Thursday, May 14, 2009

who's infinite now, huh?
























i did it - i finished infinite jest! i don't know if you can see it in the above picture (a certain visiting dog contemplated having a little chew on it - every once in a while she likes to gnaw on well-seasoned books). minnow looks worried, because he knew how close to the end i was at this point, and how dutifully i flipped back to the endnotes again and again and again, maintaining a careful two-bookmark system. this is pretty much where this book was read in its entirety: my bed. although i did defy logic and read it in the bathtub a couple of times, it rarely if ever made it downstairs, and never out of the house. i am still digesting the actual story, so i don't have much in the way of a book review. i was left feeling like too many loose ends were floating around at the end, wondering what happened to just about every character. i know more about tennis culture than i ever cared to, and almost that much about intra-venous and other types of drug abuse. here is my favorite line from the whole book:

"the door's got a big poster of r. limbaugh on it, from before the assassination." page 929.

2 comments:

Julie Falatko said...

Hurray! Congratulations! I am still digesting the story and I read it 10 years ago or something. But when you spend so much of your time reading a book, it really weaves itself into your consciousness.

Liz Woodbury said...

thanks, julie! my immediate feeling was frustration with all the unfinished stories, but i keep thinking about various characters all the time, and i'm finding it very hard to start another book now...