Recently I've watched two different film versions of Hamlet: Laurence Olivier's from 1948 and Kenneth Branagh's from 1996. Seeing Hamlet reminds you that every single band name, song lyric, movie, common phrase, and book title is related to Hamlet in some way. The title for David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest comes from a line in one of the most famous scenes (Act 5, Scene 1, pictured above):
HAMLET: Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio - a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy."
Alas, poor Wallace. I hadn't read much of his work other than the stray New Yorker story or graduation speech before he died in September. Since then, I've read and enjoyed his non-fiction essays in Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. He analyzes actual facts, feelings, and experiences in such mind-f**king depth that I'm a little afraid of what will happen in his 900+ page work of fiction (not to mention the 96 pages of endnotes). Armed with two bookmarks, I'm jumping right in...tomorrow.
Bonus - Enjoy this video from Charlie Rose in which David Foster Wallace talks a bit about Infinite Jest and obviously hurts Jonathan Franzen's feelings (particularly from 11:00-14:00).
The suggestion that someone was "not delightful" was quite a slight in the 1996 long-haired author community.
I like how they mostly avoid eye contact. Total passive nerd fight. I also identify with what Franzen is saying about finding solace in books--DFW is just being a dick.
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