Tad's Reading

All I can say is that I've started. One chapter (17 pages) in and I'm already building a mental list of questions about what is going on...or, perhaps a better way of putting it would be, is what I think is going on really what is going on? I haven't read a synopsis or even a detailed description of the book—somehow that would seem to be cheating—so one can only hope that there aren't 1062 pages more of this feeling. ;-D

I will enjoy reading whatever questions you have or decide to list. The first 223 pages are easily the most frustrating for a first time reader. On page 223, echoing sacpop's link to the Infinite Summer's rules for reading IJ, there's information that will make the rest of the read make much more sense. I once recommended that reader's "cheat" and jump ahead to that page at the outset, but I think it might be better now not to do that. I didn't have that info the first time I read it, and it ended up working for me. Though I will say, I nearly abandoned the book after 200 pages the first time, but the rewards for sticking around are greater than the relief in leaving the book prematurely, imo. If you've read The Name of the Rose, remember how difficult those first 100-125 pages were, how dense and hard to decipher the writing was, well IJ is similar in that regard.

Hang in there, Tad and just...... keep reading. (And going back and rereading.) Somewhere around here is my thread from early 2012.
I consider this one of the great reading adventures of my life!

I'd agree with this. I had a pretty good idea what the Year of Glad was, but even f I'd've known about p223 (which now, I realise, begins to acquire (undeserved) mythical status - don't be too disappointed if you make it that far) I wouldn't have wanted to skip ahead and find out.

It's like looking up the answers in the back of the math/s textbook.

I had a pretty good idea what the Year of Glad was

It's not that it's opaque...the surface events seems quite straightforward (perhaps a fatal misjudgment). Just find myself wondering what O.N.A.N.C.A.A. is. Wondering if the acronym is supposed to be a subtle reference to "onanism". Assuming that (but wondering if) this book doesn't take place in our reality/time because of the references to North American leagues rather than U.S. leagues. And, of course, wondering what the heck is coming out of Hal's mouth when he tries to talk that has everyone so freaked out.

I'm sure all shall be revealed eventually.

About the only real question I have is the actual book: from the comments made at the top of the Group page I was expected many footnotes. I haven't seen a single one yet. Deficiency in Kindle edition or they simply haven't started, yet?

They haven't started yet. No footnotes in "The year of glad"

Then there are footnotes to the footnotes eventually....... Don't worry about stuff like O.N.A.N. etc. or what is the matter with Hal, all will be revealed in due time. The MAIN THING is to be ALERT to those things you don't get right now, so you can go back later and reread anything you need to. The way it unwraps and reveals is only to be experienced once the way you can. I am a terribly 'peeker aheader' - sometimes I start reading carelessly if I get too anxious to know what is going to happen, but I gave that up completely, which is a measure of DFW's method, or whatever you want to call it.

I'm really very tempted to get out my copy and read along with you.

7> May you give in to temptation! Here's sibyx's thread from last year, mentioned in post 3. All will be revealed in due time. Yes!

6> No footnotes until page 40-something.

5> ...O.N.A.N.C.A.A. is. Wondering if the acronym is supposed to be a subtle reference to "onanism".

Yes, it is. The critics and reader's guide are all over details like that. Great eye.

'Wondering if the acronym is supposed to be a subtle reference to "onanism".'

Not sure that it's all that subtle :-)

Yeah, I caught that. Not subtle.

>3 sibylline: & 7: I'm not going to hunt up your thread, Lucy. I've decided to read this somewhat as if it's the 90s and all the guides, hints, explanations, people who have read it eleventy-five times, etc. do not exist. Not entirely, mind you, but I want to avoid spoilers, look-aheads and premature explanations.

This is somewhat tough for me, admittedly, since I'm an inveterate looker-upper or looker-aheader when something doesn't make sense. However, in this case, it seems to be quite contrary to the point of the novel and so I'll just let Wallace take me on this rather odd ride.

>9 sacpop: & 10: Yes, well, with only one mention of it with zero context, I wasn't certain whether it was a coincidental similarity or a deliberate reference. I guess I'm stupider than the average bear. Glad you folks understood it.

------

I should have entitled this thread, "Note Taking and other Verbal Diarrhea" since I'm going to use it just to keep notes for myself. That's another way of saying it may be of no interest to anyone else.

;-D

Finished up to "Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar" and mostly just gathering impressions since, clearly, I'm not intended to understand what is going on.

Sidebar: Have to say I read that as "Trail Size" at first and that got me thinking of my sister who is getting ready to hike the Camino de Santiago later this year and considering what she wants to carry as snacks...how's that for a digression?

* Hard to read this for any extended time because of sentences that are endless and convoluted.

* Chapter 2 struck home quite a bit. Erdedy's internal monologue reminded me quite distinctly of my father attempting to break his four-pack-a-day cigarette habit. The language of addiction isn't all that dissimilar.

* The masturbatory behavior certainly echoes the O.N.A.N., with what meaning I'm still not sure.

* Have decided that this isn't "our world/time" since, among other things, teleputers isn't a term we use.

* Thought the ending of that chapter where he was splayed between two sounds quite evocative. Hope that gets picked back up later.

* Found it rather odd that Wallace should footnote what methamphetamine hydrochloride is, a term many are likely to know today, but not a lot of the medical terms that I would think more obscure to any but a medical practitioner.

* Page 33 reveals the meaning of the odd "Year of the ..." nomenclature. Can anyone not laugh at that perfectly ridiculous, but perfectly believable, extension of marketing? Think I'm going to have to build myself some kind of written key on Year Name = Relative Time since Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad is clearly before Year of Glad.

* Dictionary handy might be necessary. Had to look up "anaplastic"...still not clear what an anaplastic cerebrum might be. Also, "Mondragonoid" which remains a mystery unless it refers to Spain.

* Wondering if "mise-en-scene appropriate card" indicates that Hal thinks his father steals other people's ideas.

* The attaché sequence was rather odd. The presence of Byzantine erotica on the walls while all of his thoughts are about avoiding impurity. Another addictive character in the Prince/Toblerone.

* The disturbing lines describing his evening behavior where his wife basically treats him like a baby in a high chair. Something with the whole Depends thing maybe?

Greatly enjoying your observations. I'll restrain myself from revealing anything. And I won't say which, assuming it's not all, of your bullets points have touched on themes and motifs you'll see repeated ad infinitum.

On the Byzantine erotica on the walls of the attache, I thought that was odd to, and wondered if there was some kind of a connection between it and to Hal's admissions essay on the same topic from "Year of Glad."

Re: footnotes

I once read that the idea that one purpose of the footnotes in IJ, which are, after all, unusual in fiction, is to break the spell and make you realise you are reading a book by taking you out of the fictional world, and sending you back and forth across the book 'in the real world'.

Interesting thought.

Sometimes there will be mistakes, oversights etc in the book but having listened to DFW speak I think it's far more likely that whatever is going on in IJ has been extremely carefully considered.

In fact, as I write this, I'm pretty sure I remember a quote from DFW about there not being a single wasted word. A joke? A jest? Maybe, but he seemed serious about it.

I got that feeling after awhile - I mean - that he knew what he was doing all the time.

Re: dictionary. Absolutely. And even that might not be enough.

There used to be a vocab guide online but it now redirects to here http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/index.php?title=IJ_Alph...

This contains a lot of the vocab but as it's a more complete A-Z with characters, locations etc there are also spoilers.

And the A doesn't contain my favourite IJ word 'apotropaic' (but it is a wiki so I suppose I could fix that).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apotropaic_magic

Life is too short to worry about spoilers.

>12 absurdeist:: Yes, I remembered that was one of Hal's essays. And, when he spoke to this father, there was a bit about it. Another recurring motif I'm guessing.

>13 sacpop: & 14: It does ooze "carefully crafted" so far.

>15 sacpop:: Well, that is a nice-sounding word. :-)

>16 Sandydog1:: Well, you're entitled to your opinion, but I'll read it my way.

I've read a little more but am not at a natural breaking point at the moment. We're at one of my daughter's competitions most of today. Despite the noise and bustle, I'm hoping I can fit in some time on IJ during the down time.

All right, I give. Am I missing something obvious about a fitness personality whose name is a near-anagram of Tae Kwon Do?

Tad, in my usual mindless way, I'll say again, "Relax. Go with the flow. You will get it - (or in my case, it can be gotten) well before the end. COURAGE!"

No, you are not missing anything.

Kate Gompert's story is wrenching and feels absolutely real — every single word of that chapter evoked feelings of loneliness, depression and futility that I have felt...that I suspect everyone has felt...at one time or another.

The meeting of Marathe and Steeply is so ludicrous, so absurd — drag queen meets wheelchair assassin...one breast pointing up to form a double chin, the other down, whilst the separatist contemplates his double, triple, possibly even quadruple agent status — and then herds of feral hamsters. It fails to evoke any emotion in me, not even humor.

The proximity of these two types of sections is frustrating.

I find myself wondering if it's a coincidence that 223...as in page 223...also happens to be the caliber of NATO standard ammunition, and how many people this causes to think about a gun to their head.

23: Wow! That certainly would have gone over my head no matter HOW many times I read IJ.

I didn't really like Steeply and Marathe first time through, but they do get quite philosophical IIRC. I liked the challenge of trying to keep up with what level of double/triple crossing was going on, and why.

Maybe it's meant to be absurd, futile, and thereby evoke existential dread at the futility of it all (sigh). Or something.

Also isn't it in one of these sections where we get to learn about 'Brockengespenst'. If we didn't know it already. Worth the price of admission alone that one.

Also also someone posted elsewhere that S+M(!?) parallel Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Though I can't see it myself (yet).

Yes, the first time we meet them they are observing and playing with it.

Reading the definition of the word made me realize that a significant part of IJ is likely to be going over my head. Never having read any Pynchon, I wouldn't catch this reference. Hamlet stuff maybe/usually/sometimes. Other stuff, very easily no.

http://www.xefer.com/2012/07/brocken
I got here by googling that word. I had no idea having never read Pynchon either.

I'm sure tons of IJ went over my head too.... and tons of Pynchon, but it doesn't seem to stop me from enjoying it all immensely.

Agreed. I'd like to get hold of a reading guide to see what I've been missing, but the, apparently, better one is not available in the UK.

Also, in general, I wonder how much that is read into any work was actually put there in the first place.

I'm sure there's plenty of IJ which passed straight through me like a trillion neutrinos, but I'm never sure whether 'readings' tell us about the author*'s intentions or the author**'s intentions.

*of the book

** of the reading

If there had been any doubt (there wasn't), I would know this story takes place in a distopia because of the phrase: "Do I have trouble recalling certain intervals in the...Limbaugh administrations?" I woulda moved to Canada. Oh....wait.... ;-)

I did catch the reference to the song "Dear Boss" because I was somewhat of a Clancy Brothers fan in the day.

I wondering about a possible reference in Madame Psychosis' broadcast (first, if it turns out there is more than one later) where she talks about broadcasting the formula for turning uranium oxide into U-235. I was at school at the same time as John Phillips when he wrote the junior paper describing the steps for creating an atomic bomb based solely on information from unclassified material available in the public domain, only to have his paper confiscated by the FBI as being classified. Her story seems to be a nod in that direction.

>29 sacpop:: but I'm never sure whether 'readings' tell us about the author*'s intentions or the author**'s intentions.

I wonder the same thing quite often. It's why I'm not constitutionally cut out to be an English major. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Oh, what fun, I haven't listened to that song in AGES.

Yes, IJ is set in a 'near', highly improbable (actually intentionally farcical) dystopic North America..... sort of the way Brazil the movie was sort of horrifyingly believable, taking stuff that was actually happening and exagerrating it to the nth degree.

>29 sacpop:: but I'm never sure whether 'readings' tell us about the author*'s intentions or the author**'s intentions.

I wonder the same thing quite often. It's why I'm not constitutionally cut out to be an English major. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

But does it matter? I mean, whether Wallace intended the p. 223 thing or "I am" or whatever is certainly interesting and changes the way you read, but whether he meant it or not, it's there, which seems much more to the point.

>32 MeditationesMartini:: seems much more to the point.

I guess I don't totally agree. Or, perhaps a better way of saying it is that I agree only partially and the part that does agree is comparatively uninteresting to me because I don't know what point or whose point you're referencing.

If the author didn't mean to say it (I include subconsciously or unconsciously in that), then it's only there in the same way that things are there in a Rorschach Test.

In that light, it is mildly interesting to me to note that my mind sees a coincidence—I tend to doubt DFW was intending the correlation—between what is stamped on the side of an M16 and a page number listed as mythical by people who have read this book. However, it isn't interesting to me in the sense of trying to understand what the author is attempting to convey.

By saying that, I'm not saying that it's silly or specious or shouldn't be interesting to other people...merely that it's an exercise of less interest to me. Which is why I wasn't a Psychology major either.

This thread needs more Roland Barthes
http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/Gustafson/FILM%20162.W10/readings/barthes.death...

(Sorry Tad)

>33 TadAD: This point is really well made.

I particularly like the point about the Rorschach Tests.

>34 anna_in_pdx: I'm guessing at the content from the title but here goes anyway:

Once the "text" is out there, fine, it's everyone's to play with. And it may even be the case that the author's reading is no more insightful than anyone else's, but it's not legitimate to claim agency(?) on the part of the author where there was none.

I recognise this argument may be a straw man, but the sort of language that is used about "cigars" often asserts such agency.

If I had to err one way or the other, I'd err on the side that Wallace intended whatever apparent coincidence, detail or allusion we happen upon; intentional in the same hyper-intensive, all-inclusive manner that Joyce employed in Ulysses, Lowry in Under the Volcano, or Gaddis in The Recognitions. So maybe p. 223 is a stretch, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it wasn't.

No, the death of the author thing is really saying yeah the text is its own thing, and if stuff in it exists and people see it, it is validly there, whether or not the author intended it, is how I remember reading it lo these 25 years ago. I am old.

I think even DFW could have not intended things. For example, one of the things that surprised me about the bio I just got done reading was the idea that he kept his depression under wraps. I was sure while reading it for the first time that IJ was written by someone with a much more than passing acquaintance with clinical depression. Even if he had not already committed suicide before I had read the book, I still think it would have been blindingly obvious. Did he intend me to feel like I had gotten inside his head to that extent? I don't really think so.

>37 absurdeist: I guess that was sort of my point. 223 is a stretch, but more interesting to me than "claiming agency," since the evidence is lacking, is taking the whole thing as a an allusive synaesthetic monster birthed out of James Incandenza's head and somehow finding itself on my bookshelf in this the Year of Pinterest, with Quebeckers after me and shit. I'm a Barthesian in that respect, I suppose. And an English major. But >33 TadAD:, yes, to each their own of course:)

>38 anna_in_pdx:: I am old

First, based upon your profile picture, I'm not necessarily going to accept that as it would make statements about my age. ;-D

Anyway...

Referencing back to some of the things I said to you in PM, it would seem to me that there exist more than one category of non-overt (I can't think of a better word right at this second) stuff.

One would be unconscious/unintended things that the author did put in there because he is who he is. So, DFW being clinically depressed expresses itself in his ability to write depression, even if he didn't intend to reveal that. Or, given all the Hamlet allusions already in the text, it would seem reasonable that "finding" another is nothing more than the author's unconscious at work.

Another would be the category you described with "For example a work written by someone hundreds of years ago could become a symbol for some later social or political movement, something its author never intended but something that becomes a real aspect of the text as it is read by later generations." The key element here being that something is acknowledged to have accreted onto the original text.

However, I don't think either of those preclude there being things that simply aren't there unless "there" is defined as "someone asserts it." Perhaps this is a prejudice of my own background (science) but, to me, there is signal and there is noise. Sometimes noise looks like signal. It doesn't mean it is signal. Of course, it also doesn't mean it isn't...things that look like noise because they are unaccounted for can become signal with further understanding. Nonetheless, the fact that a random number generator spits out "42" doesn't make it a reference to Douglas Adams' work.

Now, if we want to say that asserting something exists means that it does exist, then I don't have a real problem with that...I just don't find it interesting. Which was my point in #33.

>39 MeditationesMartini:: whole thing as a an allusive synaesthetic monster birthed out of James Incandenza's head and somehow finding itself on my bookshelf

That is an interesting perspective that I hadn't thought of except insofar as it echoes something I said over on my general reading thread:

Part of me wonders whether the whole point of this book is to have the experience of reading this book [Infinite Jest]...and that the content of the book is immaterial.

I've reached p. 223 and I'm glad of sacpop's warning because I found it a trifle anticlimactic. The footnote detailing Incandenza's films, plus the little pieces of chronology found in the text such as age of the school, had allowed me to build a rough relative listing of the years and start to make sense of the interwoven time lines. But, no matter.

A couple of notes I took while reading the last 100 pages:

1) The constant repetition of waste images, both bodily waste and consumer waste, coupled with the whole Great Concavity thing, is starting to sink in at a gut level...I notice it as a reflex now instead having to think about a line of text. This, in turn, conjures echoes of the Big Buddy meetings where Troeltsch talks about the years up to 14-15 being about mindless repetition until somethings go out of your head and become wired in. Perception of waste in our society becoming wired in?

2) The color blue. I'm still not sure why this color is so prevalent. Blue as in sad? Blue as in pornographic? Blue as in "out of the blue"? All of the above?

3) It's hard to miss the reference to Burgess when yrstruly calls his partners droogies. The first person narrative also evoked it. Having that reference in mind made this section much more powerful for me because the hyperviolence in IJ was magnified by remembering the same hyperviolence in ACO. So, the gratuitous violence to a mugging victim recalls the same done by Alex; the near rape in the subway of IJ recalls the near rape in the theater in ACO; etc.

4) Lyle fascinates me...once I got over my instant, gut revulsion at living by licking sweat off of people. Living off the sweat of others is a pejorative term in our English, yet here it's a positive thing. I also find myself speculating on his advice to not lift a weight greater than your own. The results of the kids trying to do it anyway has an obvious parallel to the Dear Boss song. However, I wonder about more than that.

"Weight" is a slang term for drugs in our version of reality. Is this advice somehow a deeper type of advice to the kids? Someone like Erdedy is already gone as far as drugs are concerned; his addiction owns him. However, most of the kids at ETA are still at the choose to/choose not to stage in their addictions. Is this advice to moderate and make sure the Drug doesn't outweigh the You?

I hope there's more Lyle in the book.

Hmmm, rereading what I just wrote, I also have the thought that maybe #4 and #1 are connected.

Lyle is living off of what is, by the time he consumes it, a waste product. Recycling waste into good.

I'm glad you are liking Lyle. (Note the resistance to temptation to pun.)

Wallace was blessed/cursed with eidetic memory (I could be wrong about this, probably am wrong about this?)- which I do think alters the accidental/on purpose factor in his work. Even in lesser writerly mortals, like myself, stuff I have read and thought about tends to surface unbidden in my work that I notice when I start revisions . I've had that happen dozens of times - and once I have noticedm, then I go, hey! I can use that! Then I might amplify it and play with it. So I have no doubt that as he wrote all sorts of stuff came out along his obsessive avenues of thought - like - say - waste, that he then worked with consciously when rewriting. I heard John Ashbery talking about this process at one point and he was saying he does it in his head now, but in the beginning he had to go through a whole laborious process of making the connections and tying them together etc.

>44 sibylline:: Wallace was blessed/cursed with eidetic memory

I haven't seen that mentioned. In fact, I saw an interview with him where he implied the opposite.

Hmm, now where did I get that notion from? Jonathan Franzen maybe? Or maybe I just assumed it based on the way he writes. The Franzen is, so far, the only biographical thing I've read. At any rate, by all accounts, Wallace was v. bright, incandescent, not to make too much of an IJ pun.

The serious IJ dudes will correct me, for sure.....

42> Perception of waste in our society becoming wired in?

That's an interesting connection to make. One I'd not previously considered.

On "blue". Yes. All of the above -- and more, I suspect.

We know that Wallace at one point early in his career considered modeling his post-graduate academic life after the philosopher-turned-fiction-author/literary-critic, William H. Gass. I know Wallace was very familiar with Gass' earlier fiction, but I'm not sure if that included On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry, in which Gass analyzes "blue" in its multitude of interdisciplinary meanings. I'm just wondering aloud, while I have the thought, if there's a connection between how Wallace used "blue" in IJ and the sort of template of ideas Gass formulated for the color in On Being Blue.

Just hit my first footnote that is, in itself, a short story. IJ can certainly do duty as an aid to training the mind to maintain a lengthy context stack with the ability to push and pop instances of "what is happening" of quite a large size.

Interesting to read your thoughts here, Tad. I read IJ last year along with Lucky was tempted to quit several times in the first quarter of the book but then it started fitting together and made more sense to me. I also considered skipping the footnotes because I hated flipping back and forth. Easily solved by using two bookmarks. There is much rich material in those footnotes so I'm glad I continued.

Hang in there. I'll come back later to check on your progress and cheer you along.

Marathe's and Steeply's discussion of choice puts me in mind of some of Werner Erhard's writings I read back in the 80s. He, of course, was recasting/plagiarizing others toward (what I perceive to be) his goal, though I never pursued it enough to find out what those original sources were...I think now maybe I'll put that down on the To Do list.

The concept of choosing how we experience life instead of viewing it as something that happens to us seems to build a bridge between that part of IJ and WE. Not sure where I'm going with this beyond that statement but just noting it.

I think Erhard's influences were pretty diverse and that the most effective and useful ideas have dispersed widely into the population via channels like Oprah....... and particularly that stuff is integrated deeply now into the 'recovery' world. On the Erhard theme - my spousal unit had cousins who were vulnerable to est/forum etc. and so I read a good bit about him at one time because they were pressuring us to do it. Well, I won't do anything where they won't let you use the potty whenever you want, and really, I won't do anything as part of a group anyway so it was definitely a no-can-do for me, but I think the bottom line is zen-made-easy for Americans (by types such as Alan Watts, whose work I loved back in the day but) mixed with some fairly wild american self-help stuff and possibly a touch of Ayn Rand tossed in for good measure - mainly in the form of some kind of creepy arrogance. I ended up feeling that it was all about realizing yourself through making loads of money. Very very american and strange, really.

Thank goodness I know nothing about Erhard and escaped my only possibility with an encounter group! (I assume that's part of the same milieu.)
Back to *IJ*!

Forgot to add that I love the idea of being "Lucky". My nickname as a kid was sometimes Loki, and for good reason, I did somehow always get into trouble....... I've thought once or twice of changing my LT name to that actually. But everyone would probably have a fit!

"Eminent nondomain"...one of my new favorite terms.

I'm done. My brain is rebooting.

Well put!

I didn't really like Steeply and Marathe first time through, but they do get quite philosophical IIRC. I liked the challenge of trying to keep up with what level of double/triple crossing was going on, and why

They provide some of the most direct philosophical input into the text. You might want to google Quine and Indeterminancy of Radical Interpretation.

I think even DFW could have not intended things. For example, one of the things that surprised me about the bio I just got done reading was the idea that he kept his depression under wraps. I was sure while reading it for the first time that IJ was written by someone with a much more than passing acquaintance with clinical depression. Even if he had not already committed suicide before I had read the book, I still think it would have been blindingly obvious. Did he intend me to feel like I had gotten inside his head to that extent? I don't really think so.

Authorial intent is a subject that Wallace is extremely familiar with (iirc, it's the subject of one of his essays in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never do Again. You can make some pretty serious, heavy-duty arguments on either side of coin. Then again, one of the central motifs of the work seems to be the question of whether or not we can understand each other at all (what DFW, in his book on Cantor, iirc, refers to as the adolescent pot smoker's heavy questions). What is it that Hal "says" (or is it "thinks") in the beginning of the book after the admissions process? Something like "I could answer every question you ask in mind-numbing detail if I could be certain that the sounds I made would be the sounds you heard'?

Hearty congrats, Tad!

15.1, 25.2, 1.2, 22.8, 22.6, 3...

It was circa March, 2013, that I left "In Here", and quit after about 400 agonizing pages. My anterior singulate cortex just couldn't take it.

...8.1, 13.7, 2, 6.1, 7.5, 9.1, 10.1, 10.3...

But thanks to Greg Carlisle, I decided to try the chronological route, started up recently, and things are going along swimmingly. The ability to understand the Steeply and Marathe interaction, was alone, worth the retreat to this technique.

...24.5, 25.1, 25.4, 25.6, 27.3, 4...

I may just get through this Monster yet, and some day I may even read it the correct way. (I jest, of course there is no correct way).

...23.9, 23.11, 22.2, 22.4, 22.7, 23.10, 24.3...

Okay, I admit that I've indulged in some holiday cheer...but I just picked up my copy and started a re-read of this beastie.

What am I thinking? It's a marathon, and not an entirely fun one. There are a million other books I want to read.

Yet, somehow, of all the books I read in the last two years, I keep thinking about this one.

It's compelling for some very odd/strange reason. Perhaps it's that I've got a friend who reminds me of Kate. Perhaps I'm a closet masochist.

Will I abandon this? Maybe. Probably. But I find it intriguing that I'm even contemplating it.