Toothbrushes?

I finished Infinite Jest on Wednesday. It was obviously entertaining and readable enough for me to finish in just a couple of weeks, but I can't say it was as life changing for me as it seems to be for others. There are plenty of great scenes and some observations about human behavior (most notably during the AA meetings) that are dead-on and probably some more things I missed. I could never really separate the story from the author (maybe that's part of the point) and how much it seemed that he split the 300 voices in his head into individual characters and spread them across 1000+ pages. I'd say it was definitely helpful to have read DFW's non-fiction to understand his style and his interests before embarking on this very good brain dump. In summation, this book hurt my brain (in a good way) and my back (in a bad way).

Update: 300 and 101

300 pages (and 101 endnotes) into Infinite Jest seemed like a decent place to update my Big Book Project status.

I'm enjoying the book so far. When a mere 40 pages in, I naively explained to my friend Pete that, unlike most post-modern craziness, the book didn't contain obscure references. 260 pages and one 8.5 page fake imdb entry later I can safely say this is not the case. I get 2 of every 3 movie/director references and assume some others are fictional. I like the tennis jargon but think that the junior tennis academy students in the book are already better than I am, and if we ever played each other in a fictional universe where the years sponsored by specific products, they would beat me soundly.

I'm not as into the exhaustive prescription drug talk which tends to make me not care whether the drugs are real or not. It does seem to have moved past some of that into the more enjoyable rehab/psychological disorder discussions (which my sister may enjoy as a prospective substance abuse counselor).

It's also odd that Post-Modern fiction, with its free-wheelin', break-down the literature traditions, and narrative structure reputation seems to have conventions of its own that pop up in the book. The frequent shifts in time, setting, and narration are similar to what I've read by DeLillo and the goofy-named, intellectual weirdos are part of Pynchon's thing. Right? Good thing I like that stuff. (It should be clear from this half-assed comparison that I wasn't an English major).

I'll let you know how it's shakin' out in another few hundred pages.

Preview: Infinite Jest

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.