Yeah, I've had it on my shelf for years and I kept putting it off because it's so big and I figured it'd be really tough. Only about 60 pages in so far but it's pretty easy going for the most part (except some of those multi-page paragraphs). I anticipated, like, Gravity's Rainbow density.
If you're trying to make me fall in love with you by mentioning both Gravity's Rainbow AND Infinite Jest...you're succeeding. HA!
Good luck! If you have questions or feel like you're not "getting it," feel free to ask here. In general, I think it takes ~150 pages to "tune in" to the book's vibe.
Yeah it’s not as densely complicated and hard to follow as one might think. I found it really approachable once you get DFW’s style (which I did know already as I read several nonfiction works from him). It’s just the length, and the discourse around it, that I think pulls people away from wanting to try. But I completely love it and like right when I finished I felt like I could start it over again. Still haven’t done that, but that’s how much I enjoyed it.
I am hoping to finally finish this today. I have only been reading in kinda small doses but I am really enjoying it. I am towards the end right now.
I just bought this, probably will be the next thing I start and I am excited!
I read The Broom of the System about eight years ago and I don't remember that being too rough if at all, so I'm not sure why I dragged my feet for so long, but I'm enjoying it. Though my main reason for finally reading it now is that I can read it all at home and not have to lug the massive thing around everywhere. I did most of my reading in the before-times on the subway on the way to work, so this is a lot better.
I bought a copy of Infinite Jest like 10 years ago and still haven't cracked it open. I think my thinking is always that I could read like twenty other books in the time it would take me to read that. There are just too many good books that I've purchased with the intent to read them someday and I'm woefully behind. The overstuffed bookshelves in my apartment are so intimidating now.
I've basically stopped buying books for that exact reason! (That and I've started to use my public library religiously.) I think I bought my copy about that long ago, too. There are definitely a lot of books that I want to read, but they're not going anywhere.
I think at some point I consciously switched over from buying-books-that-I-thought-I'd-have-time-to-read-in-the-near-future to "building my library" for when I'm retired or bed-ridden or whatever and have all kinds of time. It's kind of depressing how little of them I've read during the past year of having so much extra time haha. But at the same time, there are probably only like 20 books on my shelves that I feel like I really NEED to read: (in no particular order)
This is AMAZING!
One Hundred Years of Solitude is my favorite book of all time. You know how some people say The Giver or The Alchemist is the book that had a profound, lifelong impact on them? Yeah, One Hundred Years is mine. I'll never forget the first time I read it.
How did you like The Name of the Rose? I recently read Foucault's Pendulum and while I enjoyed it, I also found it a little too intellectual and not, I dunno, character- or really plot-based enough to really keep my interest all the time.
Some thick ones in there!! Strong work!
This is also one of my all time favorites. I reread it a couple years ago, and according to goodreads, I finished in the exact day that I finished reading it the first time five years earlier. That's the synchronicity of time, baby.