Michael M

Quote: "...there's a pull forward that the main text effects on me as the reader, and the endnote is a path that's branching off. I want to know what the endnote says, but I also want to keep going with the main text. And those two paths are now in competition. The endnote feels more 'optional' because it's not the main text and it's in smaller print, so it's the one that loses out to the 'seduction'". This is why infinite possibilities are so paralyzing. Consider Erdedy's dilemma when the doorbell and the phone rang at exactly the same time. - Michael M via Bookmarklet

Quote: "Ideally, I think, our neurons should be firing billions of times a second as we read Infinite Jest. I know that while I read, more thoughts pop up and disappear than I can possible process or deal with properly, lest I read at the speed of about 1 page per hour." - Michael M via Bookmarklet

Quote: "It is one of the great miracles of life, our ability to apprehend a human spirit through the sequences of words they leave behind." - Michael M via Bookmarklet

Quote: "He meant, with his footnotes and his digressions, to acknowledge the agonies of self-consciousness and the "difference between the size and speed of everything that flashes through you and the tiny inadequate bit of it all you can ever let anyone know."" - Michael M via Bookmarklet

Quote: "DFW described a buzz that he got when he wrote, a buzz, if I recall correctly, he admits feeling addicted to. Under the right conditions, the intellect can be a joy unto itself. This is a very seductive idea, especially to a consumer and producer of ideas. DFW was also aware, of course, of a dark side to this process." - Michael M via Bookmarklet

Quote: "Numerous studies have now demonstrated that REM sleep is an essential part of the learning process. Before you can know something, you have to dream about it." - Michael M via Bookmarklet

Wherein someone started cataloguing the time, place, characters, plot, themes, and quotes related to each of the chapter/sections of David Foster Wallace's magnum opus "Infinite Jest". - Michael M

Quote: "Fundamentally, IJ is a novel about two things: the pursuit of happiness, and the impossibilities of communication. Wallace explores those themes and their intersections in a hundred different ways. And because he was a genius who didn’t believe there were answers to these questions, he also contradicts himself over and over and over. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that there are no assertions of importance in the text that aren’t contradicted somewhere else. I realize that sounds annoying. But that’s why I’m writing this piece. It’s only annoying if you look at the novel as a code to crack, if you see everything as a clue. It’s not about that. There aren’t easy answers in life, and so Wallace didn’t want them in his work. There aren’t single perspectives in life, and so Wallace didn’t want them in his work. The world can’t be summed up in a sentence, and so Wallace not only didn’t try—he demonstrated some of the reasons why the world is the way it is." - Michael M via Bookmarklet