Yet ignorant as he was, Isidore soon became convinced that there was some kind of system with the phones, that the phones were critical, that each one symbolized something different, yet fundamental –

But what?

And why?

It was her Bible (that so-familiar frontispiece illustration of a septic bunion was her spiritual equivalent of Genesis – it was where everything first began).

Perhaps this will mollify the ocean of acid currently swirling around his esophagus, or perhaps not.

“You seem to have, uh … quite a few deer heads in here.”

Soylent’s microbiome consultant advised that this is a terrible idea so I do not recommend it. However, it worked. Throughout the challenge I did not defecate.

I make no apology for having occasionally amplified the text a little in order to make such passages intelligible.  The alternative would have been to explain them in footnotes; and though footnotes are all very well in their place, reading a heavily annotated novel would seem to me rather like trying to play tennis in chains.

Today in “quotes from translators’ introductions that accidentally double as Infinite Jest disses”

“The girl’s upset:

She’s married to a marmoset.”

The others greeted this with a roar of laughter.

“What are you laughing at?” said Xue Pan.  "That’s perfectly reasonable, isn’t it?  If a girl was expecting a proper husband and he turned out to be one of them, she’d have cause to be upset, wouldn’t she?“

She flicked her long handkerchief as she said this in the direction of Bao-Yu’s face.

“Ow!” he exclaimed – She had flicked him in the eye.

The extent of the damage will be examined in the following chapter.

Story of the Stone chapter-end cliffhanger of the day, 11/18/14

Unbelievably, the tea racks get weirder.

Little balls of spittle curled off his lips, obeying the elegant laws of Newtonian physics.