Skip to main content

Infinite Jest

Started this 1000 page book on recommendation of Steve R.  A little wary--does anyone have 1000 pages worth to say?  But I'm seeing this as a 10 page a day read.

Can't quite tell what I'm in for.

YEAR OF GLAD: Felt like a short story. Tennis player, top-notch, at U of A meeting regarding athletic scholarship.  He says nothing but sees everything.  Very funny at times: He's appalled that one of the U of A people uses whomsoever as a subject, for example. Kid is silent, Uncle speaks for him.  They send Uncle out of room and try to speak directly to the boy.  He apparently explodes in some guttural, terrifying language. They wrestle him to the ground and out of the room.

 Liked it a lot. Great observation of details, of thinking, of group dynamics.  "Making it strange." A very typical meeting with the lens just a little out of typical focus and all the craziness is exposed.  The boy's craziness becomes a kind of sanity.

Also, great descriptions that aren't out of kilter. Mom trying to run a rototiller, for example. p 10

YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT

Seems to be completely divorced from Chapter? One.

This story is about a guy--heavy marijuana user--waiting for a major delivery.  We go through all his self-deceptions, his ruses with other people, his panic.  Great series of observations of a bug coming out of a grate, disappearing, coming back. Much like him.

Wonderful moments:  "His refrigerator made its own ice in little cloudy crescent blocks."  . . . flipping movie cartridges on TV because he's afraid the next cartridge might be better than what he's watching . . .

didn't like the ending of this one.  Phone and doorbell ring at same time.  He's splayed--unable to decide which to go to so unable to answer either. Too literary/symbolic for me. Liked everything else.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Puppy, Story by George Saunders

PUPPY  Dysfunctional family has puppy that they need to get rid of.  Mom places ad; family is coming over. Description of family.   Mom:  husband changed from long-haired attractive to stooped old man. Husband: talks constantly of living on a farm and doing what needs to be done, though he never lived on a farm.   Conversations together:   Sell and move to Arizona, get hooked on phonics for kids, buying a car wash. . . wonderful randomness. Straight-laced suburbanite comes to look at puppy.  Seems like she will buy it, even though she is repelled by house.  (Dog turds on carpet, filthy.) She is proud of how accepting she is until she looks out window and sees white trash's son tied by harness to a tree.  Reader knows he is a menace to himself, darting across I-90, for example.  Suburban mother beats hasty retreat, leaving dog to be (probably) drowned by dad who does what has to be done.   Suburbanite remembers her own pathetic ch...
Post a Comment
Read more

Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler

Bryant & May--Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery, Book 1 Lots that I liked.  Crime novel that is also historical fiction.  Fowler gives insight into London during the blitz.  Danger from street cars, some looting during blackout, stiff upper lip British still going to theaters, etc.  Fowler also takes reader backstage into the workings of a theater.  I learned a lot about the physical complexity of a major theater--production is a tremendous production.  I liked both the main characters.  Bryant, the eccentric loner who thinks out of the box. May, the more traditional "bright" guy, who is able to appreciate Bryant and help by keeping him in the real world, a little. Plot revolves around murders committed while cast rehearses and then performs Offenbach's scandalous version of Orpheus and Eurydice.  The murders are on the gruesome-detail side given the general British coolness of the rest of the text.  Spoiler coming.  The denouement wa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Napoleon, Ch 18 Blockades

"The first qualification of a soldier is fortitude. . . . Courage is only the second." Conquers cities of present day Germany. Spandau, Berlin, etc. Shortage of men in France . . . Russians next, but his mind is on Britain. He wants to use trade sanctions to force Britain to its knees, but this doesn't work either. French (and others in empire) need to trade with Brits. Smuggling results.  Also, unintended consequences crop up. Example is shoes:  Napoleon requires 200,000 pairs of shoes from Hamburg.  Hamburg can't supply these to Napoleon, so they buy what they can't produce from Brits. So much for the sanctions!  British are supplying uniforms and shoes for Napoleon, and making $$$. . . . Continues after the Russians in December 1806. . . has to withdraw, 40% of his army out of commission.  Horrible battle with Russians, thousands killed. Napoleon in tears . . . dire moment, Napoleon orders full out cavalry attack . . . Eylau a massacre without any result . ...
Post a Comment
Read more