Reasons why I’m Majorly Behind but am Definitely NOT Quitting Infinite Jest

The “I” is for the first reading. Funny how I knew I would be re-reading The Jest before I even started the first time!

It’s nearly October and I’m nowhere near finished with The Jest (as one of my friends calls it). I can’t remember why or when I decided to read IJ but I started May 29th and am currently on page 772. A month of debate camp (basically where you spend a month on a college campus and eat, breathe, and dream debate–kind of like ETA but for high school policy debaters) in July and starting my junior year of high school have sidetracked me major big time. But I refuse to quit for the following reasons:

1. I am too far in to quit now.
2. Strangely this is the one project/hobby that I’ve started and have not wanted to quit (examples include violin, tae kwondo, running 5Ks, taking coursera classes, etc.)
3. Although some of my enthusiasm has waned, I’m still pretty emotionally attached to most of the characters, my favorite being the P.G.O.A.T., for no particular reason
4. I HAVE to know if the wheelchair assassins get the Samizdat!
5. On a similar note, I have to know how Hal gets into the situation w/r/t his grades and college admissions at the beginning of the book!
6. This book has changed me. I don’t know how but it has. I feel like if I finish The Jest then I can finish any book, no matter how thick the book is or how dense the writing is.
7. God this book has been there for me more than anyone else has. It’s a great thing to read when your entire life goes to shit. I have notes scribbled in the margins from days when I was diagnosed with Bipolar, days when I found out about some skeletons in the family closet, and scribbles, highlights, and circles around passages that just resonate with me. Bomb a test? Best friend starts to get jealous of you and ignore you? Fight with debate partner? Read Infinite Jest and you’ll instantly feel better.
8. I like the feeling of it in my backpack at school. Yes it’s an extra three pounds but I like knowing it’s there. I’ve been lugging it around since I started reading and I’m not used to it not being with me all the time.
9. I have to have something to read while my English teacher is rambling on about nothing in class (We get it. You’re a published poet with two masters degrees. Now are you going to let us discuss our arguments about whether or not Perry Smith is a prisoner of his own history or are you going to get defensive and ramble about your credentials whenever someone I disagrees with you?).
10. I think the majority of people who ask me “why are you reading THAT?” and “are you seriously annotating it for fun?” think I’m some sort of freak or won’t finish it and I want to prove them wrong (though I’ll agree with the freakishness ) and show them that it’s possible for people to enjoy reading and re-reading and scrutinizing texts outside of English class.
11. The community of people who’ve read this Book and DFW’s other works is really amazing. The people in the Summer of Jest group are awesome. Checking out Consider the Lobster and Stephen Burn’s reading guide at the UT library during camp was ten times more awesome when the librarian, who had finished IJ in March, struck up a conversation about the book.
12. I’m addicted. IJ is about addiction and entertainment, and oddly enough it became my addiction when I started reading. There was a point where I didn’t want to read anything else and I wanted to stay at home all day and read, but at the same time I didn’t want to finish the book because it meant no more Jest!
13. I feel like I owe it to David Foster Wallace. It’s weird, I know. But his work is a comfort to me. It’s relatable. I see bits of myself in some of the characters. I got to see his handwritten questions for his interview with Roger Federer at the Harry Ransom Center this summer and they just blew me away and made me tear up a bit. I love this book. Even through the miserable parts and the disgusting parts (the only character I HATE so far is Lenz because he just gives me the creeps, plus the murder of Bertraund and Lucien was a bit much), it’s just awesome. And I think that the pure Awesomeness of this book alone is the only justification for finishing The Jest that I need.