Read for the first time in August 2012.
DFW is clearly very smart and has clearly a top-notch liberal arts education. He writes well, oftentimes better than well, willing to break so-called stylistic rules, and succeeding, which to me is sort of the defining demonstration of mastery of the written word. On the other hand, some of his stylistic tics do provoke annoyance, though only occasionally.
Nonetheless, I think, that of all the works of all the authors I have read, DFW is, in my estimation, the closest to a genius in the traditional Einsteinian unfathomably high IQ scientist capable of great discovery sense. This only serves to underscore my irritation with the use of the word genius to describe every Thom, Stanley, and Lenny who writes a great song or tells a great joke. Because I would suspect that actual genius in service of a creative artistic endeavor produces work very much like Infinite Jest. This is both its strength and weakness, as literature.
If there is one word I would use to describe Infinite Jest, that word would be clever. It is terrifically clever. It is a terrific book. It’s amazingly inventive, smart, and intimidatingly educated. It’s funny too. Huge swathes of it are aesthetically wonderful.
It took about 300 pages before I realized how good it was. At around page 800, I assumed that as soon as I finished I was going to immediately start over and read it again. But by the end I had changed my mind, as I realized that nothing would be gained from a reread. Anything I missed the first time around was as inconsequential as that which I had already processed.
This is fine. I am not complaining. Excepting intermittent bits of DFW’s sadistic noise, this is mostly a fun book to read. I can’t help but admire DFW. He’s so smart. He’s so educated. And Infinite Jest is so very clever.
But that’s all it is.
I wish I could convey my sense of unadulterated true admiration for Infinite Jest and simultaneous disappointment at its failure to achieve what literature is capable of without it being a criticism. Without the critical arrogance of it having unmet an expectation that no work should have the burden of bearing, that of being “great.” DFW was a ridiculously smart guy and he wrote a good book. Multiply that times ten.
I have to acknowledge the Don Gately stuff and how that is at least an attempt to get at the stuff that I love about literature, whereas the precocious Hal Incandenza stuff, while often enjoyable, doesn’t ever attain the necessary sincerity to be taken as a real human being with struggles or emotions we can care about.
However, if I want to put a finger on why Don Gately’s humanity doesn’t provide salvation for the twee unreality of O.N.A.N.* circa Y.D.A.U., I think it’s because Don Gately isn’t really that compelling, either on his own, or exacerbatedly relative to the intrigues of Quebecois separatists and O.N.A.N. Agents of Unspecified Services. Parts of his story are fascinating to read, of course. And perhaps, the struggle of a recovering addict’s resistance to narcotics and his eventual redemption, through violence and pain, should be compelling. But in DFW’s hands it’s not, at least not completely. Maybe I should just say it’s not enough. The pathos of one real guy’s pain is just not enough to counterbalance the aura of playful inconsequence of this staggering colossus of a book’s tour de unreality as imagined by a brilliant hyper-educated academic type.
Or maybe I should just give in to the temptation and say that Infinite Jest only goes to show the limited though not insignificant authorial value of brains and education. An interesting comparison on that point would be John Kennedy O’Toole’s “Confederacy of Dunces,” which I think does achieve the greatness that Infinite Jest is on the cusp of.
*The acronym O.N.A.N. is a good joke I think.
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