Since I started Infinite Jest, my goal has been to suck it up until page 223. I kept telling myself that if I could just get to page 223, everything would be good.
Why? Because the Infinite Summer blog told me so 
In their posts on tips for reading the book, the guides (four readers helping keep us going through the book) said to persevere to page 200, and that page 223 was one to mark because it would give necessary information that would help the book make sense. So that’s what I’ve been doing — persevering until I got to page 223.
Now, you have to understand I misinterpreted that suggestion a little bit. Over the last month I’d turned page 223 into some sort of epic turning point of the book — if If I could just get there then this book would come clear to me and finishing it would seem like an easy task.
I was wrong.
I reached page 223 yesterday night, about two days after I should have. As I plowed my way through pages 200, 210, 215, 220, I kept wanting to get to page 223. I started focusing on closely on what I was reading because I wanted to experience page 223 in all it’s glory. I wanted to be ready for the epiphany.
The epiphany didn’t come. Page 223 doesn’t spell out the meaning of the book in a single paragraph, it doesn’t tie together the story strands, it doesn’t radically change what is going on. In that sense, I felt a little disappointed after I reached this mythical page.
I put the book down for a little bit to think. I calculated — at page 223, I’m now 22.7 percent done with the book. I pondered — certainly, persevering past page 200 is a must because things are starting to come together and I enjoy reading each new section. And I blogged — somehow writing this post about my overly-simplified expectations has made me feel better.
So I’m going to continue. Well, I was always going to continue, but now I’m continuing with a new sense if vigor for the book. Page 223 wasn’t an epic, game-changing moment in the book, but it was a milestone. Approaching a book this big and this hard to read has to come with milestones or you don’t feel like you’re making progress. And my disappointment is only my own because I misinterpreted advice from people more experienced with the book than I am.
So what’s on page 223? I’m not going to tell you. The guides told us not to look ahead, to trust the author and get to page 223 at the right time. And they were right. You gotta just wait for it because it’s sort of fun to take the new information and reconsider the 22.7 percent of the book you’ve already finished.
I also just realized this must be the most annoying post ever for people who aren’t reading Infinite Jest. So, I’m sorry for that. Next update, I promise to write something about what the book is actually about.
Have you ever created unrealistic expectations for a book or book milestone? Ever had your hopes raised for understanding, only to find the zap of lightening never came?
P.S. And in a most exciting development, sort of, I got linked to from a weekly round up post at Infinite Summer. Cool, right?
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It sounds like you’ve got quite a daunting task ahead of you. Good luck!
I thought p. 223 would be a revelation, but it wasn’t quite that. I did dutifully bookmark the page because I know it’ll come in handy later. The book is a fun read, though, and the disparate parts are starting to gel for me. (The section immediately after p. 223 was one of the best bits yet!)
Sometimes you never get that sense of epiphany. But sometimes you understand things differently after struggling through a difficult book, and it makes you glad you read it in whatever haphazard way you could manage at the time. Some books that I first read like that are among my favorites now. Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse comes to mind. I struggled through it one afternoon at the pool after months of trying, and enjoyed it ever after.
‘I also just realized this must be the most annoying post ever for people who aren’t reading Infinite Jest.’ – Are you kidding? That was really tense and impassioned. I’m always amazed by how book people are miscast by society. I’ve never met a more fiercely, emotionally-invested group of people than book people.
First of all, the name of your blog makes me smile. Great name!
Infinite Jest is on my reading list, too, in spite of it’s length. David Wallace Foster was a professor at Pomona College, and I attended one of the other Claremont Colleges. I feel almost a duty to read Infinite Jest, although it’s intensity attracts me, too.
Oops, it’s David Foster Wallace! I often mix up the names.
The guy sitting in front of me (he was in business class though while I was in “the rest of us class”) was reading this on the plane on Sunday when my daughters and I were flying home to Wisconsin from Washington. One of my habits is to check out what other people were reading. You were dying to know that weren’t you?
Thanks. Some days it seems more overwhelming than others, but having the online book club is a huge help. I’m not a very active participant, it’s just nice to know other people are slogging along as well.
You’ve all gotten me immensely curious about this book….
Yep. I started it last weekend and hurried through the first 200 pages, just so I could read the forums without worrying about spoilers. I’m liking doing it as a group read because it’s helping me pick up on things a little more.
I, too, was let down big time by page 223. With the stuff leading up to it, I was anticipating a big trip into the DMZ to explain Hal’s condition, but nooooooo…it’s just…
I’m not reading the book, but I thought you were going to say something like you had a different print run of the book and your “223″ wasn’t the real 223 and you had to keep reading until like pg. 348 or something.
Are you reading IJ this summer as well?
I did bookmark the page, and I think I’m going to go back and mark in some more info that I want to know.
I agree, I love that things are starting to make sense now. I’ve started to like Hal and the other ETA students, which makes those sections fun to read. I’m still curious about the medical attache and stuff though, that stuff hasn’t come together yet.
I think if I manage to read IJ a second time in the future, I’ll appreciate it a lot. For now, my strategy is to just keep getting through as best I can and try not to get bogged down in all the things I don’t understand (big words, odd sections, dialects, subsidized dates) and try to absorb the story. It’s working pretty well, but I still feel like I’m missing so much.
Very true, book people get very passionate about things. And I think blogging brings that out because it gives a way to share some of that passion with people who share and can sort of understand it.
I guess what I hoped to get across in this post is how IJ is constantly playing with my expectations, and also that I think I’m demanding more clarity from the book than it’s ever going to give me. IJ is frustratingly complicated, but after I get over my need to dissect it I think I’m going to enjoy it a lot.
Thank you, I like it too
I think I would be even more inspired to read this had I met David Foster Wallace — he seems like a brilliant guy who would be great to have a cup of coffee with.
And the book is intense, so be prepared for that when you start.
No, that’s awesome, thank you for sharing! I haven’t run across anyone reading the book in public yet, but I would love to. I don’t carry IJ around with me because it’s really bulky, so I admire the people that do.
I’m not sure I’d even bring it on a plane — I tend to need some quiet when I’m working through really hard parts. Plus, I can only read 30-40 pages at a time before it makes me tired. A good tired, but tired.
That’s great! The first 200 pages were hard for me, but it’s been getting easier now. I like the forums and the blog, even if I mostly just lurk around and absorb what other people are thinking about.
In my next IJ post, I’m going to try to write a little more about what the book is about, so hopefully that will make it even more intriguing!
I thought it would be something big too. Having the 223 info is good, and it confirmed what I suspected about the timeline of the story, but wasn’t earth shattering. Misplaced expectations, I suppose
Ha ha, that would have been funny! I read somewhere that all of the print editions of the book are exactly the same number of pages, so it doesn’t matter which one you have — the reading schedule is still accurate. I think that’s pretty great.