Why is Infinite Jest so Challenging to Read?
Reviewing David Foster Wallace’s ‘Infinite Jest’
It goes without saying that Infinite Jest has a reputation as an extremely difficult book. In fact, David Foster Wallace’s 1996 encyclopedic novel is one of the most unfinished books in the world, so it comes as no surprise that many people are quick to lie about having completed it. Maybe you’ve met someone who brags about having finished Infinite Jest only to describe the plot as “defying explanation” or “too complex to summarize”.
These answers may seem like convenient ways to avoid admitting that you haven’t actually finished Infinite Jest, but they unfortunately aren’t far off from the truth.
Infinite Jest comes across as extremely fragmented, and it seems impossible to do justice to all the tangential plotlines with a single summary blurb. Infinite Jest jumps between numerous characters at both a prestigious tennis academy and a disheveled halfway house down the hill. Connecting the lives of these characters is the circulation of a samizdat video, ‘The Entertainment’, so amusing that anyone who views it will want to do nothing else.
A decent summary, but here’s a better one: Infinite Jest is about addiction.
Addiction and Devotion
Nearly every character in Infinite Jest is an addict. Many are recreational drug users, though others have an unhealthy fanaticism and devotion to something that serves the a similar purpose. Many of the students at Enfield Tennis Academy commit themselves to athletic pursuits to such a degree that it becomes their entire reason for existence, often at the expense of their happiness.
Entertainment and pleasure are another common dependency, offering hedonistic escape second only to drugs. Characters are desperate to find something more to devote themselves to. In their inability to do so, they are forced turn to drugs and cheap entertainment instead. Nobody in Infinite Jest ever fully escapes compulsion without finding an alternative to give themselves away to, for better or worse.
The passages where Wallace writes about depression and addiction are some of the most memorable moments in Infinite Jest. David Foster Wallace was a victim of these struggles for most of his life, culminating in suicide. With this in mind, it becomes obvious when he is using character dialogue to voice his own tragic experience. Wallace often bounces from character to character to speak on different topics, often at the expense of a well-paced story. While the plot becomes quickly convoluted, the thematic consistency of Infinite Jest is more than worth it.
Look for thematic connections instead of a linear plot, and you can certainly find cohesion in the fragmented narrative of Infinite Jest.
Transcending Irony
In his 1993 essay ‘E Unibus Pluram’, David Foster Wallace called for a new type of fiction which would transcend the cynical irony of postmodernism. Infinite Jest is a blueprint for this new type of fiction. Despite the postmodern style of Infinite Jest, the tone is decidedly anti-postmodern. Absurd concepts and characters are treated with reverence and empathy, and plots that would be otherwise funny instead come across as melancholic.
The many passages where characters recount their former drug use are a great example of Infinite Jest’s delicate tonal balance. The stories are wildly absurd, but the characters tell them with such poignant realism that you won’t know whether Wallace wants you to laugh or cry. In either case, Infinite Jest is fantastic in it’s ability to get inside a characters head, and make us empathize with even the most depraved and absurd of compulsions.
What makes ‘Infinite Jest’ so Challenging?
If Wallace really is such a fantastic writer, what is it that gives Infinite Jest such a notorious reputation for difficulty? You could point to the novel’s length, or the difficult vocabulary. You could certainly point towards the 130 pages of end notes, some of which occupy a double-digit page count. However, all these choices contribute to a singular goal: disrupting the reader’s flow state. Wallace wants to highlight our addiction to shallow entertainment, and what is a more effective way of doing so than by making us acutely conscious of our consumption of Infinite Jest as a piece of entertainment?
This certainly makes Infinite Jest sound like a gimmick, and to some degree it is. However, the novel is more than an exercise in artistic self-indulgence. Wallace’s analysis of entertainment addiction will feel especially poignant when you experience the effect firsthand. You can’t lose yourself in Infinite Jest in the same way you would a typical escapist entertainment, such as an action-thriller or romance novel. When you read Infinite Jest, you’re entirely aware that you’re reading a work of fiction, and it’s difficult to continue, even if you recognize the quality of the novel.
Whether this is a worthwhile tradeoff is debatable, though Wallace certainly accomplished what he intended. Infinite Jest makes a heavy demand on the reader. If you’re up to the challenge, however, in its ability to show how we consume entertainment, the experience of reading Infinite Jest is unlike any other novel.
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