Author: matthewbaldwin

Marcus Sakey is the award-winning author of Good People, The Blade Itself: A Novel, and At the City’s Edge, all of which are in development as feature films. His new novel, The Amateurs, comes out August 6th. His website features excerpts, contests, and tips for writers.

I picked up IJ the same way I imagine a lot of you did—while browsing, I was caught by the cover, the hyperbolic quote, and the heft of the thing. This was 1997, an era when I was more likely to be willing to invest in a doorstop novel. But even then, 1079 pages was going to take some persuading, so I opened to the reviews: “Uproarious,” “Exhilarating,” “Truly remarkable,” “Spectacularly good.”

Okay. You win.

My first read of the novel was by and large a pleasure. I’ll admit that there were moments when I wondered if I could trust Wallace to deliver the goods. And at that time, I thought that the book could have benefited from a sterner editor (although the submitted manuscript was apparently significantly longer.)

Still, I labored through the rough spots, and found more than enough to tickle me and keep me going. But while I don’t want to reveal too much, I will say that when I got to the end, my initial reaction was, “Huh.”

Not in a bad way. There had been moments of such startling brilliance along the way, episodes so hilariously sad and tragically funny, that I knew even at the time that it was something special. But still, at the very end, there was a “Huh” factor.

Fast-forward two months and ten books, and here’s the thing—I was still thinking about Infinite Jest. In fact, I found myself seeing it more clearly, getting more seduced by it, than when I was actually reading the thing.

With distance what at first seemed sprawling begins to come into a more cohesive, if still massive, picture. Wallace is a writer who does not spare you the full force of his brain; in fact, he demands your effort like a brilliant professor who expects that you show up every week, well-rested, on time, and with the reading done.

However, novels aren’t read that way. They’re read in sips and gulps, sometimes a sleepy page before bed, sometimes a hundred with a pot of coffee. Not only that, but because Wallace believes in complexity, he doesn’t always reveal the structure of things all at once; doesn’t make obvious the nature of the world he’s building.

But finish the book, let it stew, and it will all come together, I promise. And it’s more than worth the effort. So much so in fact, that about a year later I decided to read it again.

And brothers and sisters, I’m here to tell you, on a second read, there wasn’t a word I would cut. Once you’ve got a sense of the greater whole, and once you trust Wallace, the thing is fucking genius. I write a very different style of book, but even so, it makes me want to pack it in and go home. He’s that good.

But I made a mistake the second time. I thought that because I had puzzled out certain aspects, the rest of the book was a riddle, a code I needed to crack. So I went at it that way. I took notes on characters and relationships. I annotated. I formulated guesses about what “The Entertainment” was, and where it showed up, and how what happened at the end played into what happened at the beginning. I visited message boards and forums and the Wallace discussion list. I spent as much time taking notes on the novel as I did reading the damn thing.

And here’s what I learned: There is no secret.

Fundamentally, IJ is a novel about two things: the pursuit of happiness, and the impossibilities of communication. Wallace explores those themes and their intersections in a hundred different ways. And because he was a genius who didn’t believe there were answers to these questions, he also contradicts himself over and over and over. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that there are no assertions of importance in the text that aren’t contradicted somewhere else.

I realize that sounds annoying. But that’s why I’m writing this piece. It’s only annoying if you look at the novel as a code to crack, if you see everything as a clue.

After a second read, there were many things I understood more clearly. And damn, how I loved it. But could I tell you, unequivocally, “what happened”?

Nope.

It’s not about that. There aren’t easy answers in life, and so Wallace didn’t want them in his work. There aren’t single perspectives in life, and so Wallace didn’t want them in his work. The world can’t be summed up in a sentence, and so Wallace not only didn’t try—he demonstrated some of the reasons why the world is the way it is.

Last year, David Foster Wallace hung himself. I’d never met the man, but it threw me into a funk. After a week of moping about, I picked up Infinite Jest again as a sort of personal tribute, and read it for the third time. Read it trusting him, read it feeling the sorrow and the joy and the sheer intellectual pleasure.

And finally, I read it right.

Jason Kottke has written the weblog kottke.org since March of 1998. The archive of his Infinite Jest commentary can be found here.

Is everyone in here yet? Yes? Ok.

I’m thrilled to kick off Infinite Summer with this here Forward. Before we get started, I have a disclaimer to offer. Well, actually several related disclaimers which, taken together, should convince you that I am not at all qualified to speak to you about the literary or cultural impact of Infinite Jest and its author on contemporary American society. Apologies if that’s what you’re here for; in that case I can refer you to Dave Eggers’ foreword in the new paperback copy of IJ.

Now, the first disclaimer: I was not an English major. In fact, I don’t even read that much fiction. In the past five years, I have read The Corrections, Infinite Jest (for the second time), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Pride and Prejudice, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, nearly half of 2666, and that’s about it, give or take some Lord of the Rings. I will be of little assistance in helping you to understand how Infinite Jest fits into the canon of American literature, past or present.

Writing is something I don’t know a great deal about either. I earn my keep as a blogger, which profession most people assume is synonymous with writing but really isn’t, in the same way that basketball players run but aren’t runners and architects draw but aren’t, uh, drawers. I love Wallace’s writing in IJ and elsewhere but beyond that, I can’t tell you why it’s good, who his writing was influenced by, who he influences, or what the purpose of his complex sentence structure and grammatical tics is. (Or should that be “are”? (See what I’m talking about?))

Furthermore, I do not play tennis, haven’t suffered from depression, have never been addicted to anything (except perhaps Tetris on the original Game Boy), don’t know the Boston area that well, haven’t attended an _______ Anonymous meeting, and did not go to a small college in New England, all things that Wallace pulled from his life experience and wove together in the IJ narrative. Does Wallace accurately convey to the reader the pressures felt by the exceptional junior tennis player? Does the AA stuff ring true? What about the addiction aspects of the novel? I can help you with none of those questions.

But what I am qualified to tell you — as a two-time reader and lover of Infinite Jest — is that you don’t need to be an expert in much of anything to read and enjoy this novel. It isn’t just for English majors or people who love fiction or tennis players or recovering drug addicts or those with astronomical IQs. Don’t sweat all the Hamlet stuff; you can worry about those references on the second time through if you actually like it enough to read it a second time. Leave your dictionary at home; let Wallace’s grammatical gymnastics and extensive vocabulary wash right over you; you’ll get the gist and the gist is more than enough. Is the novel postmodern or not? Who f’ing cares…the story stands on its own. You’re likely to miss at least 50% of what’s going on in IJ the first time though and it doesn’t matter.

And and and! It is a fact that Infinite Jest is a long book with almost a hundred pages of endnotes, one of which lists the complete (and fictional) filmography of a prolific (and fictional) filmmaker and runs for more than eight pages and itself has six footnotes, and all of which you have to read because they are important. So sure, it’s a lengthy book that’s heavy to carry and impossible to read in bed, but Christ, how many hours of American Idol have you sat through on your uncomfortable POS couch? The entire run of The West Wing was 111 hours and 56 minutes; ER was twice as long, and in the later seasons, twice as painful. I guarantee you that getting through Infinite Jest with a good understanding of what happened will take you a lot less time and energy than you expended getting your Mage to level 60 in World of Warcraft.

And so, readers: Forward. I wish you way more than luck.