After reading David Foster Wallace’s short story collection, Girl With Curious Hair, I was determined to read Infinite Jest.
I found Wallace’s prose to be unlike anything I had ever read before and even though he used structures or techniques from postmodernism or minimalism, he was using them in order to attempt to do something new and break away from these conventional narrative forms. All remaining doubt that I should attempt to read this giant thing was erased after I read Dave Eggers’ glowing review of the novel, whose writing I greatly respected and admired and who expressed these same feelings towards Infinite Jest and Wallace.
Perhaps a bit naively, I began Infinite Jest during my sophomore fall semester at college. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. With my already heavy workload of reading, I was unable to put in the amount of time, and yes, work required to read the novel. At about 200 pages in, I realized I had no concept of the plot, characters or Wallace’s intentions. Who and what was the point of the wheel chaired man’s conversations with a man dressed as a woman? What did a halfway house have to do with a tennis academy? And why were there so many footnotes at the end of the book? So, a bit disheartened, I gave up unknowing if I could ever read something this hard or long.
The school year passed and I was going to spend the summer at an internship in the Bay Area. I couldn’t take much with me and didn’t know anyone on the West Coast, so after reading more of Wallace’s essays decided to give Infinite Jest another shot. This was one of the best decisions of my life. I began reading Infinite Jest on the BART everyday on my trip from Berkeley into the Mission District where I was working. I had heard he had written a good amount of the novel on trains so I figured this would be a good way to experience it. At first, it was just as hard as I remembered. It took me awhile to figure out what was happening, but little by little I started to get it and I started to love it. Over time you realize that Infinite Jest reads like someone is talking to you. Yes, someone who is certainly smarter and more eloquent than you could ever hope to be, but also someone who is incredibly sincere, is insanely funny and is honestly trying to help you become a better person.
I soon found myself unable to stop talking about the book. It was the first time I had ever told people, oh after the first 400 pages or so it just keeps getting better at an exponential rate. You can imagine the looks of insanity I received in response, but it is true. For all the effort and struggle that the book requires from you it rewards your hard work a thousand times over. The last 300 pages are probably some of the best writing I have ever (or may ever) read. The scene with Don Gately lying in a hospital bed as The Mad Stork’s ghost visits him was so incredibly powerful that I got the chills and am getting them again now just thinking about it.
I can’t tell you how much the novel has affected me since I finished it. I found myself desiring to use Wallace’s language in my own daily conversations and sometimes it slips. I tell my friends I need to back up my RAM when I need some alone time or that in a newspaper article I read someone got their map erased. It makes my body hurt all over to think of how much it pained him to write it or how he was even able to accomplish something so incredibly beautiful and sad all at the same time. It is truly a work of a genius putting his soul into something in order for you to be a better person afterwards and, in the end, you are. In an interview with Larry McCaffery I read, David Foster Wallace said that he wanted to write about “what it means to be a fucking human being”. Wow, did he ever succeed. My only regret is that I will never be able to thank him for making me a better fucking human being in every way. Hopefully, in this small way I can finally say thank you for all that he has done for me.
