anna reads IJ

whatever. I am not afraid of yetis.

She did it, she did it!

Yeah, anna! I'm one happy Sasquatch.

I'm on page 62, by the way. When I hit page 100, maybe I'll celebrate with a shot of Wild Turkey.

I had a plane trip to Cleveland and about five days there. Started reading the book on the 31st (cheating I know) because I was on a plane for several hours. It struck me right away how vignette-ish it is. And I read every word of every vignette, willing myself not to skip/skim because all of it is important. I read it in evenings and on the plane ride back yesterday.

I just got past the part where Mario listened to the Mme Psychosis show and the MIT student union was described.

I think DFW was like a sponge - everything he heard and saw in his life had almost total recall and could be re-used in IJ or other writings.

I got to page 138 and read the vignette there, which looks like an insurance claim, and I did NOT get it the first time I read it. This time I immediately recognized it as a paraphrase of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66cxc9emQgY

DUH I felt dumb I had not noticed thtis the first time.....

This a.m. I was sort of saddened (my trip to Cleveland was because one of my favorite relatives was dying. She is a first cousin once removed - my sister and she called each other "FI-COR". She died on 12/31 and we found out the next a.m. and I spent the 1st and the 3rd in her home in Wadsworth helping her husband and sister, and my mother and sister, and other friends, go through pictures to make storyboards for her memorial service) and I decided to take a small break from IJ and read some Damon Runyon short stories.

Has anyone else read these? They are all in the present tense and use lots of slang. The musical "guys and dolls" is based on them. They are supposedly about Broadway in the 20s with assorted tough guys and prostitutes with hearts of gold and stuff. Anyhow they are very funny.

The funny thing was that they sounded oddly familiar and I realized that they reminded me of the addict monologue that starts on page 128. (Is he supposed to be Gately before he goes into treatment? What do you guys think, is he another Ennet House character?) I read along and then I found that Runyon also describes faces as "maps" and remember that the addict says "eliminated such and such's map" meaning killed someone and now I am very intrigued. Do people think he consciously used a Runyonesque voice for his addict? Because I can't imagine that Boston addicts in the near future would sound anything like Runyon baddies from the 20s - in real life.

3> Keep the Wild Turkey away from the microwave... jus'sayin'...

Anna, nice to you your thread and sorry to hear about your cousin. Infinite Jest is now on my ipad for 3 weeks - so much easier to carry. I found that even after a break of about a month that I still had to reread what I had read before, but it does go a little faster. I may start a thread at some point as I no longer have a club read one, but, at the moment have nothing illuminTing about Infinite Jest.

i recently finished a book called JFK and the unspeakabe: why he died and why it matters byJames w. Douglas. it's premise is that JFJ was turning towards peace and this angered the CIA and others, so the CIA set up the assassination. If all the sources presented are valid, it is very convincing about the plot. i am now reading a couple of other books to see if what they say is in line with it..

I'm not sure why the touchstone is notcoming up. Amazon has it - published in 2008.

Solla! Thanks for dropping by! I finally got it figured out to download your book - today at work. But I have to do it at home on the Imac and then get it onto the Nook. Will try to do that tonight.

Regarding IJ - I am right now in the scene where Joelle is walking down the street thinking about various depressing things. That is I think one of the hardest to read, saddest scenes in the book.

The JFK book sounds... interesting... and a bit like the Oliver Stone movie? Did you see that?

I didn't see the stone movie, but it was referred to in the book as causing a reassessment - like a special comittee on assassinatins - which i had never even heard of until now. They actually concluded that the assassinatin was likely a product of a conspiracy. But aside from the frightening CIA aspects there was also a hopeful side of a real move to peace of both Kennedy and Khruschef along with Pope John xxiii.

I am stalled out although I did manage to finish the Joelle chapter. Joelle makes me so very sad. She is so brilliant and I want her so much to be able to fight all her demons and win.

Is that thhe chapter where she is in the bathroom, or is there a later one?

I think that's a later one. This is the one where she is walking down the street and thinking about her addiction and various other things. I think it's the first one that is narrated from inside her head.