I first read Infinite Jest in the Summer of 2001. Or maybe it was 2002. It’s odd to me that I don’t immediately know the answer to that, since there was a terrible event between those two summers, one which I would think would color my reading. I do remember it was all mixed up in swooniness and crushing and a general lunacy. And I loved it so, so much. It was explosively glossophilic, unhinged and brilliant and gut-wrenchingly sad. So smart, but not cold like a William Vollmann smartness; DFW’s was more of a full-bodied brilliance — this was an unabashedly brainy book, sure, but it engaged you corporeally, grabbed your throat and poked your kidney and punched your dick and squeezed your heart. (It’s more pleasurable than it sounds.) It was a book that made you want to throw it, and throw it you did at least once, probably several times.

I’ve been meaning to read it again for ages, and now I’ve an excuse. Apparently some jokers have declared this “Infinite Summer,” and have put out a call for people to read (or reread) Infinite Jest from June 21 to September 22. That’s just 75 pages a week. (Well, 81 if you start today.) Do it; it’ll give us one more thing to talk about.

Infinite Summer