Completing Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

May 9th: 32 pages (845-876). 138 pages total this week.

I’ve greatly increased my reading speed by cutting out one major part of my project: page references. I will miss them. Sifting through 850+ pages of material with no physical table of contents or well-formatted epub or pdf file has made page referencing very difficult. I think it made me focus much harder on the smaller details of the text that could easily be missed. There were at least four instances where close reading and note-taking rewarded me, and now that I have allowed myself to relax with the page referencing and marking I have missed out on one instance of foreshadowing involving John Wayne and Michael Pemulis. I’m the sort of reader that likes to solve mysteries on my own before the characters do, if you haven’t noticed.

Unofrtunately, nobody in my DK30 group met at our alloted time today. Maybe next week.

May 8th: 21 pages (825-845).

Not my favorite section, but not terrible either. Cram cram cram.

May 7th: 8 pages (817-824).

More cramming for school.

May 6th: 40 pages (769-808).

NEWWW RECORDDD!

This reading binge comes as a result of a lot of built-up anxiety. Consider this day 3ish of crunch time for finals. I think once this semester is over and I stop having racing thoughts at night every night, my sleep schedule will right itself and I will actually read less.

May 5th: 29 pages (739-768).

Forget what I said about rest days… I think this is the second most pages I have read in one day since my first day, March 26th. Taking a break from obsessive external notetaking has been nice. The book has begun to focus more on plot and character action and less on backstory and internal character monologues. I think most of the big players in the story have been connected enough at this point that they can begin to interact in new, interesting ways.

May 4th: 0 pages (738-738).

Another rest day. I worry that this will become a common theme until I can get my schoolwork thoroughly under control before finals. It’s a shame I haven’t had the energy to pick this book up, but I’m putting my grades first this week. I won’t let myself get down if I take a few days to sort everything out for school before getting back into my project.

May 3rd: 9 pages (738-738).

Today I finally got around to reading the much-anticipated endnote 304, which has been referenced several times throughout the text. I chose not to read it because I wanted to follow the natural ‘flow’ of Infinite Jest without having some information that seems to jump ahead in terms of reader knowledge up to that point. When I first ran into the out-of-place endnote 304 references, I could only speculate on why I was supposed to be flipping so far ahead (almost 200 endnotes ahead) in the story, to an endnote that is actually traced back to page 732, paragraph 8.

The backstory is told through a terribly stuffy and effete academic paper, being read by one of the side-characters, a teenager who hates dense literature. As you read along with him, the text becomes a self-parody of academia. Having a character react along with you to the paper’s high-brow vocabulary and sentence structure is very satisfying, after over 700 pages of the stuff.

May 2nd: 21 pages (717-738). 116 total pages this week.

Today was the first day of Daikon-Assorted’s weekly meetings. 3 members were present: Ice, Ula, and myself. We first thought the meeting would take 30 minutes, and we ended up using our entire hour. I think we all got something positive out of the meeting, and it was a pleasure to meet everyone involved.

My main takeaway is that viewing this project as primarily a project rather than a leisure activity could cause fatigue. This is particularly true during finals week. Once my studies are concluded on the 15th, I will have all the time in the world to read. Until then, I will be treating reading as an escape rather than as a checkbox on a list. I will be toning down the margin notes and page-skimming and note-taking for a while, but I expect to read about the same amount as long as my sleep schedule is messed up.

May 1st: read 18 pages (698-716).

The other day, I read a post by Discord user Warpas that I thought was particularly poignant and applicable to the DK30 event. The post went something like this:

keep your spirits up :) If I may suggest something (unsolicited advice coming up) try measuring your input instead of your output. You said “the quality is not where I’d like it to be” and it sounded to me like a great way to get discouraged. Try focusing on “I’ll spend 1 hour on my project” instead. If the quality’s bad, then it’s a lesson for the next hour on the next day.

I don’t want to do things just to have done them. This is something I’ve had on my mind since before I started this project: What activities or hobbies do I partake in to actively enjoy myself in the moment? Do I work on projects to have a nicely wrapped-up product at the end? Is it about the journey or the destination?

A part of me did begin reading Infinite Jest for the bragging rights, but another part of me was simply craving an escape of some kind. I’m glad I found it here.

April 30th: read 16 pages (682-698).

Today I tried my hand at writing down some footnotes from a webpage that I have found somewhat useful recently: Page-by-page annotations of the book. There is a lot of neat stuff in here! Any time I find a mathematician or historical figure reference I don’t understand, this website has a succint summary of that person or place or whatever else I’m looking for. Fancy word definitions abound. I don’t think I’m crazy enough to transcribe the notes from all 1,000+ pages into my copy, but I did find the process strangely therapeutic in the same way I enjoy obsessing over the optimization of footnotes and back-references and whatnot. On a second read, I could see myself going through the Sysyphian task of compiling every obscure word definition and reference on the bottom of the page, given I have space to fit it all. This can go last on my list of things to insert into the book once I start my second read (more on that later).

April 29th: read 21 pages (663-682).

The page markers will remain until I can find some better way of utilizing them. Until then, I have a less intrusive, less compelling solution. I’ve dog-eared every page with a section marker or chapter marker. This is how I have been tracking where each section header is thus far, with varying results. On the one hand, it’s a handy way of flipping back to the beginning of a section when I want surround context for a quote or back-reference I have marked down somewhere else in the book. On the other hand, the beginning has around one section header every 3 pages or so. The dog-ears only mark that there is a section header, not its content or page number. This only slightly impedes page-flipping, whereas page markers do strongly.

April 28th: read 20 pages (648-662). Endnote #269 contributed to around 15 of those.

The page markers have got to go. I don’t like them. I don’t. The page markers have got to go.

April 27th: read 22 pages (626-648).

All this work on arranging page markers and keeping track of passages in Infinite Jest has got me thinking about how I intend to take notes in my college textbooks. After all, they’re often similar in scope and complexity to Infinite Jest, and they have lots of key information that must be located easily throughout the semester.

There are two big differences between a college textbook and this one, however:

1. A college textbook typically has chapters, sections, a table of contents, a glossary, and end-of-chapter summaries or key term tables.
2. The chapters in a college textbook are categorized so that each chapter contains only a small subset of closely related information.

When you read an informational book, you expect the themes and facts to be classified and grouped nicely by chapter or section. Some nonfiction books are also structured this way, each chapter being neatly distinct from its neighbors. This is unfortunately not the case with Infinite Jest. As you read, you grow accustomed to the splicing of various disparate narratives in each section. If you realize you need to refer back to one of these passages, simply referring to chapter numbers won’t do. I intended to remedy this with the by-narrator page marking, but I think just listing the known narrators per chapter or section in a table of contents might be the best way to go about marking locations of each named character’s spiel.

Here’s what the book looks like with the page markers slotted more conservatively, with about half a centimeter showing per tab. They are organized as follows currently:

• Yellow is E.T.A. characters
• Blue is Ennet characters
• Magenta is A.F.R./O.U.S. characters
• Orange is miscellaneous characters

I got a 97 on that exam by the way.

April 26th: read 5 pages (622-626).

Rest day. Cramming for an exam tomorrow. Go Daikons!

April 25th: read 21 pages (601-622).

David Foster Wallace really knows how to close out a chapter. Now, onto the update.

I’m now quite thankful that I had the foresight to tentatively buy a set of page markers now and not during week 2. I have placed page markers for each of the characters in the first 100 pages and… I think the result speaks for itself. I had forgotten the vast quantity of characters speaking in this novel. These footnotes include names like ‘Hal #5 p. 95’ and ‘Prince Q. #2 p. 42’. If the speaker changes 10 times in a section, that section gets 10 page markers with this system. I’ve been told that this book has upwards of 200 sections, and around 30 ‘chapters’. I have 33 page markers for the first 100 pages. A quick grep of my toc.csv file indicates there are 17 sections in the first 100 pages of Infinite Jest. That means there are an average of .33 page markers per page, and an average of 1.94 page markers per section over those pages. If I continue placing a page marker every 3 pages or so, I will need around 360 page markers to comprehensively mark up the book, including endnotes and front/back matter.

I do have enough page markers to get the job done (see my April 23rd update), but looking at the density of page markers in practice I can see that using them all would make for a very uncomfortable read to say the least. The problems with this approach are twofold: the page markers are too long and overlap too much, and they are simply not helpful for easing navigation when you’re looking for an important detail buried in the text. You may see in the first image provided that I have already placed scraps of paper, gum wrappers, page markers, and other placeholders to denote important passages that I intend to revisit. each placeholder is tucked up in the top corner of the text, not blocking anything or jutting out or making page flipping itself a cumbersome ordeal. I think this is a superior way of placing page markers, and I will try that method in the future.

Now for something completely different: I’m a proud Daikon member now! Thank you Eric for your hard work placing everyone in their respective groups. You’re the real MVP.

April 24th: read part of 1 section, 25 pages total (577-601).

Work on the table of contents continues. The first 200 pages have been successfully chronicled, though I had to go back and edit out some spoiler-y narrator identities that are revealed in the text many chapters later. That’s the thing about revising content in a text this large: you get ahead of yourself with the back- and forward-references, mixing up characters, plot points, and dates in the story, resulting in a hackneyed, bodged work-in-progress that never seems progress very far in the moment.

I had that feeling over the past two days, looking over my desk covered in writing implements, framing this enormous volume… Was I really getting work done? Should I have just muscled through the 56-page section of seemingly disparate narratives to find inspiration in the next section? I resolved these thoughts with a tub of ice cream and the self-reassurance that I’m the one calling the shots here. Turning this hobby into a daily chore or checkmark on a to-do list is no way to enjoy myself. I’m participating in DK30 because I appreciate the community aspect of working together to accomplish our goals, and I deserve to take pride in all of my accomplishments, no matter how insignificant-seeming they are. Plus, Infinite Jest is a damn good book let it be known.

Still waiting on my group assignment for DK30 btw. I’m super thankful for the hard work every coordinator and moderator puts into this community, and I look forward to seeing what they come up with for groups this go around. Cheers!

April 23rd: read part of 1 section, 10 pages total (570-576).

I have purchased the page markers necessary to begin marking each section and chapter of Infinite Jest. I estimated that around 400 should be enough to comprehensively note every detail I’d like to get to, but that does not seem realistic. The tabs costed me $3 in total.

I have also begun work on a digital Table of Contents with each narrator, date, and page number corresponding to each section. Some sections contain as many as 10 different voices with their own dialog, so when I translate this onto paper it’s going to be severely pared down. I hope by keeping every title brief I will have enough space in the book’s front matter to fit everything on a page or two, possibly in two columns per page in microscopic font.

DK30 begins tomorrow. I’m cautiously optimistic about meeting new people through this event. Here’s to a productive and fruitful 30 days!

April 22nd: read part of 1 section, 3 pages total (568-570).

This section of Infinite Jest is 56 pages long. That’s a long section for a book printed in 8pt font. I should note that I am dividing the book into sections based on the time/date stamps in full-caps that occasionally break up the text, usually every 8ish pages or so. As I have progressed, the sections have grown a bit longer, with a bit more context or dialog each time. I don’t believe reading precisely one section per day would be feasible, unless you know how long each section is ahead of time so you can plan accordingly.

I was pretty unmotivated today, and did not get much reading done. I blame the semester wrapping up and quarantine and all the familiar excuses. I did make one notable discovery today, however. Elegant Complexity, the companion guide to Infinite Jest written by Greg Carlisle, costs $30 on Amazon, while a paperback or hardcover copy of Infinite Jest costs $10-$15. Huh.

April 21st: read part of 1 section, 26 pages total (549-568).

You may notice that the number of pages read do not correspond to the page numbers I have reached. This is because Infinite Jest contains hundreds of endnotes that add context and ‘clarity’ to the book. It’s important to emphasize that these are endnotes, not footnotes. If you were to read the book yourself you would soon become well-acquainted with the consequences of a 1000+ page book forcing you to flop back and forth between the main text and the back matter every 10 minutes or so. My advice to anyone considering reading Infinite Jest is to use two bookmarks, one for the main text and one for the errata.

As Don Gately would say, the endnotes are there to ‘teach patience and tolerance.’

April 20th: read 3 sections, 19 pages total (531-549).

I have located some office supplies like highlighters, page markers, and clear page tabs in my house that I can use to mark up the book. I am slightly worried that I may run out of supplies to mark each section (averaging maybe 5-8 pages apiece) with what I have now, so purchasing maybe 200-300 page markers seems like a solid investment.

April 19th: read 2 sections, 24 pages total (506-530).

I think starting on organizing early would be better than waiting for the second week. I can buy some colored page markers to categorize which chapter sections involve which plot lines the next time I buy groceries.