How David Foster Wallace Broke My Heart
I'd like to thank Summer Of Jest and the Tumblr community for supporting us during the reading. By using endnotes in this book, David Foster Wallace wanted an interactive relationship between the Subject and Object and I feel that reading with a group of people brought that vision to a new level.
I decided to read Infinite Jest after reading A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and some of his other essays and articles. I've always wanted to read IJ and have had the copy in my bookshelf for a very long time. I finally picked up the courage to read it this summer and I can gladly say that this was the best decision I've made this year (Maybe I was just terrible at making decisions prior to this, I'll let you be the judge of that).
In IJ, Wallace offers a novel literary movement, one knee-deep in hyperbole, street talk, mathematics, film theory, politics, entertainment, addiction, and psychotherapy- "uncomfortable but sincere realism for a world that was no longer real" (D.T. Max's Every Love Story is a Ghost Story). Like other post-modern writers, Wallace discovered that the literature does not have to be flat, and that it can be like a sphere. If we write about human lives, relationships, addictions, it is important to emphasise that it goes on and on and on. This is the truth that DFW wanted us to see- the symptom persists.
At the core of Infinite Jest lies the theme of addiction. The characters battle with an addiction to tennis, fame, entertainment, drugs, alcohol and the 21st century America. The story mainly takes place in the Enfield Tennis Academy and the Ennet Halfway house. It is set in a near distant future where time is subsidised by corporate sponsors and most of the book takes place in the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. The founder of ETA, the late James Incandenza left behind a film titled "Infinite Jest"- a film that is so addictive that once you view it, you find yourself in a catatonic position, unable to take any control and forever doomed. The main characters Hal Incandenza and Don Gately search for this film in order to avoid it from getting into the hands of the wrong crowd that plan to destroy the citizens of the Organisation of North American Nations. This is the main narrative and then we encounter an infinite amount of stories as if DFW is giving voice to all the characters even the extras- I am drawing a parallel from James Incandenza's view of filmmaking, where he asserts that he wants to give everyone a voice.
Wallace writes with brilliant clarity and precision in this chaotic world that he has set up for us. I can think of a lot of amazing stories that has made me laugh, cry and laugh again. At the end, when the imagined laughter is over, we are left with sadness- kind of sadness that leaves us numb, unable to control and addictive.
I'll leave you with this:
"Fiction's what it is to be a fucking human being." --DFW
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