Infinite Pagination
Last night I was reading various people’s tweets about Infinite Summer and found myself caught up in the enthusiasm and suddenly burning with a desire to read Infinite Jest. Since using the Kindle is really the only practical way to buy a book at 11 PM, that’s what I did. Then I read some before going to sleep. And in doing so, I think I stumbled upon an inadvertent flaw in the Kindle. Namely, what when you read really long books—particularly as part of a quasi-group enterprise—you want to either brag about how many pages you’ve read or else whine about how many pages you’ve fallen behind. But the Kindle doesn’t have pages! Just, um, locations.
So I read 1,100 locations worth of the book. But nobody knows what that means. Normal people won’t even know if that’s a lot or a little.
In general, the Kindle strikes me as somewhat hobbled by an overly generous view of why people buy books. Not only is there this problematic lack of bragging, but with the kindle edition of the book I can’t have a handsome volume laying around the house as if to say to visitors, “why, yes, I may be a professional political pundit but I’m also a man of culture.” And I’ll have nothing on my shelf. Amazon should at least send you a sticker when you buy a book on Kindle so you can maintain some kind of display wall of all the impressive books you’ve read. People sometimes lament that element of signaling in the book buying/reader process, but I think that’s misguided. Signaling is a powerful human motivator, and often motivates people to do genuinely worthwhile things—read great books, go to college, get a haircut, etc.
74 Responses to “Infinite Pagination”
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June 22nd, 2009 at 3:20 pm
the real question, when talking about IJ on a Kindle is: how does a Kindle handle endnotes ?
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I think they should use social media to allow the bragging. XBOX has a way for other gamers to know what games you have played and whether you finished them. No reason Kindle couldn’t do something like that. Sending you physical stickers sound stupid though.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Here you go, kindler:
Schedule with page numbers vs Kindle locations
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
As a grown man with VERY long gray hair who last got what might charitably be referred to as a “haircut” in 2005, I’d like to question your assumption that there is something inherently “worthwhile” about that particular undertaking.
It is either a vanity or a conformation to societal expectations. It creates no measurable improvement and arguably imparts zero value.
mikey
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Now that you’re a homeowner, you shouldn’t lament the lack of handsome volumes lying around the house. Enough handsome volumes and all you have is clutter.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I would guess that the number of books bought to impress others is much much less than the number of books whose purchase is at least slightly embarrassing.
It’s all about the pr0n.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Sometime in the last few years, Infinite Jest seems to have displaced Gravity’s Rainbow as the Ironman Triathlon of endurance reading. I suddenly feel old, although not as old as the people I know for whom Ulysses bore a similar significance.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:29 pm
The flip side to the coin here is is if you buy a lot of books, housing them becomes a problem if you are a person of modest means. The Kindle takes care of that. Also, sometimes I don’t want anybody around to know what I’m reading. To wit, I was once called a communist and nearly assaulted because I was reading a Kurt Vonnegut book. Ah, rural Ohio. Anyways I can read what I want on my Kindle without provoking interaction with passersby about abortion, religion, politics, or vampires. `
Infinite Jest = Gravity’s Rainbow 2.0.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
IJ was long but it was certainly not difficult reason. If it hadn’t been so damn funny, I never would have kept reading it.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:31 pm
“not difficult reading“
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Sometime in the last few years, Infinite Jest seems to have displaced Gravity’s Rainbow as the Ironman Triathlon of endurance reading. I suddenly feel old, although not as old as the people I know for whom Ulysses bore a similar significance.
I tried Gravity’s Rainbow but found Infinite Jest easier if longer.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
A slightly disappointing work. It’s just too insular.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
“I suddenly feel old, although not as old as the people I know for whom Ulysses bore a similar significance.”
Count me as one who still feels the Ulysses is the ultimate endurance reading. Ulysses is tougher because you have to keep reading the Odyssey and the Bible along with it to get all the references. Although Gravity’s Rainbow was certainly a tough one.
RoboticGhost raises a good point, storage can be a major hassle. And it’s just as bad with my old LPs. I could easily fit another couch in my living room if I didn’t have those.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
I have nothing to add except that I think IJ may be my favorite book of all time, and I encourage everyone on this blog to give it a whirl this summer. Also, what El Cid said @ 9 & 10. Much easier than Pynchon.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
I have two problems with the Kindle.
1. The books are always full price. I tend to do my book shopping at used book stores, online clearance sales, or when I have useful coupons.
2. I can’t loan out books I purchase for the Kindle. This is the real deal-breaker for me.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Thanks for reminding me about the Infinite Summer idea. I’d totally forgotten about it. And though I could probably find some version of it for my iPhone, for reasons similar to those you’ve mentioned, I’d much rather be the one on the train reading the actual book so people can see what I’m reading. Not because I like to show off, mind you, it’s just even though I’m in a happy relationship, I still like it when bookish cute guys use the book you’re reading to strike up conversation. Flirterature, I like to call it.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:40 pm
There’s been talk about how you can’t see what books people are reading on the subway when they’re holding an ebook reader (of whatever kind), which makes it harder to decide if you’d like to have one of those brief subway crushes on them.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Matt, please tell me you don’t buy and read books so you can brag about it. Didn’t you graduate already? That’s what kids did in their freshman year to pick up chicks in the library.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:43 pm
“Signaling is a powerful human motivator, and often motivates people to do genuinely worthwhile things—read great books, go to college, get a haircut, etc.”
In this case, I think you mean “_purchase_ great books.”
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Books are always threatening to overtake my house, and so I have to regularly sell huge piles of them. So far, the main people I can impress with this are the clerks at Half Price Books, who seem indifferent.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Not only is there this problematic lack of bragging, but with the kindle edition of the book I can’t have a handsome volume laying around the house as if to say to visitors, “why, yes, I may be a professional political pundit but I’m also a man of culture.”
Do you mean that handsome volume laying a round? But then the question is a round of what? What could the volume be laying? A round of drinks? Help me out here.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:52 pm
I’ve always thought of this w/ my CD collection–
I’ve since ripped my CDs to my computer so I never need to pop a CD in anymore …….. but I still cart them from apartment to apartment, just to show them off on a shelf (”why yes, I do enjoy Sugar-era Bob Mould.”) Maybe iTunes should also employ this sticker idea.
…Except with a music purchase, one doesn’t consider the time commitment of listening to the Jonas Brothers, as opposed to reading Infinite Jest, so maybe the iTunes sticker board would get too littered with guilty pleasures to be useful.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:53 pm
What could the volume be laying?
Eggs, of course!
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Kindles take the romance out of reading… they are what takeaway meals are to a homecooked meals – there is no spirit in them, no soul. I love being surrounded by shelves of books, having a poke around and reminiscing about books read in the past, their yellowing, dust gathering jackets, the smell of them when you bury your nose among the pages.
I hardly ever buy books new; I love rummaging around second-hand stores at books who’s previous owners made a little note of their name in the front and the year they obtained the book. My books will still be on my shelves while the circuitry on your kindle is rusting in a big communal hole. I’m a gadget geek but where books are concerned I like my tried and tested ‘technology’!
You could try Goodreads.com, a good place to ’show off’ your books to others!
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Not only is there this problematic lack of bragging, but with the kindle edition of the book I can’t have a handsome volume laying around the house as if to say to visitors, “why, yes, I may be a professional political pundit but I’m also a man of culture.” And I’ll have nothing on my shelf.
Did you never buy any books before your Kindle? Did you throw away or give away or sell all your old books when you got it? Does your collection of books take up an insufficient amount of the free space you have in this new house of yours?
If it’s the last problem, it’s your lucky day – I can help you with that. Just give me an address and I’ll bring over three boxes of books this weekend, and more to come, to store in your space. If you ask politely I’ll even paw through them and only bring the books that could plausibly be considered erudite. No movie novelizations for Mr. Yglesias’ shelves, and no graphic novels except Watchmen.
I agree with RoboticGhost and others – the advantage of a Kindle is that it doesn’t take up space.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
It’s hard to imagine serious readers buying books new or at full price. Usually wherever you are, the public library system has an annual, biannual, or even monthly sale to raise money and get rid of old tomes. So you can get books cheap (sometimes for 10 cents apiece) that are usually much nicer than what you would get at the book store (hard cover, nice binding), if somewhat worn, and you are helping out public libraries.
I can either buy 50 books at one of these sales for 10 bucks, or I can buy half of a book for 10 bucks. HMMM!
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
[...] 22, 2009 · Leave a Comment ygelsias: In general, the Kindle strikes me as somewhat hobbled by an overly generous view of why people buy [...]
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:05 pm
I’m with Cleek — what about the endnotes?
(Which absolutely should not be skipped; isn’t the fate of S. Johnson recorded therein, among other tragedies and absurdities?)
I’ve read IJ twice, both times while in bed w/ the flu, and am tempted to give it a 3d time through, but am afraid I would then feel responsible for figuring out Exactly What Happens When.
(Oh, and Gravity’s Rainbow is at least two orders of magnitude more obscure than IJ. Great book though, some amazing writing. For those who like amazing writing.)
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Signaling is a powerful human motivator, and often motivates people to do genuinely worthwhile things—read great books, go to college, get a haircut, etc.
Now that you’ve got the book post out of the way, I think we’re due for another post on how it’s a bad idea for *Harvard* alums to donate money to the school. (Signal. Signal.)
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:09 pm
This reminded me of a Kevin Drum post from a while back…
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I tend to agree with Jon Stewart on the Kindle price. I was wondering, if you lose/break your Kindle… do you lose the books you purchased? That seems to be a problem with iTunes; I know someone whose computer crashed and they lost all their iTunes. It seems like they could associate your id with your collection so you wouldn’t be dependent on an individual hi-tech device.
If bragging is important, you could just review all the books you read on your blog…
Long live the printed word.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:11 pm
As I recall, a good part of the joy and hilarity of Infinite Jest came from the copious footnotes which sometimes took up half the page. Do these translate at all?
For the record, I’m a big fan of the Kindle and of Infinite Jest. But I also still buy books in paper form, especially long novels. In this case, I think it just may be the wrong work for the medium.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:13 pm
[...] Yglesias touches on it: In general, the Kindle strikes me as somewhat hobbled by an overly generous view of why people buy [...]
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Now that you’ve got the book post out of the way, I think we’re due for another post on how it’s a bad idea for *Harvard* alums to donate money to the school. (Signal. Signal.)
Or maybe a post on a Netflix weekend that involved watching The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie rather than Transformers.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:15 pm
It’s flat out wrong to say that Kindle books are always full price. Of course they aren’t; Amazon sells many, many Kindle books out at a discount. Almost anything you’d want in the public domain is available for free in nicely formatted versions at various websites. Publishers are increasingly giving out free e-books as samples, particularly genre books. And books that are only out in hardback still cost $9.99, meaning you save, what, $15 on average on those books? Even if you wait 10 months for the trade paperback to come out, you’ll likely save a dollar or two over shipping or what you’d pay in a bookstore. Kindles are more expensive than the library, but for people who like to buy books they can be at least competitive.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Early 80’s: Walking in NYC’s Grant Park with a couple when I see a young lovely at the top of a set of steps holding a parasol and reading a 19th century French surrealist novel. It looked utterly ridiculous and I quickly looked around to see if Woody Allen was in a treetop directing the shot. But, he wasn’t so I struck up a quick “hello”, some pithy comment about the novel, and she gave me her number and that was that. Later back at their apt. the female half of the couple blithely informs me that the lovely is in fact a “hooker” who’s been working the 19th century French surrealist routine on suckers like me for weeks. “Give me a fucking break” I tell her but I almost half-believe it until I ring the girl up and to my near-great relief find out that she’s a non-hooker working that angle. Did I marry the girl? No. Maybe if she’d been reading “The Mayor Of Casterbridge”…
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:22 pm
And those of you who LOVE books, but think there’s some romantic value in only buying used–you’re killing the book business. (Not single-handedly, of course.) Perseus laid off another 20 people last week. Spend your money to support what you value.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:24 pm
It’s hard to imagine serious readers buying books new or at full price. Usually wherever you are, the public library system has an annual, biannual, or even monthly sale to raise money and get rid of old tomes.
Define “serious”. If “serious readers” merely means people who read a lot, then this is ridiculous. Some people who read a lot prefer certain authors, or pick their books by what is on best-seller lists at the moment, or whatever.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I want to hear your take on IJ, Matt. It’s one of my favorites (& love Pynchon too, btw)
Had you read it before?
Is there a post forthcoming on its implications?
I hope so.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:33 pm
The real question, Matt, is: what did you think of IJ?
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
I just couldn’t disagree more with the OP. It’s fine to keep a lot of books around if you frequently look things up in them (i.e., you’re an academic or a journalist), or if you like to lend them to your friends. But decorating your living room with books you don’t plan to read again seems lame to me.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:44 pm
This is at least the second post that I can recall where MY confesses to having distinct issues with books – lying about what he has/hasn’t read to impress others, putting all sorts of undue emphasis on how many pages a book is, etc.
I’ve never seen this outside of high school before (maybe even junior high) – is this something that is an Ivy League thing or just particular to MY? I mean, sometimes a book is just a book…
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I don’t think I’ve seen an answer to the endnote question yet, so I’ll jump in. With most books with endnotes I’ve read on the Kindle (but not quite all), the endnotes are hyperlinks. Reading them is easy. The screen latency of the new Kindle makes it a little tedious to navigate to the endnote number, but it’s better than keeping one finger in the back of a paper book and flipping to the endnotes every time you come across one.
I read (and deeply enjoyed) IJ at a time when I was traveling frequently, and I hated hauling that great brick of a book around everywhere. I wish I’d had a Kindle then.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
putting all sorts of undue emphasis on how many pages a book is, etc.
You’re being kind of a jerk. Lots of people, perhaps most, will take a certain amount of pride in reading a really long book; many people won’t even try it.
(I suspect that having read Tolkien in 6th grade made me pretty much immune to the terrors of War and Peace, Infinite Jest, etc. Proust, however, is really fucking long.)
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Ditch the Kindle. IMHO, holding and carrying around the giant 3-pound book is at least half the experience of reading it. The medium is the message.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:22 pm
I love my Kindle. But the real problem with the use of “locations” and the absence of conventional page numbers is that it makes the Kindle hard to use for research–if you want to cite something you’ve read on the Kindle in a footnote, there’s no page number to list.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:24 pm
You’re being kind of a jerk. Lots of people, perhaps most, will take a certain amount of pride in reading a really long book
You’ve got to be kidding me. Reading is that much of a chore these days that people have to brag about and/or “take a certain amount of pride in reading a really long book”?
Sounds to me like you and the people you are referring to are just a bunch of posers then.
Reading is a private pleasure. I can’t imagine the kind of person who is so insecure that they have to lie about what they have or haven’t read – or for whom the number of pages, rather than the quality of the read is what is determinative. Thanks for answering the question!
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:33 pm
No pager numbers makes it useless.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
The ‘Year of the Depends Undergarment’ was hilarious – but nothing he had to say needed a thousand page book. I kept thinking to myself, “I’ll get the point soon”. Never happened.
I am looking forward to Matt telling me how much more meaning that he took away from it than I did. I suspect that he won’t be able to tell me what that meaning is, though.
Infinite Jest was so overrated. You guys can all sit around discussing it and listening to Joanna Newsom. ‘Empty self-indulgence’ indeed.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Ummm . . . you could always print the Amazon cover image using your very own printer on sticky label paper. If you’re willing to pay Kindle prices, that should be a no brainer.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:01 pm
or for whom the number of pages, rather than the quality of the read is what is determinative
Matt never said that was the case, and neither did I.
You’re promoted from “kind of a jerk” to “jerk.” Congratulations.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:03 pm
A long under-rated book: LOOKOUT CARTRIDGE by Joseph McElroy.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Infinite Jest was so overrated. You guys can all sit around discussing it and listening to Joanna Newsom.
What do you have against Joanna Newsom to be dragging her into this?
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:18 pm
But there’s also the situation that people who wouldn’t be caught dead with books having particular cover art are able to read cheap trash in public. In fact, all you need to do is have a single copy of Infinite Jest open somewhere in the middle, and you can have all the bragging you want (”oh, you haven’t see the new kindle, sure take a look at mine”), while still reading the latest from Jim Butcher.
Not that I would ever do that.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:31 pm
I agree with Matt’s point about pages, but more from a reference angle than a bragging angle. Pagination is a quick, easy, and ubiquitous way to reference the location of something in a book and there’s really no reason not to include it in some way in a Kindle book.
As to the romanticism of paper books, whether the reading experience or the oodles of bookshelves cluttering up a house, I have to say I find it kind of annoying. I mean sure, to each their own, but still, there’s just something that irks me about any time when people romanticize anything to such a degree that they can’t accept new innovations. Sure, classic cars are cool, and some day maybe I’ll have one, but I’m not going to commute in it. I’m not going to turn my nose up at hybrids (or whatever the newest tech is) because they don’t have the “soul” of the classic cars. Objects are just stuff. They are not people, and while an individual item may be imbued with specific sentiment, we shouldn’t go out of our way to fill our lives with a million sentimental objects at the expense of missing out on the improvements of technological evolution.
Electronic books have many and varied aspects which make them superior to paper books. They have a few drawbacks, but those will be ironed out as the tech improves. That doesn’t, however, change the fact that we’ll be better off overall when people let go of their obsession with paper books.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Can you back up your Kindle books somewhere? Knowing me, I would probably drop the damn thing into the toilet.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Amazon should at least send you a sticker
Either that or offhandedly mention what you are reading on your blog.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Well, first of all, you should only get the sticker if you actually read the book, not just buy it, but ideally, it should also allow for some sort of temporary electronic tag/quote that you can attach to emails, tweets, etc. that disappear after some set of time so that you can look at someone’s email and know for certain if they’ve read any books recently, and if they haven’t, you can duly make fun of them. You should also get double points for reading a book not originally written in English and quadruple for reading it in the original language.
I mean, half the fun of reading major literary works is getting to act superior, is it not?
I am not sure if all, none, or just some of this comment was written in jest.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:28 pm
First things first, the kindle, and all it’s ilk, are defective by design. This is particularly poignant given the fact that I own the physical book, but still I read it in HTML format also acquired (shall we say “extra-legally”) in the middle of the night. All those insane, rambling footnotes (not to mention physical mass) make it perfect for a digital format; just not one restricted to a proprietary walled garden. Knowledge wants to be free.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Adding onto the Jim Butcher comment above.
I’m sure there are lots of people who want to read books on the T that they don’t want to be seen reading on the Red Line. Urban fantasy with shirtless vampire dudes and chicks with a visible tramp stamp and crossbow on the cover. Romance of any ilk. Christian novels. Self help.
Sometimes no one knowing what you are reading is a good thing.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:45 pm
On this I agree, it is why reports of the death of the physical format for any media are exaggerated. And it’s not just prestige, at least not directly, it also the sense of the intrinsic value of the physical artifact, and the rituals of it’s use. This, and not any spurious claims to fidelity, is the reason for the resurgence of the vinyl LP; in spite, or even because of, it’s being an anachronism it is still valued as an experience in and of itself.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Well, having recently come across the hardcover first edition of IJ that I picked up eons ago when I worked in a bookstore I’ve discovered that in its current condition it’s probably too valuable to actually read and I’m frankly a bit relieved. I’m a fan of Wallace’s essays but I just haven’t convinced myself to commit to so much time reading a guy whose entertaining short form stylings promise to become very annoying if overdone.
When it comes to very long books that blow your mind, Eliot’s Middlemarch is the best I’ve read. Ulysses is very tough going and the payoff is essentially reprised far more parsimoniously by Barth in Lost in the Funhouse.
/signalling
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Then I’d recommend his short story books; particularly if you like Barth, who was major influence on Wallace. I’d personally loved Oblivion, but they’re all excellent. As to IJ, I’d say that it truly is worth the effort; I won’t try to say why as I fear falling into some sort of pseudo-metaphysical gobbledy gook.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Someone mentioned this way up, but I am curious: Why wouldn’t MY view this as a similar objection to downloadable music?
I guess maybe people don’t ask girls to come up and see the record collection anymore.
Harrumph.
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:46 pm
LibraryThing is your friend. If you have a Mac, you can impress your friends with your LibraryThing screensaver.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:42 pm
I read Infinite Jest my first time through relatively easily. It took roughly… 3 months, but I did it.
I have attempted Gravity’s Rainbow 4 or 5 times now and have not gotten past page 100. I’m going to read V. as a warm-up of sorts soonish.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:05 am
D. Monteith — I got a first edition back in 2004. I read it summer of 2005. I actually thought IJ held up better than his essays. DFW needed the grand narrative sweep to keep the diversions and details in perspective. Otherwise, when he’s expressing a more narrow idea, it just feels like he’s cramming for length and you want him to get to the point. With IJ, you can sit back and enjoy the ride.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:27 am
The nice thing about the hardcover version of Infinite Jest was that you could use both leaves of the book cover as bookmarks. One for the main text and one for the endnotes.
Great book, but then a couple of years later I read Moby-Dick*. Wow. Now that’s a truly amazing book.
*or, The Whale
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:48 am
You remind me of my favorite bit in a book of selections from the humorous newspaper column Cruiskeen Lawn written by Flann O’Brien aka Myles na Gopaleen aka Kevin O’Nolan. The book is called “The Best of Myles”.
In this bit, O’Brien is trying to think of ways for members of WAAMA (Irish Wruters, Actors, Artists, Musicians Association) to make money. He has a brilliant idea: a book handling service!
“A visit that I paid to the house of a newly-married friend the other day set me thinking. My friend is a man of great wealth and vulgarity. When he had set about buying bedsteads, tables, chairs and what-not, it occurred to him to buy also a library…..I noticed on my visit that not one of them had ever been opened or touched, and remarked the fact…..This is what set me thinking. Why should a wealthy person like this be put to the trouble of pretending to read at all? Why not a professional book-handler to go in and suitably maul his library for so-much per shelf? Such a person, if properly qualified, could make a fortune.”
Elaborating on the idea, O’Brien then starts talking about the different grades of book-handling service that could be offered (he gives sample prices for each), starting with
“Popular Handling–Each volume to be well and truly handeled, four leaves in each to be dog-eared, and a tram-ticket, cloak-room docket or other comparable article inserted in each as a forgotten bookmark”
then going on through “Premier Handling” “De Luxe Handling” and finally “the Handling Suburb”, no, sorry, I mean “Le Traitement Suburbe.” By the time O’Brien got to the last class the books were not only handled, dogeared, strewn with classy forgotten booksmarks, heavily underlined, and marked all over with short comments in the margins, but also inscribed with forged messages of affection from the author to the client, such as
“Dear A.B.,–YOur invaluable suggestions and assistance, not to mention your kindness, in entirely re-writing chapter 3, entitles you, surely, to this first copy of ‘Tess’. From your old friend T.Hardy.”
Sorry, I have no idea how to be culturally pretentious in the age of the Kindle. The idea suggested by a previous poster of leaving a Kindle (perhaps a dummy Kindle bought solely for this purpose) conspicuously lying around, set to some impressive book, is a good one, but seems sort of limited.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:15 am
I have attempted Gravity’s Rainbow 4 or 5 times now and have not gotten past page 100. I’m going to read V. as a warm-up of sorts soonish.
You might want to get a hold of A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon’s Novel by Steven Weisenburger (U.of Georgia Press, 1988), which explains– more or less line by line–all the various allusions and references in the novel. I could not have gotten through the book without it.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:04 am
I’m sure there are lots of people who want to read books on the T that they don’t want to be seen reading on the Red Line. Urban fantasy with shirtless vampire dudes and chicks with a visible tramp stamp and crossbow on the cover. Romance of any ilk. Christian novels. Self help.
What does it say about me that I have sympathy for Matt’s kind of signaling (especially since it’s at least partly tongue-in-cheek), but none at all for this kind?
What would you be interested in reading, but embarrassed to read in public? Porn, I’ll grant you. And some kinds of self-help, although I can think of a title or two that would be fine. Is there some distinction I’m missing between the T and the Red Line, some mode of public transportation or location where you really, really need to look highbrow?
What people in your home think about you matters; presumably you care what they think of you or they wouldn’t be in your home. But in public?
Personally, I have read Jim Butcher on the metro. My commute is bus and Yellow Line, but I can’t swear I haven’t read one of his books on the Red Line at some point.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:16 am
if i had my way, i’d keep all my books forever. i like having them available for re-reading, or for reference (ex. look up a quote), or just to keep track of what i already have, so i don’t buy it again (which i’ve done). my wife, however, thinks they take up too much room and is always prodding me to sell those i know won’t read again. it hurts my heart to even think of it.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:03 pm
[...] Matt Y focuses on another topic in connection with Infinite Summer: Last night I was reading various people’s tweets about Infinite Summer and found myself caught up in the enthusiasm and suddenly burning with a desire to read Infinite Jest. Since using the Kindle is really the only practical way to buy a book at 11 PM, that’s what I did. Then I read some before going to sleep. And in doing so, I think I stumbled upon an inadvertent flaw in the Kindle. Namely, what when you read really long books—particularly as part of a quasi-group enterprise—you want to either brag about how many pages you’ve read or else whine about how many pages you’ve fallen behind. But the Kindle doesn’t have pages! Just, um, locations. [...]
June 29th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
[...] speaking of political bloggers, Matthew Yglesias is reading Infinite Jest on the Kindle: I think I stumbled upon an inadvertent flaw in the Kindle. Namely, that when you read really long [...]