Recently, in a fit of madness, I agreed to join an Infinite Jest readalong organised by my new friend and colleague Rose. You may recall that I first tried (and failed) to read IJ as part of Infinite Summer six years ago. (Six?!) I was actually so annoyed by the book at that point that I ended up giving my printed copy to the local Op Shop. So for this readalong, I’m going with the Kindle version. Our first goal is 75 pages, which is apparently around 7.5% of the way through. Right now I’m at 6%, and I believe this is about the point where I stopped last time. Hm.

I was talking about the book with Rose a few weeks ago and mentioned that my problem is I’ve turned into a terrible skimmer. I love plot and I’m impatient, so I have a tendency to just skip right over paragraphs that look boring or have too much description in them. (Lord of the Rings, I’m looking at you.) She said that one of the things she likes about IJ is that it’s literally like a workout for your brain. The way it’s written, you have to pay attention. And that gave me an idea – why not take notes as I go? So I got out a notebook and started jotting things down. It’s actually been really helpful. It forces me to slow down and pay attention. So then I thought I might as well blog them for some added accountability. (Of course, I have since discovered that lots of people do this.)

Here are my notes so far:

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