Book Review - Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace

Yes, I'm reviewing a book eight years after it was published. Go screw.

Reading Infinite Jest is a lot like running a marathon. The first time you try it, it seems to take forever, your whole body hurts, and when you finish, all you've accomplished is that you've finished. But you think you liked it.

The second time you read it, you're a little better prepared, it doesn't hurt quite as much, and you know you liked it. But it still takes forever.

I suppose I should note that I've never actually run a marathon, so this is all theoretical. At least this way I still have my toenails. So I'm thankful.

I first picked up a copy of IJ three years ago. I'd read Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again after borrowing it from Matty, and I'd loved that. So whilst in San Diego for a week, knowing I was facing six hours of plane ride home (I flew to SD by way of Detroit for some reason), I picked up this book, thinking I'd plow through most of its huge bulk (1000 pages, more or less) on the way home. Well, I was wrong. All I can tell you is that I started it in mid-January. I think I might have been done by April. I know I was still reading it in March. All this is just a warning, should you finally decide to give it a heft. I know I've had to actually concentrate while reading this book. Not that that's a bad thing.

If I had to sum up IJ into a sentence or less, I'd say "It's about drugs... and a tennis academy". I've read a review saying it's the longest book about tennis ever written. That's cool by me, I like sports. It's also an almost deliciously evil satire about American consumer culture and general neuroses. Just think, Wallace predicted a "Famous Crooner" as politician well before Jesse Ventura or Governor Ah-nold. Can "subsidized time" be long in coming, then? There's also a group of Militant Grammarians (and you know that appeals to me), and a Quebec separatist group composed entirely of assassins who are crippled and in wheelchairs.

Let's just say it's weird like I'm weird. It definitely fits the Alex demographic.

The other thing about reading the book a second time is that it's so packed with characters that it's easy to get lost. Right off the bat I realized that a very important bit of information is right there on page 16, you just haven't met any of the characters referenced at that point. It might even be chronologically the latest bit of action in the book. Hard to say, though, because chronologically the thing is all over the map - it may be the only book I've ever read to end on a flashback. At least I think it does. But so anyway, the point being that an absolutely crucial plot point takes place with 985 or so pages to go. Hard to assume that fact on the first read-through.

It's also got totally infectious and sensible slang. Go screw, eating cheese, take your inventory, eliminate his map. All these and more are phrases you might find yourself involuntarily using, and then having to explain yourself when people say "Umm... what?"

Have I mentioned that reviewing Infinite Jest is every bit as difficult as reading it was? Sheesh.

I was definitely gripped a lot more by the Tennis Academy and related storylines on my first time through. It's probably the sports dork in me, although the description of the Eschaton game gone horribly awry was just as fantastic the second time around. However, the point I'm building steam towards in this paragraph is that there's just as much wallop in the sections about drug abuse, AA, and the halfway house.

I think for me, the big thing about this book is that it forced me to read every single freakin' word. It's packed so densely, and I didn't want to miss anything, and so it just made me read very carefully. No skimming, no 'just getting the plot', I wanted it all. And I wasn't disappointed. I was especially struck by a thought that Don Gately (one of the main characters) has towards the end of the book. Simply, that no single moment is unendurable. Not substance withdrawl, not the pain of a gunshot wound. Not life. Survive one second at a time, and you'll always be able to make it. It might be the book's theme. It might not.

I'm not sure I'll convince anyone to read this book from this review, but you all should. If you don't you'll be missing out on the best satirical novel of our generation. It's 1984 for the jaded. It's good.

Just plan to read the first 17 pages again after you finish. Trust me on that one.

3/08/2004