So for those of you who are still reading–and not that there’s anything wrong with that–Infinite Summer has crossed infinite boundaries to become Infinite Autumn…(thanks for the title to Kim in a comment to yesterday’s post). And for those of you who have not yet started, please consider Infinite Autumn: 11 pages a day and you’ll be finished before the click of the clock that signals winter. Infinite Jest is a read for all seasons.

And speaking of titles:

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? [Hamlet, V.i]

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, it feels weird not to be reading IJ anymore. I sense hesitation in moving forward to a new book. I don’t want to remove IJ from “What I’m reading now” on my Reading List page or from my “Read with me now” box on my sidebar.

Hence my taking 5 posts to process being finished and letting go. As far as an overall design, I have none, I must admit, which feels a little reckless. This week I’m rereading what I have underlined and trying to get “a hold of” it.

I have read IJ only once and some parts more closely than others. I am qualified only to give my impressions of one reading with only a few instances of reference to outside sources and but I am telling you even if I missed a few days, always when I picked it back up, I was back in the story in one second and I think it’s because of the sentences.

Yesterday was an example of lyrical. Today, it’s an example of honest:

…when he realized that the various Substances he didn’t used to be able to go a day without absorbing hadn’t even like occurred to him in almost a week, Gately hadn’t felt so much grateful or joyful as just plain shocked. (p.349)

More tomorrow…

[2nd in a series of 5 posts on finishing IJ]