Tuesday, February 28, 2006

I'm ready to read it again

As some of you may know (Yes, I am aware the only person reading this is Heather), my favorite book is Infinite Jest, by the talented David Foster Wallace. Last night, when I heard this news story about a Brazillian Christian sect that has been allowed by the US Supreme Court to ingest a hallucinogenic tea in religious rituals, I immediately thought of the book and of the incredibly potent DMZ. Why? The drug they have been ingesting in their tea is called DMT, and I had never heard of it until yesterday.

So, I pulled out the book to read a few passages. I do that every now and then, because every time I do, what I read seems almost new to me: deeper, richer, just--well--new, even though it is not. It can't be helped. It's a book that you simply must read at least two times if you want any chance of digesting/absorbing everything.

Unfortunately, last night, I opened right to my least favorite part to read, Lenz and his canine cruelty. I won't say any more, even though I know the only person reading this has read the book twice. (more?) I read it anyway. I don't know why. I read that passage, the first three pages, and a bit about Joelle, and I realized it's time to reread.

I think seeing the picture of Jake may have had something to do with it, too; I can't be sure.

When I picked it up last night, I wished it had an index. I'm going to make one as I read this time. Hopefully, I can keep up with it, but, if not, I'll index next time. It's going to be HUGE, this index, but I have been reading a bit on indexing recently, and I'd like to practice.

6 comments:

heatherfeather said...

i've read it 5 or 6 times because i've not had money to buy new books in a while, and that one tides me over for a long time.

i hate the lenz storyline in general, but i lose interest from the time that the DA is trying to see gately in the hospital.

isn't jake awesome, though?

heatherfeather said...

and every time i drive behind a bus i think of the one sentence that is throwin in there when gately borrows the car of the person in charge of the halfway house and is driving to bread and circus and gets stuck behind a bus' "big square ass."

littlegoat said...

That's a lot of times. Dang.

heatherfeather said...

if you create an IJ index, i'd propose to you.

i could take jeff, right?

littlegoat said...

He's in amazing shape, but skinny. You might be able to strongarm the guy.

littlegoat said...

Yay!

Two people read the blog. woohoo.