it's been quite a slog. I simultaneously am enjoying it and can't wait to be done.
That is exactly how I feel about it. The past 100 pages or so have been really good and sort of captivating, but I'll be excited to read something else. Been at this for a couple months now.
Finished Infinite Jest yesterday. Milhouse, after you finish, read this and tell me whether you had pieced this all together:
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend
It's all a big fucking joke. It's a farce, like the line from Hamlet, the absurdist plot, and DFW's view of human life and our place in history. It's punctuated with moments of real profundity and beauty but ultimately a farce. A thousand pages of mental masturbation on behalf of the author and reader requiring a lot of patience and rigor and talent, but obscuring any real final truth.
I do still think it's my favorite book. I probably won't touch it for another decade and I wonder how different I'll feel about it then.
I have like 50 pages left (I think -- reading on kindle).
How is it on a kindle? Are you able to flip back and forth from the footnotes? Does it have a link or anything to make them easier? I have always figured it would be impossible to read on a Kindle.