Infinite Jest Liveblog Part 1

Before I started reading Infinite Jest, I was worried it was going to be one of those books that I’d like to have read, but not actually read. Now I’m 127 pages in, and I honest to god just love reading it. I like being in / a part of this book. My continued interest might be partially because it’s still just a bunch of thus-far unconnected vignettes, so nothing is held on to for too long, although it is now finally starting to go back to some of the characters introduced at the beginning.

Here’s a somewhat coherent list of my reactions:

• Half the time I read into everything heavily and make notes in the margins, and the other half of the time I just float along and hope that it’ll all make sense eventually (note-making hasn’t ever really been plot related, though) 
• This is the first book I’ve ever written in (I’ve written in plays but that’s different) 
• It’s also the first book I’ve used multiple sticky notes in that hasn’t been for school reading purposes 
• I’m glad I’ve read a lot of his essays (like, a lot) because apart from getting me used to DFW as a writer, it’s interesting to see how he brings up a lot of the ideas he’s written about before, but in a fiction novel context. Like solipsism and “giving yourself away to something” and the “endless war against the self” 
• It feels like each plot line has its own unique style of writing 
• I already quite liked tennis - one of the only sports I actually like - but I’ve reached a whole new level of tennis appreciation thanks to DFW
• Like really. I love tennis right now. It's surreal. I want to play tennis immediately
• Lemon pledge as sunscreen ? 
• Herd of feral hamsters ??????????? 
• The first scene with Hal, Erdedy waiting for the woman who said she’d come, and Kate Gompert in the mental ward, are three of the best short pieces of fiction writing I have ever read 
• Other favourite scenes are Hal & Mario talking about God, the professional conversationalist, Schtitt and Mario discussing the infinite/finite nature of tennis/life/dedication to a cause, and the intense switching-back-and-forth-between-characters-without-explanation bit at ETA with all the Big Buddy/Little Buddy scenes (all of which, by the way, would make sUCH great short films or something, holy shit) 
• I love Mario Incandenza 
• I cannot believe I read an 8 and a half page long endnote 
• Wow. This book. Wow. 
• wow???
• wowwww 
• W O W