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Ulysses, James Joyce
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Norm at the Library has a hopeful note up today. It’s possible to like books with plots in them, and not have to be publicly ashamed at that fact.

Well, folks, it looks like the long literary nightmare is finally over.

via “…they have trained us… to associate a crisp, dynamic, exciting plot with supermarket fiction, and cheap thrills, and embarrassment.” « Stacked.

Maybe now I can admit that I never finished James Joyce‘s Ulysses. I’ve felt overly sensitive about that fact ever since our tour guide in Dublin said he’d read it long ago.

According to the WSJ article that Norm links to,

If there’s a key to what the 21st-century novel is going to look like, this is it: the ongoing exoneration and rehabilitation of plot.

That’s another reason that I’m enjoying A. S. Byatt‘s The Children’s Book: stuff happens. Should I admit that in public? Oh, why not.

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Gravity's Rainbow with first dinner
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I am still, as stated earlier, reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I have decided that it’s not a novel that I am continuing to read because I like it, though I do. I’ve given up on a lot of likeable novels. There is also the allure of actually finishing a “cool” and “important” novel, and therefore having a license to drone on about it to everyone within earshot. That’s not been a deciding factor ever since I gave up reading Gravity’s Rainbow when it came out when I was in high school. That book was immediately made cool by some sort of critical osmosis that I could never quite fathom. I chucked it after about 54 pages of humor (I think) that I simply didn’t get.

I have decided that, unlike most other books I read, Infinite Jest and the reading of it is a vocation. I can’t leave the book alone. I am quite behind in the reading schedule suggested on the Infinite Summer website — I have only today gotten through the big Eschaton section.

Eschaton, in IJ, is a group game, rather like Risk, where the players, who are students at a tennis academy in Boston, act out a global conquest and dominance sort of game out on some unused tennis courts. The students are divided up into assorted nations, and tennis balls are imaginary 5-megaton nuclear warheads. In this particular session of the game, things… go awry. Suddenly, the players of the game forget the difference between “game” and reality. It doesn’t end well.

There is no such game in real life as Eschaton, not that I know of. If it does exist, I will avoid it.

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infinite summer starts sunday
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Ideally, in even a very large and sprawling novel, which David Foster Wallace‘s Infinite Jest certainly is, all the parts of the book are necessary to the whole. The sum of the whole is greater than the accumulation of its parts, etc. This is emphasized in the quote from Infinite Summer, below

So yes, I am glad that I read footnote #24, and all of the rest of them. Footnote #24 contains much useful knowledge about the characters in the story, but you have to dig through the seeming oddity of a filmography of a fictional character in order to get it.

Have patience.

Those digressions that don’t serve the plot (or at least provide a satisfying coincidence that may or may not serve the plot, such as Gately’s role in a separatist’s death or Steeply’s putative puff piece on Poor Tony’s heart-snatchery) serve the theme.

via Infinite Summer » Blog Archive » Nick Douglas: Skim is for Wimps.

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With regard to Infinite Jest, I would like to announce that I have actually read all the way through footnote #24.

This is a bigger deal than it sounds, if you have ever taken a look at that book. The book is almost 20% footnotes, written often in a dry, footnote-y tone. Sometimes they contain nothing more than “Ibid. page N” or somesuch. More than a few times, they spin off on their own, with footnotes of their own, as is the case with footnote #24.

Many readers use this as an instance of David Foster Wallace foreseeing the Internet, or at least the Web. Not so. The Web was already around, and at the time of the book’s publishing, I had already made and abandoned roughly five personal home pages and sites. It was not long after that I sat down and purchased this domain. So, being an intelligent, noticing sort of person, DFW simply had to infer a few things here and there.

Okay, back to reading the book.

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Infinite Jest
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Following is one of the (many) websites that I have found that have to do with David Foster Wallace, and also his most famous work, Infinite Jest. This is a book that is, to say the very least, sprawling. Also huge. One that demands careful attention at all times due to quick changes of voice and viewpoint. I am certain that I can’t describe the plot.

There is, this summer, a massive literary occasion online in which willing individuals, such as myself, have promised themselves to sit around and read the whole of Infinite Jest by, I believe, September 22. I have no idea why the choice of that date was made. Perhaps it even has something to do with the book, or DFW.

This event sounds like the overwhelming, symbolic and not-entirely-meaningful event that I was looking for to occupy my days lately. I have no idea how this will turn out.

Quote

Infinite Summer

 

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I spent two hours at Starbuck’s today, finishing this…


“The Language of Bees (Mary Russell Novels)” (Laurie R. King)

Most historical mysteries with female protagonists go the route of choosing a supposedly innocent, inexperienced young woman who will, over the course of the plot, become awakened to her own inner power, stand up for herself in difficult circumstances, and generally show promise of becoming a multi-faceted, worldly sort of person.

We don’t have that here. What we have is a fully developed protagonist who can do quite well in the world, regardless of what life throws at her. Since Mary Russell is married to Sherlock Holmes, that turns out to be a lot.

In this latest installment, our antagonist is a spiritual con artist, whose plans have to be foiled by Russell and Holmes. Ah, the spiritual con artist, a concept of particular interest to me. I think I will not go into further particulars, especially since it is late, and I have to start reading my next book. This novel, though, is worth one’s time.

I have recently made myself a very peculiar — at least for me — resolution for the new year. I am putting myself on a literature diet.

What is a literature diet? I’m glad you asked. It means that I am not going to be reading that which is defined by the term “current literature.” Does it mean that I am going to give up reading books for the first time since I learned how to read? No.

How it came about: I spent all Fall reading Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I enjoyed that book tremendously, and took a great deal of time over it because it was not just an entertaining read, but because it also gave me new ways of thinking about things that are logical implications of all of the math that I have studied.

While my reading time was taken up with Anathem, I wasn’t totally ignoring the regular swirl of new books that are always popping out at one. There are always books that people eagerly tell me, “Oh, you have to read this one!”

These past few months, it has been The Story of Edgar Sawtelle that has been the most frequently mentioned of possible next-book candidates, at least around me. I have got a copy of that, and am about a quarter of the way through. It is a good book, yet I don’t feel the need to get caught up in the current fire storm of enthusiasm about it. It’s a great book, and I love dogs, and still my thoughts are coming back to the thoughts inspired by Anathem.

I want, through this literary diet, which will probably last only a few weeks, to get rid of all of these feverish bids for my attention, and read something lasting. What I have chosen is the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. That ought to hold me for a long time.