Discombobulated again by how I managed to stay ahead of Infinite Summer’s schedule and yet behind its emotional and intellectual curve.

So though I have more quotes of the day for you from the novel itself, today I give you a pastiche of the Guides’ synergy at the end of this fascinating, compelling, and comforting summer of reading…

“By giving us the ‘shave and a haircut’ and foregoing the ‘two bits’, Wallace leaves us feeling like we’re perpetually in the middle of the novel, even after we’ve ostensibly finished” –Matthew Baldwin

“You know what the ending made me think of? That E-chord at the end of the Beatles’ ‘A Day In the Life’ — that long sustained chord that just slowly fades out until you hear the piano bench creak under John’s butt. That’s what reading Gately on the Beach felt like.” –Eden Kennedy

“I think the fact that he pulls that ending off (at least to my mind) shows he is about as attuned to the reader as any writer I know.” –Kevin Guilfoile

“I think that he was attuned, or that in writing this novel he was trying to attune himself, to the human heart, almost desperately sometimes.” –Eden Kennedy

Thanks, ladies and gentlemen.