Too lazy to update with, like, uh, actual words.

Infinite Jest: is it really that great a novel, or is it merely called a great novel owing to its size? After all, American’s like big things: Buicks, skyscrapers, Texas. And Infinite Jest is a big book, at 1079 pages in total.

Although currently on track with the reading schedule as laid out on the Infinite Summer website, I’ve been holding myself back. I’ve got a really high reading speed, and I’ve been reading other books at the same time, as I’m not finding Wallace’s writing style that interesting. Yes, it has some good points, and some amusing funny parts, but it’s sheer length finds it unfocused, the narrative is all over the place (despite being a few hundred pages in), and the over-reliance on footnotes is a distracting affectation.

(For instance, in this paragraph I’m writing in the main body of the text to tell you that the footnotes are considered one of the novels main strengths by IJ’s aficionados, pointing to the fragmentary nature of reading via the internet as an excuse for this strange writing quirk. But by writing in the main body of the text you keep the narrative flow but still impart information like I’m doing here. I think authors refer to this as ‘writing skills’.)

Infinite Jest is, no doubt, an interesting book. But whilst reading it I’ve been reminded of all those short novels that you are heartbroken to leave behind once finished. One such book that I’ve been using as ballast for my reading speed is Catherynne M. Valente’s Palimpsest, a story about searching for a way to a magical realm. I’d heard it was a good book via the underground sci-fi grapevine, but not paid too much attention to the plot. I probably should have done, because the mcguffin that gets you into the magical realm of Palimpest is having sex.

Valente’s book has a lot more sex in it than the ordinary fantasy books I come across – er, I mean read. But it is sensitively handled, and belies the underlying theme of the book – that of seduction. Those who wish to travel to Palimpsest are seduced by the city, and it’s promise of a different life, but Valente makes it clear that sometimes those promises are lies.

While Palimpsest was in no way the novel I was expecting, it’s concise effort to tell four interleaved tales served as an ideal counterpoint to Wallace’s rambling style. Valente knows how to write the sort of punchy prose that made me keep reading, her style reminiscent of a sexier, gothic-ier Neil Gaiman. Having finished Palimpest I only wish that there was a sequel I could pick up – I doubt I will be left with a similar yearning once Infinite Jest is finished.

Infinite Summer is a group reading of the novel Infinite Jest. I’m slowing myself down from speeding through that book with my high reading speed, sometimes by reading other things, sometimes – as this weekend – by drinking and going to barbecues in the sun and small country pubs. This weekend truly felt like there was an infinite amount of summer to go around.

To counter-act this, I’m reading a lot of different stuff. Stuff that is out of place from the usual stuff I read. I’ve just finished Confederacy of Dunces, and have a small pile of interesting fiction to follow it up with. Part of that involves doing the Infinite Summer challenge, where I’ll be reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace over the course of the summer.

This all stems from last year, when I realised that I’d pretty much read all of the SF that I was interested in. That’s not to say that I’m no longer interested in SF, it’s just that I read so darn fast that I’m going to have to wait for more books to be written. I was also stymied in conversation when talking about books – I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve got blank looks after making reference to classics of science fiction literature.

(It’s not my fault you’ve not read your Bester)

In an effort to both better myself and have more conversations about books then, I’m now announcing my summer reading list:

1. Confederacy of Dunces (completed!)
2. Child 44 (lent to me by the lovely and kind Colleen)
3. Palimpsest
4. Infinte Jest
5. Hell’s Cartographers
6. Douglas Coupland (no, it’s a book about Douglas Coupland, I’m not being stupid)
7. Queen of Candesce
8. McSweeney’s 29

As you can see from clicking those links, a lot of those books are still quite SF in nature, so I’d be grateful for any suggestions as to other stuff I could read. I’m not sure that I’m up to reading any Bronte quite yet, but anything more intermediate than straight-up regency would be interesting… (just not Georgette Heyer, okay?)

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