How to Read Infinite Jest (Infinite Summer)

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TL;DR

The canonical "tips before you start" post, written for the Infinite Summer group read (June 17, 2009) by Matt Bucher (wallace-l listserv) with input from Nick Maniatis (Howling Fantods) and Kathleen Fitzpatrick (Pomona). Eleven numbered, practical tips.

Key claims

Tip 1-2: Read the endnotes — "an integral part of the text... the bouncing back-and-forth is a feature, not a bug" — and use two bookmarks (main text + endnotes).
Tip 3: Persevere to page 200. Biggest abandonment point is "The Wardine Section" (p. 37 ff., the faux-dialect passage); push through, the content matters later.
Tip 4: Trust the author — around p. 50 the volume of characters/subplots induces dread; the disconnected vignettes do converge.
Tips 5-6: Page 223 (the Subsidized Time year list) must be flagged for constant reference — but don't flip ahead to it; respect Wallace's ordering and avoid spoilers generally.
Tips 7-8: Mark up your copy heavily; keep a notebook for vocabulary.
Tip 9: Brush up on Hamlet — Hamlet opens "Who's there?", IJ opens "I am"; the title is from the graveyard scene; keep the ghost/Yorick relationships in mind.
Tip 10: The two print companions are Burn's Reader's Guide (short, has the chronology) and Carlisle's Elegant Complexity (512 pp., section-by-section exegesis). Bucher discloses he is Carlisle's editor/publisher.
Tip 11: Online references list — IJ glossary, IJ index, character profiles, IJ Utilities Page (endnote finder), Howling Fantods, kottke.org tag, the IJ wiki, Fitzpatrick's course wiki.

Themes

Reading mechanics rather than interpretation; flags the endnote apparatus as formally meaningful (fragmentation/effort as part of the novel's argument about entertainment requiring work).

Cross-references

Page 223 = the Subsidized Time chronology; see ij-chronology-subsidized-time.
Tip 10 is the seed of print-companions-carlisle-burn.
Tip 11 links to howling-fantods-ij and wallacewiki-ij.
Fitzpatrick's course mentioned in tip 11 is described first-hand in infinite-summer-fitzpatrick-teaching-ij.
Wardine section (pp. 37 ff.), Hal's "I am" opener, Erdedy — the early way stations the tips reference.

Notable passages

"Read the endnotes: Please. They are not boring bibliographic details, but rather an integral part of the text. And the bouncing back-and-forth is a feature, not a bug."

"It's no coincidence that the first two words of Hamlet are 'Who's there?' and the first two words of Infinite Jest are 'I am'."

"Obviously many of these sites contain spoilers, so poke a hole in an index card and only view your monitor through that while visiting one."