Friday and IJ

I checked the Infinite Summer site to read the Blog updates for Friday, and I'm a little more than a third of the way through the book. Last night I had to look up "Lyle" on wikipedia because I thought he was the "sweat guru" in the workout room at ETA1, but for some reason I felt unsure so I browsed the characters until I found Lyle and was reassured. I read the links at the end of the wiki entry and saw David Wallace sites I haven't yet visited and made a mental note to look at the links on my laptop computer today2 (2 end note, I read IJ before bed on my Kindle which also goes online to Wikipedia and Google for me, and I really need resources for reading this book and looking up words :) while I am all tucked in for the night. (1 end note there are so many characters I sometimes have trouble keeping everyone in my head)

Anyway, after time with Infinite Summer I went to the wikipedia IJ links, read through an interview with Wallace about Infinite Jest and how the book is sad, and about the loneliness of movies and TV and addiction, and how reading is intimate between the writer and the reader in a way that other forms are not. And I thought about David, sad and lonely. And, I re-visited the Howling Fantods blog and found more tribute articles and photos. I read a post from one of his students upon learning of his death. She talked about how he had trouble remembering names at first, but once he learned each name he promised never to forget for as long as he lived.

Did I mention he is mourned the whole world over as one of the best and most original American writers?

http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/dfw-1962-2008.html