Infinite Jest

(finished approx. 12.30.11) reading this twice was the best thing I ever did. Doing it confirmed that it was necessary to do so. This is the most wonderful book ever written. As the author says, through the voice of the ghost of the main character's father who appears (the father) to another central character recovering from a wide range of drug addictions in a fever dream brought on by the extreme pain and discomfort resulting from his (the recovering addict's) viscious encounter with a group of drunk quebecois men, who (the drunk quebecois men) are possibly linked to a group of wheelchair bound secessionists, this book is not just about entertainment, it is about every father's dream to "concoct something the gifted boy couldn't simply master and move on from to a new plateau. Something the boy would love enough to induce him to open his mouth and come OUT--even if it was only to ask for more. Games hadn't done it, professionals hadn't done it, impersonation of professionals hadn't done it. His last resort: entertainment. Make something so bloody compelling it would reverse thrust on a young self's fall into the womb of solipsism, anhedonia, death in life. A magically entertaining toy to dangle at the infant still somewhere alive in the boy, to make its eyes light and toothless mouth open unconsicously, to laugh. To bring him 'out of himself,' as they say. The womb coud be used both ways. A way to say I AM SO VERY VERY SORRY and have it HEARD. A life-long dream. The scholars and Foundations and disseminators never saw that his most serious wish was: TO ENTERTAIN." (p.839 of the first paperback edition).

Three stars seems adequate. Each star full and the other two empty. Which seems adequate for this book by DFW. He was an agnostic materialist and so his work seems utterly superficial. Nobody and nothing really changes or transforms in the entire book. The characters seem to just wear out from the vissititudes of their exhausting lives or they pick up bad habits and then try to put them down. Hal's downward spiral is depressing at best. But the real problem is see with DFW is he seems to think our American Literary heritage is silly but at the same time he doesn't seem to take any notion of any kind from anything that has been written before him. For instance, instead of taking, say, Emily Dickinson seriously and maybe trying to take something away from her poems on subjects like death and hope and nature and friendship he limits her to sort of an old silly poet who Hal's Mom tries to emulate in her letters.

David Foster Wallace is a master of the English language. This post-post-modern fiction brings you deep into a well fleshed-out world of intrigue and emotion; prepare to lose yourself with the pages. With end-notes that can be as long as entire chapters of other books, I'm not sure how easy this would be to read on an e-reader, but it's worth a shot! Words can't describe the life the DFW breathes into his writing -- he is masterful, dark, witty, funny, thought-provoking, evocative, convoluted, and crystal clear, all at once. He is brilliant, and this book is his opus. ENJOY!