One Step Beyond

Pages 1 - 37


I am only 37 pages in and already I feel like I have read a novella. This is a story that entirely commands the reader's attention, and rewards that attention gloriously.

I am struggling with the story because the paragraphs are so long. It's not unusual to have a 56-line paragraph, and that's on a page with small typeface and reduced margins. There is no break in which the reader can enjoy a small, reflective pause before entering the next segment. You're drawn into the story and it doesn't let you go. It's fun, but it takes it out of you.

I am confused too about the story line. We have Hal trying to get into college (Year of Glad) with a flashback to when he ate mould,  Erdedy waiting for dope (Year of Depend Adult Undergarment), the switch to Hal's appointment with the conversationalist (1 April - Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad), Hal receives a strange phone call - 'My head is filled with things I want to say' - while getting up for training (9 May - Year of Depend Adult Undergarment) and the medical attaché and his blank entertainment cartridges (Year of Depend Adult Undergarment).

What does it all mean? Why do the chapter headings make no sense?

What's keeping me going is DFW's one step beyond. He starts where other writers stop and then keeps going and going.

The line, 'We witnessed something only marginally mammalian in there, sir', coming after almost 2 pages of reaction to Hal speaking. Not 'inhuman', but 'marginally mammalian'. 

Writing all this down either is helping me keep track or simply delaying my eventual confusion, time will show which.

I came across my first footnote - only 387 to go! - and skipped it. The book's dense enough as it is.

Something I Don't Want to Do....

...but feel I ought to.


Some good reasons not to read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace:

1. The footnotes. I thought Paul Auster was bad, but with almost 100 pages of footnotes, DFW makes him look like a beginner.
2. I've heard the book is post modern, so I'll be obliged to look up the meaning of simulacrum and Derrida.
3. A friend of mine who is doing a PhD on DFW pinched about an inch of the book's pages and said, "This bit's really bad, but it gets better afterwards."
4. I like short books.
5. Writers whose work I didn't particularly care for, such as Dave Eggers, like it.
6. Writers whose work I admire, such as Chad Harbach, have read the book and said that DFW has done everything they wanted to do and done it better. 
7. The last time I played tennis I was in short trousers.
8. I'm 41 years old and I'll probably be 42 before I finish it. 

There are some good reasons to read it:

1. The first scene blew my mind.
2. I read Proust, or at least I read one book of À la recherche du temps perdu, which is surely the high water mark of impenetrable prose.

My aim is to read a bit, blog a bit.

I have the Abacus, 2013 edition, ISBN 9780349121086.

I have motivation.