David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Joke

You may be wondering what happened to me these past few months, but then when you see that I’ve been reading David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, you’ll most likely sigh and think, “What’s that idiot got?” during this time!”

Or effects to that effect.

My first foray into the works of Mr. Wallace, prior to reading Infinite Jest, was a few years ago walking past this book in bookstores and knowing from the cover of Infinite Jest and the ‘vibe’ of the book that it was popular.

Unfortunately, it turned out that I finally bought the book to read after learning belatedly that Mr. Wallace had committed suicide.

In the foreword to this book (noted author Dave Eggers) writes:

“Page by page, line by line, it is probably the strangest, most distinctive, and most complicated work of fiction by an American in the last twenty years. As you read Infinite Jest, you are never unaware that this is a work of complete obsession, of a stretching of a young writer’s mind to the point of, we assume almost madness”.

Mr. Egger is the author of “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”, a book I have not read, but those words and that title could be the title of a biography of Mr. David Foster Wallace, as his untimely departure has affected significantly expanded memory regarding his work in the realm of the Unknown.

“Wallace committed suicide on September 12, 2008, as confirmed by the autopsy report of October 27, 2008.

In an interview with The New York Times, Wallace’s father reported that Wallace had suffered from depression for more than 20 years and that antidepressant medication had allowed him to be productive.”

-From Wikipedia

Completely original Infinite Jest is reminiscent of Gravities Rainbow, not so much in tone or girth, but in his complete and utter original voice. One doesn’t just read Infinite Jest, one is read by it. There it sits in your corner of books while you go on with your life, and for the life of me it doesn’t let go. I started reading Infinite Jest 2 months ago and I really took my time, at first I was hoping I’d be able to read it quickly but then I realized that wouldn’t happen. I gave up and literally read 10 pages a day, something I hadn’t done since Proust. Just during the last 400 pages of Infinite Jest I started reading 20 pages a day. So, you see, take it with a serious mind.

First of all, Infinite Jest is 981 pages of sheer audacity. This book is Bold with a capital A. Here is a writer who has a powerful and singular voice and it surprises the reader that sometimes, through the stories of his small cast of characters, you can find yourself deep in the groove of Mr. Wallace’s great storytelling ability. . It’s rare as hell to be able to write like a real storyteller. It is amazing to find a work like Jest in this world where Pablum is the goal and repetition is the rule. Under the command of Mr. Wallace, Infinite Jest begins to weave a very unique spell.

There is a unique family in Infinite Jest, a family that seems to have creativity at its core with several young sons who are athletes, especially Hal Incandenza… the father of this clan, Jim Incandenza, is a former director/creator. from wacky offbeat movies, this father seems to have a cloud over all participants in this family, as he, the father, is long dead in the present tense of the novel and author Wallace makes it very clear that the late father ( microwave suicide!) is almost an unsettling presence for this family of young tennis prodigies. However, the mother of the family, Avril Incandenza, is still alive and is a trustee of the Enfield Tennis Academy (“ETA”), where much of the ‘action’ of Infinite Jest takes place. During the book there is a mysterious videotape created by the late Father Jim Incandenza that seems to have a paralyzing effect on viewers, essentially turning them into live vegetables… this tape is investigated by a government agency with a very strange effect… the title of the tapes is Infinite Jest. There’s really no resolution to these plot points and I’m just writing them down because as you go deeper into Mr. Wallace’s Infinite Jest you might not like what you’re reading there’s a lot about the book to hate but surely you will not be touched by it.

Mr. Wallace has another part of the book that stretches from start to finish. The obsessive compulsions of addiction are in evidence. Most of the people in Infinite Jest are substance abusers or seriously ‘twisted’ in one way or another. However, Mr. Wallace is so down-to-earth about matters that he doesn’t seem to care one way or the other what you think. A little later in the book, Mr. Wallace introduces us to Don Gately, a former thief and demerol addict, who now works for The Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House, which seems to be just down the street from the Enfield Tennis Academy. Don Gately is a huge man who is a rabid AA member in the Enfield household, and when we find out about him, we see that he is finally free of the drugs and binge eating that have plagued his life. These ‘Gately’ sections of the book are more revealing to me than the tennis and Incandenza parts of the story. Mr. Wallace is so proficient in his understanding of drugs and his use that one is very realistically drawn into Gately’s life story, which is heartbreakingly ordinary in the American brutality of it. Let’s face it, this nation is no comfort to the disenfranchised, and sadly, there is still no religion that addresses anything like the emotions, needs, and desires of America’s large “waste” population. It’s a huge do-it-yourself population without a hand or hope in Hell of ever getting ahead of the monster that has become America’s nobility. Most Alka-Seltzer who speaks a game but, in the end, is not interested in America’s troublesome Inner-Core. These people who fall into the rift are generally good people in the end and have amazing survival skills, much like Mr. Wallace’s Gately, a giant who is very recognizable to Americans in this nation who don’t live on a laugh track.

Don Gately’s story is the vibrant core of the book and, indeed, could have been everything. As he reads Infinite Jest, he is never sure where Mr. Wallace is taking us. However, he is so in command that he surprises. He doesn’t feel the mass feeding running along with Mr. Wallace’s mind. His world is entirely yours.

In Mr. Eggers’ Foreword, he expresses a wish of the publisher, Little Brown and Company, of Infinite Jest; the need to show others that the book is at least accessible. That can be read by Anyone. Which, actually, is funny because I’m sure it would be nice to sell more copies, and surely the publisher is honored to have this book as one, who wouldn’t be?

However, Infinite Jest is not an accessible work. In fact, it’s very unapproachable, even though the good Mr. Eggers talks about the readability of it, he can tell as he reads it that he’s either 100% interested or not at all. Mr. Wallace doesn’t exactly demand our involvement, he doesn’t give a fuck, but it’s his choice…

infinite frivolity.

How this book will live on and how it will influence generations to come will be an interesting thing to witness. I don’t think Mr. Wallace has found his true audience yet, though, sure, college students and academics know this, but it may take a new generation of men or women to unlock his popularity and characteristics…however However, as an artifact, Infinite Jest is such that it should shine beyond the usual Fray of more ordinary works. He is a Guardian, okay, but what kind of Guardian is not yet known. Mr. David Foster Wallace, his life and his death, such a thing, to end life of his own free will, we must respect Mr. Wallace’s decision, those of us who don’t know him, and let his essence, for now, be break the heart

In fact, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius describes Infinite Jest and Mr. Wallace very well.