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Reading!

000000
edited October 2014
What are you reading?

I am trying to finish Infinite Jest, again. I started The Luminaries then realized I wasn't allowed to pick up a book that large until I finished IJ. It's tough cause I've been reading fun summer reads: Gone Girl, A Tale for the Time Being, magazine articles. But I got through the weird winter world politics/tennis game part that was holding me back for so long, so maybe there is hope!

Thinking of starting an internet book club specifically for the rereading of House of Leaves in November. Who wants to have night terrors?!?
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Comments

  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    Did you see the Gone Girl movie yet? I didn't read the book, but the movie was pretty boring to me.

    I have mostly been reading instruction manuals lately.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    I would re-read House of Leaves in November. I've been thinking it's time for a re-read.

    I love "tennis game part" as a description of IJ. Ha ha ha ha

    I'M READING:
    - A book about music and political economy
    - A book about the origins of capitalism
    - A book about adaptations of Shakespeare into music
    - A book about hipsters
    - My current for-fun reading is one of those Ben McIntyre studies of spying in WWII, although I also have one of those Mary Beard books about ancient Rome.
    - I just finished Colson Whitehead's zombie novel, which was shockingly a disappointment although aspects of it were thought-provoking
    - Also just finished the new David Mitchell, which was also disappointing

    maybe time to re-read Infinite Jest. I'm in a fiction rut!

    HOUSE OF LEAVES CLUB

    I think a book club would work well for that book. There is so much to untangle and discuss and react to.

    Remember Alex's idea that we would meet to read House of Leaves aloud in the crawl space underneath YU?

    ?!?!??!!!1
  • curtcurt
    I just finished reading "The War for Late Night," about NBC's debacle over The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno. It was great!
  • 12341234
    RED MARS is pulling me in pretty deep. And I got to expense the purchase cause we're making a game about Mars.
  • 000000
    I'm out of world-politics tennis game mayhem part and back into good ole Boston AA parts! I haven't even thought about TP psychosis parts in forever!

    OK. I'm going to host a House of Leaves internet discussion board for November. F reading that thing in a crawl space. UGHHHGHGH.

    I'm excited about seeing the gone girl movie! I actually just listened to the book while driving to California. I've heard mixed reviews of the movie. The book is fun, not mind-blowing.
  • 000000
    How can anyone but the most voracious of readers RE-READ INFINITE JEST? What kind of magical reading strength do you have YT?
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    I've read it three times!

    If it's a chore, don't read it! I read it quickly and all the time because I find it pleasurable. I surely wouldn't do it if it didn't bring me pleasure, as I am a reading libertine when it comes to my not-for-school reading

  • swamp_knobbler_mahanswamp_knobbler_mahan
    Infinite Jest pro tip: Skip a bunch of the endnotes, they're boring and it's hard to flip back and forth. Only read the ones you feel like reading. It's POSTMODERN!
  • swamp_knobbler_mahanswamp_knobbler_mahan
    BRING IT YT ;)
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    FUCK YOU
    IN THE FACE
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    I'd hardly call that a "pro" tip

    that is like the textbook example of a FUCKING AMATEUR tip
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    pro tip: Just don't read the book! So much easier/faster

    Just getting through shit as fast as possible, that's what reading's about

    BURNED

    SLAMMED

    IN THE FACE
  • swamp_knobbler_mahanswamp_knobbler_mahan
    Some of it's really good though! Worth skipping the boring parts to get to the good stuff.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    In googling for a cliff's note version of IJ with which to burn Alex even harder, I came across this, which actually made me LOL

    http://wiki.ursinus.edu/index.php/Infinite_Jest_Chapter_Summaries
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    HAL EATS MOLD
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    ABSURD WORKMAN'S COMP CLAIM
  • swamp_knobbler_mahanswamp_knobbler_mahan
    Fuck, so good. Makes me want to read most of the book again!
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    this shit is SO FUCKING DEEP who are these people

    "In this section we are introduced to a few new characters, and we are given more details about characters we have already seen. Geoffrey Day is new to Ennet House. He was a teacher at a junior college before he drove his Saab through the window of a sporting goods store and subsequently went shopping. After this incident (and a few others) he walked into Ennet House. Day identifies his whole existence with his head, meaning he overthinks everything and connects all things associated with his disease with logic (in Day's case, specifically, he finds AA illogic and inconsistent with its own principles). Day also lives through cliches and over-analyzes everything. He especially annoys Gately in particular. We also meet Burt F. Smith, who is most likely the guy that C, Poor Tony, and yrstruly beat up and robbed before C's Wo-enduced poisoning. My reasoning for this is that Wallace tells us Smith was beaten up and mugged in Cambridge on Xmas Eve of last year...this seems to connect directly with the robbery and drug use of C, Poor Tony, and yrstruly around that same time. Smith has attempted to get clean about 50 times before, his marriage is in shambles, and he lost his hands and feet from being left to freeze after the mugging. Charlotte Treat is another (new?) character we are given details about in this section. She sews all the time, is a former prostitute, has flame red hair, and HIV. Emil Minty is also described...He is a hard-core smack-addict with an orange mohawk. He looks like a man who has been on the streets since youth, evidenced by his sooty complexion...I'm thinking he is also a character we've seen before, my guess is yrstruly, but I'm not sure. Green is another resident of Ennet House; he is the guy we saw earlier married to Mildred Bonk...we know this because of his tattoo. Randy Lenz is a man on both sides of the law, probably in rehab just to avoid repercussions of his drug use/abuse. Gately does not seem too fond of Lenz either; he mentions that Lenz is most likely a knife-owner, which makes him irritated. Gately is described as a bored supervisor of Ennet House residents...he lays lazily on a sofa, silently and unobtrusively observing the rest of the group. He is 29 and has been sober for 421 days at our last update. Even though a lot of the characters are described in relation to how Gately feels about them, I do not think Gately himself is the narrator of this section, because he himself is also described. It seems to be more of an 3rd person indifferent narrator. The section ends with Day and Lenz arguing over Lenz's obsession with time."
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    have you (I'm sure you have) seen that Aaron Swartz wrote a great essay explaining the end of IJ? It made a lot of stuff come clear for me.

    Poor Aaron Swartz.

    http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    edited October 2014
    My first copy of IJ I got from the library had a piece of paper stuck in it where the previous reader had done a lot of plot-math trying to figure out a chronology for the story. It was complete with page numbers giving this info / which elements of the story happen when. I wish I'd kept it
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    Year of the Whopper
    Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad
    Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar
    Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken
    Year of the Whisper-Quiet Maytag Dishmaster
    Year of the Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office Or Mobile (sic)
    Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland
    Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment
    Year of Glad
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    steamrolling this thread
  • swamp_knobbler_mahanswamp_knobbler_mahan
    edited October 2014
    Why am I thinking about Gately as Ignatius J Reilly? Is he a portly fellow?
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    edited October 2014
    he's not portly, but he is gigantic. He's described with all these exaggerated adjectives--his great slabs of thighs, how when Joellen is trying to help him at the end (don't want to spoiler arijkem) she can barely straddle his arm between her legs, etc. He's described as just an immensely strong giant

    I love Gately so much

    what a wonderful character
  • ManInTheIvoryTowerManInTheIvoryTower
    Game of Thrones Book 2 by some fanboi
    Dirty Wars by the dude that wrote the Blackwater book
    Camouflage by Joe Halderman (a favorite author but this is kinda a weird story)
    The Man That Mistook His Wife For A Hat (waiting for me at the library)

    Three words to open up a brave new world of borrowing e-books from the library: Overdrive Media Console.
  • SchlabeSchlabe
    I haven't read IJ, but I think the pro-tip is to rip out the end with all the end notes, and carry it around like a 2nd book. I have been reading cheesy detective novels about Sherlock Holmes, and an auto biography of that sniper guy they are making a movie about - mainly to read that point of view. It is actually really scary b/c America has raised him to have a certain point of view, and he has no idea how psychopathic he comes off as - he thinks he's patriotic. And then of course (spoiler alert) he dies at a recreational shooting trip at home.
  • the_owlsthe_owls
    I am not happy to hear that the new D Mitch sucks!
    I guess you can only produce a Cloud Atlas every so often.

    I left all of my books at the studio today, so I can't tell you what the F they are, and it feels really good. I'm in college so there's like some history and a Kierkegaard and also Emily Dickinson.
  • the_owlsthe_owls
    I wish I had time to read House of Leaves again right now! I would even get into a crawl space, if my friends were there.
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    I'll make an attempt at reading House of Leaves. Is it 200 pages? I'm good with 200 page books.
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    LOL, I totally thought you guys were talking about "Cider House Rules" for some reason. Just wiki'd House of Leaves.
  • flossy_log_ladyflossy_log_lady
    I have not read house of leaves and need a new read.

    I 100% also conflated house of leaves with Cider House Rules. Why is that?

  • 000000
    Reading those chapter summaries is actually really helpful for a person who is on page 400 but has not read from the book in 8 months.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    My IJ pro tip was to read with two post-it notes--one keeping track of where you're at in the endnotes / one keeping track of where you're at in the main body. FYI.

    Conflating House of Leaves with Cider House Rules made me LOLOLOL so funny!!! Such wildly different tones

    I think House of Leaves is longer than 200 pages, somebody check
  • 000000
    709
  • swamp_knobbler_mahanswamp_knobbler_mahan
    House Of Leaves is extra hard because of all the experimental typography and weird layouts. Seems so pretentious at first but actually contributes to the scariness after you get used to it.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    SO SCARY

    709!! So much longer than I thought
  • DeathDeath
    I have been running through Adam Langer's books. He's not really a groundbreaking author but is solid, enjoyable, and writes great characters. Also, I've been sorta lukewarm on Jonathan Lethem, but the book Chronic City is pretty great.
  • distant_shoedistant_shoe
    edited October 2014
    i been mildly reading some elmore leonard because he just cuts out all the boring parts for you
    which i appreciate to no end



  • 12341234
    I like Elmore Leonard.
  • DeathDeath
    All you IJ junkies should check out Don Delillo's "End Zone".
  • ManInTheIvoryTowerManInTheIvoryTower
    edited October 2014
    Dupe. Dupe-de-doo.
  • ManInTheIvoryTowerManInTheIvoryTower
    edited October 2014
    Um weird. I just Previewed, edited the preview, switched back to preview, then Post Comment and got a double post.

    EDIT: Oh great, now the original is gone and only my (edited) dupe remains. Sigh.

    The short version: The novel Raintree Country looks like a fascinating book on Civil War ear. And check out the Disunion blog on NYT if you are interested in that period of history.
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    Always ignore double posts. They seem to always clear up.
  • 000000
    I keep forgetting to read cause we were watching Transparent. But we got through that, so now I can get back to reading.

    Phew.

    I really want long books to be published as a bunch of little magazines so I can take them into the hot tub at the gym and only ruin a tiny piece of the book if I drop it in.
  • the_owlsthe_owls
    edited October 2014
    If anyone feels like submitting some of their reading via pics, it can be fun to do that here: http://readingstack.tumblr.com/

    I steward this, intermittently (sometimes no one sends pics and I forget to ask around for more).
  • 000000
    Dale Cooper bought two fresh copies of House of Leaves yesterday! I'm going to split up the book into readings by next week.

    so far we've got:

    Dale
    Mike
    Major B
    Floss
    my best friend from high school who isn't on uhx
    Diane reading the cliffs notes
  • 000000
    Reading is good for you
  • MirandaJulyMirandaJuly
    I'll do my level best.
  • YoursTrulyYoursTruly
    Can't wait!
    I like the idea of splitting the reading up into clearly-delineated chunks.

    LETS DO THIS

    I am ready to start this Friday, will you have the readings by then?

    Is Alex gonna skip THESE footnotes? Ha ha ha ha YOU CAN'T
  • 000000
    I can try to have readings ready by Friday. It's a busy week though! Send help.
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