Immersed in the Mind of a Troubled Genius: Infinite Jest

For my first month on the trip, one piece of media dominated all the rest: Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (DFW). This is a massive book, clocking in at well over a thousand pages in my edition, once factoring in the hundred pages of endnotes. This is a the work of true genius, dense, lyrical, wry, and painful to read, a book that sat on our bedroom end-table for over two years in anticipation of an opportunity to give it the sustained concentration and attention it requires, and deserves. In my modern, SF professional life, with the many demands and entertianmant temptations, I did not feel that i could give the book the sustained commitment in deserves. Too much ESPN.com, quasi smartphone addiction, work email, google reader RSS feed, new restaurants, etc. etc.. This is rich irony because digital entertainment and its impact on the viewer is one of the central themes of Infinite Jest.


Thankfully, our overland trip has been a godsend for reading, writing, conversing and reflecting. The drive days unfold gradually, with ample time to enjoy the scenery but also hours to pleasurably and leisurely fill. Looking around the rig today there are 9 people with their nose buried in a book, a shockingly high number of late twenties/early thirties people reading good ol' paper books. I am the only one with a screen open at the moment. I can not recall the last time i say such a high ratio of books:screens in my demo, perhaps as long ago as a decade.

Short DFW background

DFW is generally regarded as one of the finest writers since WWII. He was a literary sensation right out of Amherst, with a published work before he even graduated college. Just about when his literary career took off, he began struggling with mental demons. He moved around quite a bit, studying at UofA in Tucson, writing in Illinois, getting married and settling in Southern California. For those interested in his life, you can do a quick google search and find tens of thousands of words to consume.

Prior to Infinite Jest, i had read pretty much all of his non-fiction work i could lay my hands on, and loved it all. DFW wrote for many of the premier feature magazines, across a wide range of topics. A theme does emerge in these works of delving into the American experience, and contemporary culture. His fiction work was not as enjoyable, but this probably reflects my preference for stories based in the actual world more than anything. For those interested, here are my favorite of his non-ficiton pieces:

- A supposedly fun thing i will never do again: http://people.virginia.edu/~jrw3k/mediamatters/readings/cult_crit/Wallace_A.Supposedly.Fun.Thing.I'll.Never.Do.Again.pdf

- Ticket to the Fair: http://byliner.com/david-foster-wallace/stories/ticket-to-the-fair

- Federer as a Religious Experience: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html?pagewanted=all

- 9/11, The View from the Midwest: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/9-11-the-view-from-the-midwest-20110819

DFW, the person. lived a very complicated, and emotionally, troubled life. He took his own life in 2008, hanging himself at in his house in Claremont, Ca, where he was a distinguished professor at Pomona College. He struggled with depression and/or substances for years, finally finding a chemical balance through anti-depressnts. However, as is often the case for people battling severe depression, he attempted to go off the functional, yet tenuous, drug induced balance because he did not feel completely alive and himself. This sent him into a tailspin, cruelly the old drug cocktail no longer worked, and he spiraled downward into his own personal hell. Eventually, living became too much and when his wife went out of the house for a few hours, he ended his battle with his depression, hanging himself in his garage.

It is a terribly sad story, and one that affected many people. Because DFW's writing is so personal and rich, his readers and admirers were devastated by his death, myself included.

Infinite Jest

Sadly, i feel i understand his action and depression generally exponentially better after reading Infinite Jest, which i finished a few days ago exactly one month after we arrived in Nairobi. Even though it is a work of fiction, there are long sections dealing with substance abuse and depression that are icily real in light of author's life. Just like pretty much every author, DFW writes best when he delves into areas what he knows from his own lived experience.

Broadly speaking, the book is about human desire, particularly when that desire is at odds with our physical and mental well being. Here is the link to amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Jest-David-Foster-Wallace/dp/0316066524), if you want to read a more than a short summary of the book in include here. Below, i just wanted to share a few thoughts about 2 main threads of the book.

Summary: A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the pursuit of happiness in America. Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are.

- Depression: the passages from the book that have stayed with me day after day have been those that communicate what it means to have a deep depression. Obviously, this is a personal account, and it is not universal, but the distinction between the absence of feeling versus insatiable pain has been pinging around my brain ever since i read it. I have felt a version of former a little, when struggling to re-hab from an ACL reconstruction on my right knee and some serious complications that led to a temporary disengagement from the world. That was a rough period of my life, and one that i got through. The description of insatiable and domineering pain in Infinite Jest is bone chilling, a horror you would never wish on anyone. Pain that is unrelenting, that is what i image must have led DFW to take his own life.

- Chemical dependency: a related topic of the book is the degree to which chemical dependency can and does dominate people's existence, as well as the all consuming control needed to pull out of that orbit. There is this amazing section of the book that traces the decent of someone into a 24/7/365 alcoholic hell. So many times, you think, 'this must be the bottom', but there are so many circles of this self inflicted hell. The wanton disregard of others is tough enough to swallow, but when that uncaring, destructive and absorbed behavior extends to the host organism, you know that a disease is truly scary.

Parting shots

I really enjoyed this brick of a book, it was everything i had waited these years to enjoy. Did i fully understand everything? Probably not, but with a dense, layered work i think that is an impossibility. I touched on two tough topics above, but there are many parts of the book that had me laughing out loud or vividly recalling my varsity tennis days. In total, the book has happily made me think deeply about the above weighty subjects, and a whole host of others. I personally still prefer DFW's non-fiction work over fiction, which reflects my own reading preferences more than anything else. This world is so rich and complicated, and when a master of language gets his teeth into some of that reality, the results are awe inspiring. It would have been amazing to read DFW applying his razor sharp mind and pen to this world instead of a created, half reality world in such an ambitious and overarching work as Infinite Jest.

Lastly, it has been a real challenge reading this unbelievably high quality writing while simultaneously writing on this blog more regularly and purposefully than ever before. The work of a literal master and genius of the language and medium sets the bar impossibly high. It also has elevated my writing, i think, encouraging me to take a few more risks and be more open and communicative. That is an never ending journey, and one i was thrilled to be guided by the masterful DFW over this last month.