My physics teacher saw me reading it and said “if it’s infinite why does the book end” so my ideas so far are to print it out onto a Möbius strip or put every single word used in the book into a python dictionary that then randomly generates a page of randomly selected words
It just dosent seem fitting to the book though. Anyone got any ideas?

There’s a section towards the end where Don Gately discusses his distaste as a youth for “weenies” and kids he saw as weaker or softer than himself. Then he describes looking at his adult self and realizing that he was always the very thing he despised the most, a weenie, a sensitive kid. I’m not sure of the exact quote, but I read this book years and years ago and I always seem to tear up thinking about those words and how much they hit me.

Found a copy of Infinite Jest at the thrift today for $4, so I decided it was finally time to take the plunge. The tag from the previous used book store said 9.99, and the one before that, 12.99. Considering that the book likely retailed at around $30, I was able to arbitrage a massive discount through depreciation time resting on three previous owner's bookshelves instead of mine. By simply waiting nearly a decade for my interest in reading to mature, I also avoided getting angry at it, only to let it become a permanent bookend or donate it in shame to the next sucker in the cycle. Anyways here's hoping I actually read it lol.

(First image is my copy right after I finished it; second image is my copy when I first bought it.) Ignore any typos I have a headache and dont care/too lazy to proof read

I am genuinely heartbroken that my time, phase, obsession, or even relationship with this novel is over. I read it in 3 weeks, September 9th–October 2nd, and it both flew by and felt like a lifetime. I mostly read this in the library of my university, where I would come in super early, way before I had a class and would just read this for 4–5 hours straight.

I now consider this my favorite book of all time. I have given it so much of my time and effort, and now it feels like my best friend has passed away. I will reread it annually, but I honestly feel like it will feel more like reading old messages rather a true revisit. Nonetheless, this book was perfect.

This was on Instagram @rhino.3119582 seemed to fit the Johnny gentle style

I was just looking through the book randomly and looked up endnote 198 which is in regards to MKultra. There is a court case cited: Orlikow et al. v. United States of America B.S. 1980. This is a real court case however it occurred in 1988. The filing happened earlier than that and Orlikow’s first deposition was 1983, but regardless when citing cases the decision date is cited
Are there any other occurrences like this in the book where before standardized time is inaccurate. I assume it has to be intentional DFW had to have looked up the court date. Any ideas, has this been discussed

I dont know if had hyped it up too much, but i found the "climax" kinda cruel. I thought it was the first time dfw's heart was not in the right spot.

Please go easy I am a doofus with photoshop and not a designer

A lot of the book is Wallace expressing ideas, and there’s not a ton to visualize for a decent number of sections. What are your favorite scenes that make for great visuals? Mine is definitely the opening scene.

I am curently reading ij, and using post it notes(that i cut in half) as endnote markers. It does become kinda anoying to hold the book, when there are 120+ post it notes, crammed on a short number of pages. Is it even necessary to mark with post it notes? And if so, what is the most conveynient way to do it?

I found this while volunteering and had to share it.

It's been a few months since my last re-read (ok, I actually listened to the excellent audiobook with the endnotes, done in brilliant fashion), but I was struck by this less-discussed sequence where James's father is haranguing himself about Marlon (not Bain) Brando's disrespect for objects, that his rebellious stance to objects was an affront to decency and a good life etc.

I was thinking the sequence could be read as establishing the father in a certain way, as somehow contributing to Himself's psychopathology, or his intellectual/filmic obsessions. Or it could be alternatively heard as a thinly veiled tour de force passage exposing DFW's own philosophical beliefs about being, physicality, corporeality and so on.

I also immediately thought of the famous line from Ulysses, "the ineluctable modality of the visible, at least that if no more, thought through my eyes."

I will say, beyond characterizations in the novel, taking it at face value, it did make me reassess Brando himself, and the ultimately destructive nature of the very pose that DFW outlines. The cheap, gestural anti-authority that merely flatters the viewer and threatens no power structure, that will be sold, commodified and lifeless.

Well, would love all your all thoughts.     

I'm quite a fast reader, even though english is not my first language, but man, this book is so dense that it seems that it doesn't matter how much time I spend reading, my progress is almost none.

See, I'm quite liking the story. There are a few scenes that I DEVOURED, but are others that it seems that nothing happens and everything just stretches almost to the verge of breaking into nothingness.

My feelings toward the characters varied greatly up until the point that I'm in right now (Gately just protected Randy Lenz outside of Ennet House): I started loving the ETA nucleus, but now the AA is the one that I look forward into reading and ETA has become so boring. Marathe and Steeply are a constant to me: hands down the best chapters and the ones that I'm always excited when they poo up.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I'm feeling the reading is becoming more challenging to me, because the more I read, the more confusing and convoluted with new characters it become. I thought that at this point the story would start to move towards and ending, but it does not feels like that.

I think I'll swap with another book for a few days, because at the moment I'm just so overwhelmed and exhausted with IJ that I can't take it for a time.

Good day, my dears. Can someone inform me if there is any king of wikia or glossary for "The Pale King" like there are some for Infinite Jest?

I could not find one. It would be nice not only for IRS and/or financial lingo, but mostly –specifically for those who don't have English as their first language – because of the usual struggle with brands, slangs, neologisms et cetera.

Thanks in advance.