Games, Challenges, and Contests

After reading a very long introduction and play-by-play of a "game" of Eschaton -- the Infinite Jest tennis students' game that seems like a horribly nerdy combination of dungeons & dragons, Model UN, mathletes, and tennis drills -- I'll stick with Calvinball.

It seems like as appropriate a time as any to bring up the other personal reading challenges I have inspired. I've soundly outread my mom the last two years (this year I was awarded a handsome monkey bookmark for my victory) so when I explained my project to her she had to think of a personal challenge of her own. She decided, quite appropriately for a fourth grade teacher, that she would finish four of the series of children's books that she's begun but never finished: A Series of Unfortunate Events, Harry Potter, Little House on the Prairie, and The Chronicles of Narnia. I made her add the slim, totally readable, Michael Chabon book that I gave her a few years ago. Never wanting to be left out and desperate to reintegrate to Continental US Society after a year in Alaska, my sister has pledged to read 100 books, at least 45 of which will be sad lady books. I'm like the Johnny Appleseed of stupid, self-regulated, Jones family reading challenges.

Update: 300 and 101

300 pages (and 101 endnotes) into Infinite Jest seemed like a decent place to update my Big Book Project status.

I'm enjoying the book so far. When a mere 40 pages in, I naively explained to my friend Pete that, unlike most post-modern craziness, the book didn't contain obscure references. 260 pages and one 8.5 page fake imdb entry later I can safely say this is not the case. I get 2 of every 3 movie/director references and assume some others are fictional. I like the tennis jargon but think that the junior tennis academy students in the book are already better than I am, and if we ever played each other in a fictional universe where the years sponsored by specific products, they would beat me soundly.

I'm not as into the exhaustive prescription drug talk which tends to make me not care whether the drugs are real or not. It does seem to have moved past some of that into the more enjoyable rehab/psychological disorder discussions (which my sister may enjoy as a prospective substance abuse counselor).

It's also odd that Post-Modern fiction, with its free-wheelin', break-down the literature traditions, and narrative structure reputation seems to have conventions of its own that pop up in the book. The frequent shifts in time, setting, and narration are similar to what I've read by DeLillo and the goofy-named, intellectual weirdos are part of Pynchon's thing. Right? Good thing I like that stuff. (It should be clear from this half-assed comparison that I wasn't an English major).

I'll let you know how it's shakin' out in another few hundred pages.