The Infinite Novel December 17, 2006 – Posted in: Aberrant Normalcy
I am going to try and read all 1088 pages of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest by New Year’s Eve. I’ve been putting off reading this book for some time. To reach this goal, I must average 78 pages per day. Each page (from a quick estimate) has roughly 600 words, so I must read 46,800 words per day. The novel is approximately 650,000 words.
Wish me luck.
7 Comments
Rick Bowes December 18, 2006 - 01:52
To be young is a wonderful thing.
Matthew Kressel December 18, 2006 - 09:53
I never said I would be able to finish, only that I’m going to try. And being that I ended up reading several other things that had nothing to do with this novel, outlook is not looking good. Age, it seems, has nothing to do with attention span.
Mercurio D. Rivera December 19, 2006 - 16:54
I assume you’re on page 234 and going strong.
Matthew Kressel December 19, 2006 - 19:12
Heh heh heh. You’re funny…
Lauren December 20, 2006 - 11:54
I hope you have better luck than I did. I bailed out after 75 pages. Hey did you know that today, December 20th is the Carl Sagan Blog-a-thon?
Matthew Kressel December 27, 2006 - 23:15
I’m giving up at 168 pages. I know. I know. Not what I intended.
The main reason was a lack of cohesive narrative. The character vignettes are great, but the POV switches so often that I couldn’t find a cohesive thread to latch onto and found myself after 168 pages dreading the 800+ left to go.
Onto “City of Saints and Madmen,” a signed copy kindly loaned to me from Eugene Myers.
Mercurio D. Rivera December 28, 2006 - 11:21
What a wuss.