Reading Infinite Jest: A Strategy
Because it's not a breezy read.
A friend recently read my prison memoir, in which I refer to David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, and asked if it was worth reading. I told her yes, but only if you allow for the maddening downside to Wallace’s writing genius. I found the novel to be a self-indulgent behemoth in dire need of a good edit and a plot that makes sense. That being said, I also loved (most of) it. But only after determining the proper way to digest it, which I will share here.
My first decision, not long into reading it, was to disregard the long-winded and ridiculous “footnotes.” These can run for two pages or more, in fine print, and often seem superfluous and irrelevant to the story. The inscrutable plot and sheer bloat of Infinite Jest is difficult enough to read without three hundred and eighty-eight examples of footnote tedium making it even harder. Most of the footnotes weren’t even to cite a work he referenced, just a forum for digressions. Wallace’s decision to foist that bullshit on his readers illustrated his tenuous hold on sanity and I decided not to indulge him.
Second, I decided to blow past any passage involving “Eschaton,” which is a game Wallace invented and played by students at the tennis academy. As with the footnotes, these digressions seem intentionally confusing and enormously frustrating to follow. Much better to leave that pleasure to those with IQs that exceed 140 and stick to the main story.
Since I’m thinking about Infinite Jest again, I have a new theory about its title's meaning. The “jest” refers to the length of the book, the inscrutable plot that never comes together, the impossible footnotes, the enigmatic chapter titles that are often duplicates and mean nothing, foisting a fictional, incomprehensible mathematics-based game on readers, presenting single sentences that run for twenty lines, and leaving no indication that the services of an editor were ever enlisted. Indeed, the jest is practically infinite.
At this point, many of you must be wondering why you should even read this book. That would be for the breathtaking passages of writing, and they abound. Approximately a quarter-way into the book, on my second attempt, I felt the need to save others my pain of wading through the dense prose describing confusing plotlines and “bookmark” high points instead. The plot never comes together anyway, so why not hit the highlights, even out of context? It barely matters.
Highlights like the unique depiction of the throes of depression. The dark comedy that exists in addiction and recovery episodes. Or often hilarious segments that include wonderful lines like, “the sun like a sneaky keyhole view of hell” while describing an especially hot day.
So I dug out my well-worn, oft-repaired documents folder from my prison stint and found the page numbers where my favorite passages begin. Years later, I find it interesting that only one highlighted part even vaguely involves the main plot. (I suppose I aimed to direct fellow inmates to parts they liked.) Anyway, they are listed below, along with descriptions.
Note: I suggest only starting points sublime reading – finish when you’re sated (or too confused). Page numbers are for the easily accessed pdf linked here. Page numbers in parentheses are those in the physical book.
63 (68): “Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment” Describing a psych ward case.
176 (200): Fun facts learned in halfway recovery houses, about their clientele’s habits and much tattoo discussion.
298 (343): “Boston AA is like AA nowhere else on this planet.” “These folks have literally heard it all. Enuresis. Impotence. Priapism. Onanism. Projectile-incontinence.Autocastration. Elaborate paranoid delusions, the grandiosest megalomania, Communism, fringe-Birchism, National-Socialist-Bundism, psychotic breaks, sodomy, bestiality, daughter-diddling, exposures at every conceivable level of indecency, Coprophilia and -phagia. Four-year White Flagger Glenn K.'s personally chosen Higher Power is Satan, for fuck's sake.”
342 (395): A short sendup of hipster pretentiousness, remarkable for how he even thought up this scenario.
439 (508): This passage details “diddle checks” at the tennis academy and encapsulates the zaniness of Wallace’s writing when he’s at his best. There’s no telling what he’ll think up next.
586 (692): “And re: Ennet House resident Kate Gompert . . .” Be sure to read at least three pages in for remarkable writing about what clinical depression feels like.
688 (799): (Starting at “But the meeting is underway, apparently.”) This part depicts a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, except not really. The little details Hal continually notices are similar to what I often go through when I’m supposed to take something more seriously. Hilarious.
696 (809): A long blast of writing that’s easier to follow than the bulk of Infinite Jest. This centers on a hospital stay for Don Gately, the funniest character in the story.
763 (887): “The MD studies the palsied drawing” Demerol temptations for an addict in a hospital room.
783 (911): Still more entertaining Don Gately material.
803 (934): The finale to a lengthy description of a truly insane drug-shooting binge. Among the wildest things I’ve ever read.
My favorite book.
I read it on my phone and found it all much less cumbersome -- the footnotes might as well be the main text when it's a single tap of the thumb to open them.
Eschaton isn't that complicated either, it's essentially just kids roleplaying as world governments in a nuclear scenario using applied gamd theory to figure out when to launch nukes, which they represent with lobbed tennis balls. The math is mostly decorative vibes.
I stopped reading when you said you ignored the footnotes. DFW has tennis engrained in him—flipping back and forth is intentional. You clearly miss the entire point before you even began.