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A bang, not a whimper
Two months into L.'s retirement, and I'm finished with the stockpiling of books. No more book purchases! Or at least, no purcha...
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(See also Musee des Beaux Arts ) As far as mental anguish goes, the old painters were no fools. They understood how the mind, the freakiest ...
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Lou wondered where his information would go when he died. Would filaments of learning plant patterns on earth? Would his brain train the sin...
I think it's okay to skip it. From what I understand Infinite Jest is a challenging book. I had it on my TBR pile for a long while and finally let it go because I wasn't convinced I would ever read it and it was so big that it seemed to glare at me from the shelves of my library (lol).
ReplyDeleteI nearly put the book aside after that scene as well. I think skimming Lenz's sections (and many of the more bloated sections) is the way to go. I'm not giving up because the brilliant parts are so brilliant, but there's a lot of annoyance sprinkled in.
ReplyDeleteI know, that scene was awful. I'm about 100 pages from the end, and if I remember correctly, that scene is the worst there is, so things should get better. But yeah, I think it's okay to skip the sections.
ReplyDeleteUgh. That was stomach-churning. Dorothy's right -- that's the worst there is. I think you need to read, or at least be aware of the part when he starts walking with Bruce Green, to understand the plot and dynamics that follow. But I certainly didn't let myself linger with Lenz.
ReplyDeleteYou only need to get through the scene with Green, and then you're almost done with Lenz. But yeah, that's one of the more brutal parts of the book, esp. for an animal lover like you.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait till more people get to the end. I finished, and I HAVE QUESTIONS!
But I still loved it and am glad and proud to have read it.