'Infinite Jest' by David Foster Wallace

Completed August 13th, 2018 at 8:05 pm

I've been trying to read Infinite Jest for about 8 years, pretty much since college.

It's prose always amazed and challeneged me -- I remember not being able to read it in a loud coffee shop, as it required my full attention to engage -- and until recently, was a book of several false starts.

Last night, I finally did it -- after a 10-month push, I've completed Infitite Jest. And I feel flabbergasted, amazed and am still processing.

The 1078 page tome, filled with abrupt shifts in voices, tones, perspectives, themes (not to mention 25+ page footnotes) left me in a constant state of awe. How could one human create something so vast and all incompassing, while driving down into the essential aspects of what it means to be human (and making you laugh) at the same time?

Without getting too much into plot details, Infinite Jest loosely follows the stories of the Incandenza family (who run a tennis academy and were once described in an article as 'one of the most messed up families in literature'), Don Gately (staffer at Ennet House Drug and Recovery House and former burgler and addict), Joelle Van Dyne (a resident at the house, former radio personality 'Madame Psychosis'), a group of wheelchair assassins (Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents) fighting to get access to a master copy of a film made by the deceased patriarch of the Incandenza family called 'Infinite Jest' in which viewers reportedly enjoy so throughoughly that they are unable to move and remain in one spot until they are quite literally entertained to death. All of this in a world where the US is ran by a compulsively clean former lounge-singing president, where North American is a different country, and where there may or may not be large feral hamsters in a region where we now put our trash (I promise it all makes sense eventually).

I'll stop there.

Touching on themes of addiction, entertainment and what it means to truly connect with others -- Infitite Jest is written in such a way that uses 100% of your brain. AKA -- it's not something you read casually, but rather something that challenges you to grow in order to participate. I have left the book with an awe for David Foster Wallace's prodigiousness, a greater appreciation for vocabulary (please read with a dictionary and expect a sudden interest in etymology) and deeper appreciation for what it takes to create something to vast and encompassing at the same time.

I've left Infinite Jest a better, more enriched person -- what better compliment can you give a written work?