Partially Finished with Infinite Jest - Preliminary Thoughts

On page 161 of the 1079-page epic Infinite Jest and figured I'd better do a preliminary post since it's taking me a while to work my through this book and I am reading other books at the same time.

I sort of like this book so far. I know that's blasphemy (especially in Colin's mind) since the consensus is that this is a masterpiece on par with Joyce's Ulysses, but so far it isn't really doing it for me. There are definitely ideas of pure genius and some parts that are uproariously funny, Hal is a compelling character, and the theme of entertainment/media is very interesting.

However, it took me til ~150 to become slightly eager to know what happens in the rest of the book. My beef: 1) the mixed up chronology is irritating since I don't know when anything happened and am having difficulty piecing together any coherent storyline. Colin says that it comes together at a certain point, but I don't see why I should have to wait this long for it to make sense. 2) I dislike that the perspective switches so frequently - most of the segments are interesting individually but the sheer number of them feels a little bit gimicky and is another distraction for me.

Hopefully I will like it better as I go along since everyone else finds it brilliant and inspired.

***Updates***
- 6/29/11: on page 185 I have hope!!! There is a reference to "anticonfluential cinema," which is described in footnote 61 as, "an après garde digital movement... characterized by a stubborn and possibly intentionally irritating refusal of different narrative lines to merge into any kind of meaningful confluence" - does this sound familiar???

I feel vindicated and more hopeful that I will ultimately enjoy this novel - I doubt it is coincidence that the description of anticonfluential cinema so closely parallels my experience of the book thus far (especially since the concept is significantly attributed to J.O. Incandenza, a central figure in the novel).

I hope that now that this underlying structure has been revealed, it will be rejected. In other words, the different narrative lines of I.J. damn well better merge into some kind of meaningful confluence.

***Links***
- http://bmackie.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-foster-wallace-and-hypertext.html

Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

A(n uninspiring) milestone in my literary career: finally read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I read in 2.5 hours. Up til page 41 I found the book juvenile, boring, and silly, and felt that this was probably because I am not a prepubescent boy (no offense to you males). The first line that changed my opinion somewhat was "The robot camera honed in for a close-up on the more popular of [Zaphod's] two heads and he waved again." I suspect my satisfaction with this line is because it is atypically Philip K. Dick-esque (c.f. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch). I found the rest of this book a mix of mediocre and mildly amusing. I really don't understand the enthusiasm people feel for this work, and this is coming from a blogger who ends most posts with "Highly recommend!" The only intriguing character for me was Zaphod, although he could not redeem this book for me. Would not recommend.

Three Californias

Three Californias is a trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson written prior to the Mars cycle. Each of the three novels, The Gold Coast, the Wild Shore, and the Pacific Edge, posits a radically different future taking place in Orange County. I've just finished the Wild Shore, read the Gold Coast over spring break, and will be picking up the final one soon. The Gold Coast takes place in a total-sprawl landscape of designer drugs and party lifestyle, the Wild Shore takes place in a post-nuclear America quarantined by Japanese ships off the coast, and I'm not entirely sure what the other one is about.

While these novels don't quite stand up to the magnum opus that is Red Mars, and are not as dense in ideas and sheer brilliance, they are definitely worth checking out even if only as a prelude to his later work.

William Gibson's Idoru

In this utterly wild and brilliant book by William Gibson, two characters' narratives intersect to reveal the story of a famous rockstar - Rez of the band Lo/Rez - who is determined to marry an idoru, or virtual celebrity, despite the objections of his P.R. team and devoted, massive, scarred bodyguard Blackwell. Set in the near (but technologically greatly advanced) future, the intersecting narratives are from the perspectives of Chia, a fourteen-year-old Lo/Rez fan and skilled hacker from Seattle, and Laney, a hacker with an uncanny ability to detect "nodal points" in data. The theme of emergence is evidenced at the meta- as well as macro-level, wherein the individual stories interact to create a totality which far exceeds the sum of its parts. The tale is a true page-turner, and rife with crazy characters and novel ideas. Definitely worth reading!!

**Update**

Helpful info from Colin: Gibson's 3 Trilogies (turns out this is book 2 of one of them - oops)

Gibson's 3 Trilogies:

The Sprawl Trilogy:

• Neuromancer
• Count Zero
• Mona Lisa Overdrive

The Bridge Trilogy:

• Virtual Light
• Idoru
• All Tomorrow's Parties

The Bigend Books:

• Pattern Recognition
• Spook Country
• Zero History

The Pattern

This gripping page-turner, currently available as a Kindle or Nook eBook, was written by JT Kalnay, the very accomplished and very interesting husband of my first graduate student, Dr. Susann Brady-Kalnay. JT was trained as a computer engineer, worked as a professor, then as a systems architect at Merrill Lynch, then went to law school, specialized in patent law and now has his own patent law firm - oh yeah, he's also a certified rock-climbing instructor and competes in ironman triathlons. Jeez.

(Here's an interview with him about the book).

Well, this book, about a mysterious virus-induced glitch in airplane software, will make your skin crawl - I had to fly on a bumpy flight from Rochester to Detroit right after finishing the book, and I was not a happy camper. Download onto your phone and enjoy a great read while waiting in lines!!

Tales of a Female Nomad

Wow... All I can say is that this woman has lived one heck of a life. The book is essentially an autobiography of Rita Gelman, who at the age of 42 turned her life into a travel story most of us only dream of.

After she had an argument with her husband, they agreed to a two-week break from each other, and then to try marriage counseling. She took off to Mexico, where two weeks turned into two months, which turned into four months, which turned into divorce.

After that, she was free to live however she liked, so she decided to travel to all different exotic locations that she had only dreamed of visiting. For the next 14 years, she visits places such as Indonesia, Thailand, Nicaragua (during Reagan's war!), New Zealand, and more, staying with locals, and truly bonding with the communities she visits.

The book is an awesome read that anyone will enjoy. Recommended highly.

Numbers Rule Your World

I kind of found this book by accident while searching for something else at the library, but I figured, "Hey, why not try it?"

Sadly, I wasn't impressed with the book. Some moments really stood out, but most of the "aha" moments that are supposed to make a book like this shine were more of, "huh? um... isn't that obvious?" moments.

The organization of the book, which divided it into 5 chapters, with two stories per chapter that each had a core lesson in statistics, was a good idea, but was poorly executed so that I never fully understood the connections between the stories.

Overall, I felt the book was too simplistic to engage, and so I would not recommend it to close friends or family.

Vagabonding

All I gotta say is... WOW.

The book, while it is subtitled "An uncommon guide to the art of long-term world travel", is more of a philosophical text than anything, one that is certain to get one excited about traveling.

If you've ever wanted to travel (I know that seems like a broad category)... this book is definitely for you.

Lord of Misrule

This quirky novel won the National Book Award - appropriately, as a dark horse entry.  It was issued by a very small publisher, who reluctantly increased the initial printing from 2,000 to 8,000 only when the book was chosen as an Award finalist.  The author, Jaimy Gordon, has taught writing at Western Michigan University for 30 years - the Times ran a very interesting story about her  - here's their description:

Ms. Gordon, who has a graduate degree in writing from Brown but also spent time working at a racetrack and briefly lived with an ex-convict who set fire to their apartment, has never been very conventional. She has a huge corona of springy, tightly curled hair that suggests prolonged exposure to a light socket, and a personality to match: forthright, disarming, uncensored. She is a wiser, chastened version of the reckless young female character who turns up in many of her books and never misses a chance to endanger herself.

 I really liked the book, which tells of some disastrous happenings at a second-rate racetrack.  The chapters (and title) are taken from names of the protagonist horses: Mr. Boll Weevil, Little Spinoza, Pelter and Lord of Misrule.  Kind of like a contemporary Damon Runyon, with very colorful language punctuated by laugh out loud humor - and a streak of darkness.

The Old Man and the Swamp

SO! Another souvenir from Portland.

The book, as it describes on the front cover, details, "The true story about my weird dad, a bunch of snakes, and one ridiculous road trip".

My response: meh.

The funniest parts of the book were when he described his dad, which he did quite well through various anecdotes and choice phrases. As for the road trip and snakes... that's a bit exaggerated. Honestly, most of the book was told in flash back, and so the whole book comes across as more of a biography of a dysfunctional father than it does about an event in the present.

The book lacked a bit of, "So what?", as my Latin teacher would say. Essentially, the book was almost over by the time Sellers had reached the part where I expected the story to pick up.

My verdict: Kinda funny, but not all that great.

Zen in the Martial Arts

A souvenir from Portland!

The book is a series of short vignettes that reflect lessons the author has learned in his martial arts training over the years. With each story, he then demonstrates how he applied the principle to his actual life.

If you're at all interested in zen, you would find this an interesting read. If you're also looking into martial arts, you will love the book. I recommend it highly.

A Fierce Radiance

This book takes place in Manhattan during World War II and follows the development of penicillin with a love story thrown in. Although it is a novel, it is based on historical fact (with some poetic license). I was surprised to learn that blood poisoning was a real threat up until the 1940s - people could die of something as simple as a cat scratch. Fascinating to see how the race to make penicillin readily available to the troops led to the rise of drug companies frantic to patent their own special formulas. Much of the novel takes place at the Rockefeller Institute so especially recommended to Brack and Jesse.

The Imperfectionists

This book takes place in Rome so I had to pick it up from the library although it turns out the city plays a very small part in the story. It is about a English-language newspaper in Rome over roughly a fifty-year period. The structure is a little unusual: each chapter focuses on a different individual with little connection between characters. This makes it sound like a collection of short stories, which I usually avoid like the plague, but it was written so well that the stories intertwined enough to make it engrossing. I found it easy to relate to many of the characters being an imperfect perfectionist myself.