Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest

By David Foster Wallace

There is something (slightly) wrong with the title of David Foster Wallace's 1996 novel, Infinite Jest. It is not infinite, though there were parts of this book that felt as if they were. This, of course, is a tongue-in-cheek comment. The title itself has very definitive purpose on the narrative of this novel and I'm not implying that I dislike it. It just makes me laugh a little, is all. What I can say with a degree of assurance, however, is that if ever you wish to read a novel whereby you can confirm that you are witness to genius, Infinite Jest is your huckleberry.

Infinite Jest is, admittedly, a major undertaking for any reader, whether casual, academic or accidental. I suggest quitting your job, booking a room at a hotel for a couple of weeks and blasting through. This behemoth of a novel should not be taken lightly by anyone (how could you? if you read it in its original printed version, it's the size of a telephone book from a mid-sized American city... Say... Toledo. Mercifully, I read it on my Kindle which offered another set of problems. (I'm still only 23% done? I was on 23% three days ago!)) It's the sort of book that would scare off most readers by its sheer size and reputation. I can only imagine the physical and psychological toll this novel would have taken on DFW. 1

Now, I'm going to be honest here. I read this book over the span of two weeks. At this point in my life, I'm a casual reader. I may like to read hefty, weighty novels, but I'm reading them in the informal sense. I'm not in a position to give this novel the academic treatment. There are thousands of pages of PhD and seminar presentations on the nature of subjectivity vs. objectivity in Infinite Jest floating out there. There are perhaps dozens of thesis papers discussing the feminine archetype in the works of David Foster Wallace or psychological deconstruction of Don Gately and Joelle Van Dynne. If you want an critical analysis of the Incandenza family, O.N.A.N. and Quebec separatism please go somewhere else (especially for Quebec Separatism).

See, here's the thing... Infinite Jest, for all its reputation as a scholarly read, for all its comparisons to Gravity's Rainbow and Ulysses and such, for all of it's 1000+ pages of carefully (and weirdly) constructed sentences, Infinite Jest is a surprisingly easy read. Enjoyable too. Downright entertaining if I may be so bold. Which is quite the left turn for those in the habit of writing scholarly fiction (are you listening, Zombie Thomas Pynchon?).2  At no point in my reading (which was certainly not an accredited academic combing) was I furrowing my brow in consternation, banging my head against the wall, drooling on the page or lamenting the deficiencies of my costly education. So don't let this book give you a case of the howling fantods or anything. It's accessible.

At its heart, Infinite Jest is a novel about a video (called an entertainment cartridge in the novel). This video is so entertaining that anyone who watches it will become infinitely, hopelessly and addictively entertained. They will remain comatose in from of said video so long as it continues to play (it loops) and if it is taken away, the remainder of the viewers life is spent begging, pleading and screaming for more. Even a single glimpse. It reminded me of the Monty Python bit from ...And Now For Something Completely Different where a joke writer writes the funniest joke ever and immediately dies laughing. His wife, thinking it's a suicide note, reads the joke and also dies, as does the first policeman on the scene... and the second. It turns out that the joke is so funny that anyone who reads it dies laughing. Naturally, the military takes notice, translates it and uses it as a weapon of war.

Anyway...

Infinite Jest is about locating the master copy of this lethal entertainment (also referred to as the samizdat) in order to maintain the precarious stability of O.N.A.N. (Organization of North American Nations) and the precepts of Onanism. In the process it's about the Incandenza family with all its tremendous dysfunction. It's about James Incandenza, the maker of the film and his struggles with alcohol and his ultimate (grizzly) suicide (it's also about his ghost). It's about his wife Avril with all her proclivities toward hygiene. It's about Orin Incandenza, punter for the Arizona Cardinals. It's about Hal Incandenza, a highly ranked junior tennis player at an elite tennis academy and a closet marijuana addict (I never though that was even possible, but apparently it is). It's about a cast of dozens of other characters who are painted in shades and tones so vivid that even now I have a hard time understanding that these people are simply constructs of DFWs imagination.

The story is also one of addiction and all its dimensions. It's about America's addictions and America's addiction to addictions. It's about obsessions and compulsions and depression and psychological disorders. Crippling, debilitating depressions. Life-altering compulsions. I'll never watch another MASH episode in the same way. Infinite Jest made me realize that neither I nor anyone that I have ever known has ever, ever really had substance abuse problems. Not in any real, meaningful way. Not in the way in which Wallace portrays substance abuse. Not even close. Lucky me.

The story is essentially written in reverse with the ending at the beginning and doesn't come together until the very end. Be forewarned. The novel also has almost 400 endnotes (many of which have endnotes of their own). Casual readers may be inclined to skip the endnotes. Don't. They are infinitely (pun intended) important to the novel. A lot of character development occurs in the endnotes as well as the handy filmography of James O. Incandenza. If you read this, do not skip them.

Infinite Jest is indeed a very readable novel and so but it is still a major undertaking. David Foster Wallace is renowned for his use of arcane, obscure and invented vocabulary as well as jargon and massive, multi-clause sentences, so come into this book armed with a good dictionary and an open mind. I promise that if you enjoy reading and expect that, as Wallace is quoted as saying, that fiction is "about what it is to be a fucking human," well sir/madam/doctor you owe it to yourself to read Infinite Jest. David Foster Wallace shows use exactly what it means to be a writer. An open, honest, humanized writer whose heart and soul are splattered and smeared and spread across the page (or the 1000s of pages) and if one or two things come out wrong who cares because it's all about how it feels coming out rather what it looks like going in so just go with the flow and accept that while reading Infinite Jest you will be in the presence of absolute literary genius.

If you were to ask me: If you were stranded on a desert island for the rest of your life and could only have one book in which to read forever, what would it be? Infinite Jest with all its wonderful layers of text and subtext and sub-subtext would be as good a choice as any.

Footnotes:

1. It is easy to fall into the trap of reading Infinite Jest as an insight into the emotional and psychological problems of David Foster Wallace, especially in lieu of his suicide in 2008. The novel explores substance abuse, depression and competitive tennis, all of which were important aspects of Wallace's troubled existence. But to read this novel as a microcosm for DFW's life is to sell this book short. It is quite a bit more than that.

2. Apparently Thomas Pynchon isn't dead. Who knew?

Consider the Lobster

Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays

By David Foster Wallace

I like sports. I like almost everything about sports. I like the human drama, the potential for greatness (or tragedy) the story-lines and the athleticism. I like taking about sports, speculating about sports and listening to others talk about sports. And while I have my favorites (hockey, baseball and, these days, rugby) I've been known to sit down and enjoy virtually any sport on television. I'm not too discriminating. I like sports.

But there is one thing about sports I hate. I hate the media insistence on speaking with these athletes after a win or a loss. It'll go something like this:

Booth Announcer: Let's go down to Bob Sportscaster who's outside the locker room with Chet Superstar.

Bob Sportscaster: Thank you Booth. Chet, you guys put a win up on the board tonight. What was the team's strategy going into tonight's game.

Chet Superstar: Well Bob, we were just out there trying to make something happen, give it 110% and just play our game. We got a couple of lucky bounces that went our way and you've got to hand it to the boys in the locker room, we never gave up out there and we are just happy to come out of here with the win tonight.

You don't say.

There is nothing more pointless than listening to a professional athlete spew off a string of exhausted cliches. And sportscasters make entire careers out of sticking microphones in athlete's faces. Families eat, houses are bought, retirements are planned based on these useless and tedious repetitions. There is something repulsive about this idea.

I've always wondered whether there is a group of sports fans out there, slightly slow on the uptake, who are sitting in their armchairs thinking to themselves: "I wonder how Albert Pujols felt when he hit that game winning home run. I can't wait for the post-game interview. Maybe he was only giving 98% at the time."

Sheesh.

In Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace tackles this phenomenon deftly in an essay entitled How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart. Wallace reviews Austin's own book Beyond Center Court which Wallace characterizes as being "breathtakingly insipid." He peels back the layers of vapid text in an attempt to get to the root of the issue, namely that athletes seem to be extremely boring people, almost to the point of emotionless.

But whereas I see and understand the inanity of speaking to athletes about their professions, Wallace takes in a step further and opines that an athlete's emotionless demeanor in the face of massive public scrutiny and their seemingly uninspired quotes are a quality in itself. Athletes develop an ability to not think. To shut down and concentrate on the task at hand and not get distracted by the very real pressure of performing in from of million. They can actively not think.

But I digress.

What Wallace does, that I could never, ever do, is present a clear and thorough examination of a subject, far beyond that of your typical writer. Like any truly great writer, he sees things and thinks of things that others simply don't see or think about. He approaches subjects from angles other writers are simply unaware of. Whether it is the adult video industry (Big Red Son), the dictionary wars (Authority and American Usage), the darker side of right wing talk radio (Host) or whether lobsters really do feel pain when they are boiled alive (Consider the Lobster), Wallace brings a distinct brand of nuance, insight and comedy that is a refreshing break from most other writers.

The centerpiece of this collection is a masterful account of Wallace's time spent covering the John McCain campaign for Rolling Stone during the 2000 Republican primaries (Up, Simba). Rather than your typical political piece (It doesn't seem like Wallace ever talked to McCain directly), he chronicles the daily grind of the tech staff, the interns, the assistants. He exhaustively documents the travel, the badly catered meals, the endless boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts all wrapped in a package of co-ax cables and opportunities to smoke. All of this over the backdrop of the Chris Duren Affair, a rather conveniently placed episode that occurred during the South Carolina primary.

His essay is akin to eavesdropping on the servants, cooks and the jesters at a king's court. We learn that even the lowest, unpaid intern has a very real investment in the campaign and everyone from McCain down to the boom mike operators for his town hall meetings (THM) understand the implications of each potential political move during the campaign. It is a very real assessment on leadership and what it means to lead.

And this is why Consider the Lobster is not for everyone. Wallace's brand of humor and insight might strike readers as beside the point, overly academic or even obtuse. But Wallace is an unapologetic observer of people and doesn't seem inclined to give his subjects a free pass, so to speak. There are no softballs here. No ally-oops or empty-net goals. Consider the Lobster is every bit as insightful as Tom Brady's post-game interview is not.