We will go slow and steady, Srividya. I am quite wary of Wallace.

[Srividya]

BookSmith wrote: "We will go slow and steady, Srividya. I am quite wary of Wallace."

You say that now and in a blink of an eye, I will see that you have finished! :P

[Ahtims]

Yeah. 199 envying 61 -_-

[Vimal]

Good God, this is post-modern.My head is reeling.I reached the fifth chapter, and not one chapter has any connection with the others. To add insult to injury, the usual inter-chapter disconnectivity is compounded by intra-chapter disconnectivity.These post-modern authors may be geniuses, but are authentic sadists too.

[Ahtims]

Join the bewildered gang :P
But it starts making sense later, especially if you start reading the guide alongside.

[Ahtims]

The author had depression and committed suicide
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/boo...

[Vimal]

To me, reading the guide without completing the book once will rob whatever little pleasure that can be gleaned out of connecting the dots ourselves. So I want to complete(?!?!?!?!)the book first, connect a few dots, and then take the guide.

[Vimal]

Yes wikipedia says he was already fighting depression at the time he had written this book. He succumbed to depression eventually.

[Vimal]

How many chapters did you complete during your last attempt Smitha? Did you read the guide alongside?

[Vimal]

But this guy has got a real prowess with vertigo-inducing prose.Only a handful of authors can come anywhere close.

'That your quote-unquote "complimentary" Dunlop widebody tennis racquets' super-secret-formulaic composition materials of high-modulus-graphite-reinforced polycarbonate polybutylene resin are organochemically identical I say again identical to the gyroscopic balance sensor and mise-en-scène appropriation card and priapistic-entertainment cartridge implanted in your very own towering father's anaplastic cerebrum after his cruel series of detoxifications and convolution-smoothings and gastrectomy and prostatectomy and pancreatectomy and phalluctomy'

[Ahtims]

I read the guide alongside. Remember stopping somewhere around 139 pages or so. I read 3 times without guide, giving up at around 90. The 4th time was when this thread was created, and I was advised to use the guide. It made things much easier. Last time I stopped not because I got bored but life became too hectic and I wanted something light to read.

[Ahtims]

Yes, almost poetical nonsensical descriptions. I used to wonder whether he wrote under the influence of some CNS stimulating drugs. :P

[Vimal]

Yeah, for all its complexity it hasn't been boring so far.

[Vimal]

I had paused it after 5 chapters. Resuming again today.
Manju, Smitha.. Come on start soon :) Short sentences like the below are waiting for you

E.T.A. is laid out as a cardioid, with the four main inward-facing bldgs, convexly rounded at the back and sides to yield a cardioid's curve, with the tennis courts and pavilions at the center and the staff and students' parking lots in back of Comm.-Ad. forming the little bashed-in dent that from the air gives the whole facility the Valentine-heart aspect that still wouldn't have been truly cardioid if the buildings themselves didn't have their convex bulges all derived from arcs of the same r, a staggering feat given the uneven ground and wildly different electrical-and-plumbing-conduit wallspace required by dormitories, administrative offices, and polyresinous Lung, pull-offable probably by on the whole East Coast one guy, E.T.A.'s original architect, Avril's old and very dear friend, the topology world's closed-curve-mapping-Übermensch A.Y. ('Vector-Field') Rickey of Brandeis U., now deceased, who used to wow Hal and Mario in Weston by taking off his vest without removing his suit jacket, which M. Pemulis years later exposed as a cheap parlor-trick-exploitation of certain basic features of continuous functions, which revelation Hal mourned in a Santa's-not-real type of secret way, and which Mario simply ignored, preferring to see the vest thing as plain magic.

[Ahtims]

Lol, Vimal. Don't scare off Manju. As I am a veteran Jester, I know what to expect. :P
Shall start today itself. :)

[Em Lost In Books, EmLo is my Name, PIFM is my Game]

Vimal, I will start this next week. :)

this is one of the biggest sentence that I have ever read...

[Vimal]

@Smitha, should I even scare her?.. She just has to read 1 page, she'll automatically know what lays ahead :)

@Manju, yeah please.. There is a reason we did not want to read this book alone :)

[Em Lost In Books, EmLo is my Name, PIFM is my Game]

Vimal wrote: "@Smitha, should I even scare her?.. She just has to read 1 page, she'll automatically know what lays ahead :)

@Manju, yeah please.. There is a reason we did not want to read this book alone :)"

now you are scaring me.:P

[Vimal]

@Smitha.. By clicking a red square box with a number in white inside, which lay almost tangential to the grey circle with a white g inside, both of which lay towards the upper right portion of my goodreads homepage, I was led to a series of jests by you on what is supposed to be the general Cozy reads thread of Indian Readers group, which I'm assuming that you assumed was our Infinite Jest Cozy read thread, which, deserted as it has been for the last week or so,except for a few occasional visits by a forlorn soul who just wanted to make sure he isn't missing notifications of renewed jests, and seeing those misplaced jests on the general Cozy Reads thread, I could see what David Foster Wallace has done to you, by saying which I'm assuming that you weren't led to it by LSD or Psylocibin or MDMA or methedrin or gamma-hydroxy butyric acid or the like.

[Ahtims]

uff. ..jest has mauled up my mind.
Shall repost in proper thread once home.
:) ;)

[Ahtims]

Don't worry, the universal entertainment hasn't tainted this soul *as of now

[Ahtims]

started at last.
page 119.
Sitting with Marathe, (sounds maharashtrian ) contemplating sunset in a companionable silence.

Bròckengesprenf indeed!!!!!!!

stopped at page 130. Now am reading the guide, which actually works like a preamble, once you have a genera idea what the book is about. It is opening my mind to the seemingly unimportant details, which actually are significant.

These were the pearls I posted in a different thread [by mistake, of course :P]

[Vimal]

I'm happy that I somehow crossed the difficult opening pages(100 is the number for a tome like IJ).I'm getting a hang of it now.Shunning the guide as planned, and occassionaly referring to end notes, which sometimes feels better left alone too.

[Ahtims]

Vimal, don't call me spoilsport, but for IJ, the Waterloo is somewhere around page 230-240. I have heard that if you cross 250, then you are really into it.

I am doing the opposite thing - totally relying on the Companion [it's named Companion, not Guide :P], and always referring the End Notes.

[Vimal]

No spoilsport that. I've come to expect that Every other page of someone like DFW. Just that the writing seemed to mellow down a bit after 100 pages. I could pass through the videophone telephony, Marlon Brando mocking, and the tennis advice sections with relative ease.I particularly liked the tennis advice from dad section, which was so effusive and moving. Unbelievable articulation of pain.

[Ahtims]

And now you have started 'speaking' rather writing like DFW himself. :P
I am thoroughly enjoying the Companion and correlating the explanation with whatever I read so far.
I have come to know the chronological order of the various years like Year of Glad, year of the trial sized dove bar etc. The idea behind is ingenious. I really would have loved to know DFW's IQ.
This is a brilliant piece of work, and I have never seen anything else which parallels this.

[Vimal]

Lol, What I tried doesn't even come close to him. He reminded me that grammar was something man-made after all, and could be bent to one's Will.

[Vimal]

Yeah the year names are intriguing. I haven't figured them out. Will check the companion for that if I don't figure it out until the end.Surely want to know what he means by the Year of the depend adult undergarment :)

[Ahtims]

adult diapers.
Advertising agencies buy each year for their products.
like Chinese year of the rat etc

[Ahtims]

This highlights the extreme commercialisation of modern America

[Vimal]

Wow that's ingenious. As usual once known it seems guessable now.
He does lambast commercialization in several sectors.
The video telephony section and the justifying seed sections were hilarious.

[Ahtims]

Yes. It is sarcasm from page 1. An ingenious book. If I complete this one, I will set my sight at Catch -22, my Waterloo.

[Vimal]

Haven't read catch 22 yet, may be I'll join. But surely only atleast 2 months after completing something as insane as IJ :)

[Ahtims]

May need more than 2 months gap. It's that insane. :-)

[Ahtims]

At 40% of the Companion book, I am now well versed with the characters, themes and other trivia related to the Infinite Jest. Eager to tackle the book, but am restraining myself as I have been hasty in the past, and had to shelf to it for atleast 3 times.
'Infinite Jest' is actually the name of the lethal entertainment program which keeps the viewers engrossed till they waste away and die, as they are incapable of removing their attention from the screen once the program starts. It can go on and on for ever, and no one is spared .

[Ahtims]

The title Infinite Jest is apparently a phrase from Hamlet's address to the skull of Yorick, which haunts him.
I haven't read unabridged Hamlet, so no idea. :-/

[Vimal]

Oh then did the medical attaché die seeing Infinite jest? If so how did it kill him

[Ahtims]

whoever starts watching it don't do anything else. It keeps on re running and the audience keeps on watching till they die of thirst, hunger and wasting away. Hence the name "infinite"

[Vimal]

Hmmm.. Is this directly related to Quebec extremism.. It's anti-English, but why did they kill an Arab. That theme is fully shrouded, no clue yet. That desert conversation between the 2 extremists was more confusing than revealing

[Ahtims]

The desert conversation is confusing.
The man in lady garb Steepley is American officer whereas other person is Wheel chair assassin group of Quebec.

[Ahtims]

Both are in search of the master disc of infinite jest which JOI supposedly burnt on his funeral pyre. Queen rebels to circulate it among American public and kill them, the others to prevent

[Vimal]

Cool. I guess this entire extremism to kill Americans is invented for this book. Can't see the motive through what I read in the internet about Canadian extremists.

[Ahtims]

I had stoppers at the desert scene between Steepley and wheelchair assassin.
I will proceed after finishing companion which is almost half way through

[Ahtims]

Somewhere around 52% of A Reader's Companion to Infinite Jest, the explanations stop and chapter summaries start. I reached upto page 109 chapter summary. Now I am proceeding with the book, as reading the chapter summary without reading the chapter first would be detrimental.

[Vimal]

Had paused since Saturday. Will read the companion today.

[Ahtims]

Good. Storm of swords is surging ahead. I am able to devout only a few minutes to Jest nowadays.

[Vimal]

I've been wanting to read the companion everyday for the last 4 days, but still I've got to only at about 4% of it, which I guess is because several threads have started to unravel in the original itself after page 210.And the writing has got more clearer and classy in a different way. I have never ever read anything like the poor Tony chapter before. I'm abjectly out of words to classify what kind of writing that is.