I’m going to say something that might be surprising, and I want to preface it by saying that I am in no way an objective or even average reader of this book. With the exception of his posthumous novel, I read every other major work by DFW, fiction and nonfiction, before getting to Infinite Jest. And I loved and enjoyed pretty much every one of them (Broom of the System is enjoyable but I wouldn’t say I loved it, and the stories in Oblivion, as I said in my review, are very good at what they’re doing, but I wouldn’t say I enjoyed them).
So I’m coming to Infinite Jest with, if I do say so myself, a fairly deep familiarity with and appreciation for DFW’s work. Because of the novel’s reputation, I suspect many readers will be tackling it without those benefits, and their experience may differ wildly from mine.
With those caveats in mind, here’s the (possibly) surprising thing: I don’t think Infinite Jest is actually that hard to read. The novel’s supposed difficulty is an outsized part of its mythology, placing it on the same hard-to-reach shelf as Ulysses and The Sound and the Fury and…wait, One Hundred Years of Solitude is on this list? Now, that’s interesting.
See, I’ve read One Hundred Years of Solitude, and I didn’t go into it with any particular advantage, having never read García Márquez before, indeed having only read 1 or 2 books that might be considered magical realism before. But I don’t remember finding it particularly challenging, I think for the same reason I didn’t find Infinite Jest particularly challenging. What is that reason? Well, as far as I can tell, it’s because on a first read-through I just don’t care that much.
Like, I could totally see how novels like 1ooYOS and IJ would be difficult if you were trying to actually keep track of everything and figure out exactly what’s going on at any given moment. Which of the 5 different people with the same name is this? Does the Year of the Depend Undergarment come before or after the Year of the Whopper? A former manager at work, who reads IJ every year, said my first time through I should have a pen and paper nearby to take notes. I’m going to argue, based solely on my own experience and no other evidence, that the opposite is the case.
If you’re reading Infinite Jest, or really any book, for the first time, what I’m advocating for is a purely vibes-based approach. Just go with the flow. Live in the moment. Don’t remember if you’re supposed to know who Ken Erdedy is? Who cares, focus on what he’s doing in this scene. Can’t remember if this section is taking place before or after Marathe and Steeply’s conversation in Arizona? Who cares, focus on what it tells you about the characters. I’m not saying actively ignore those details, I’m just saying don’t get bogged down in them. Don’t let your desire for order distract you from enjoying the chaos.
And really, taking notes on the first read-through is so inefficient. You have no idea what’s important, what you’ll need to remember for later, what confusing detail does or doesn’t get explained somewhere down the line. Far better to pay attention to those things on a second read-through, once you’re already familiar with the broad strokes and have a much better idea of what is and isn’t important.
Is Infinite Jest, with it’s nearly 100 pages of endnotes, and non-linear narration framed by arbitrarily-titled years, intentionally obtuse? Absolutely. But don’t think of that as an aggressive stance; rather, see it as a welcoming one. It’s inviting you to feast, not trying to starve you. Eat your fill, and don’t worry, you’re always welcome to come back for seconds. And believe me, there’s plenty to eat.
Want humor? This is a book in which the President of the U.S. is so germaphobic he had all of the U.S.’s trash catapulted into Canada (and, indeed, what was formerly the Northeastern U.S. that was then given to Canada in an act of so-called “experialism,” a delightfully absurd neologism). There is a detailed description of an 80’s-beat-em-up-style action film about nuns. An argument over an esoteric simulation of nuclear armageddon ends up with a kid landing head first in a computer monitor, which then can’t be removed for like a week.
Want pathos? This is a book that so accurately and poignantly describes what it’s like to suffer with addiction that people have probably been inspired to seek help because of it. A man attempting to end his life instead saves another’s, and then becomes so devoted to her that he betrays his highest ideals. An esoteric simulation of nuclear armageddon ends up with children battered, bruised, and bleeding, a visceral reminder of the physical realities they’ve been so blithely abstracting away.
Want eerily prescient predictions? The President of the U.S. is an overly-tan entertainer and businessman. There’s a service that lets you instantaneously watch basically any movie or TV show on your home computer (I think the really interesting thing about Interlace is that it predicts Netflix pretty much perfectly, but with a-la-carte pricing, which almost immediately takes over the world because it’s so obviously superior and is also an actually sustainable business model.) We don’t have brand-sponsored years yet, but surely it’s just a matter of time. And, you know, the nuclear armageddon thing.
Want compelling plots? There’s a spy thriller, a coming-of-age/sports drama, a young man trying to redeem himself for the crimes he committed in the past, a young woman grappling with addiction and trauma. There’s romance! Action! Intrigue! Tennis! Film analysis! Math!
And all of it in DFW’s characteristically keen-eyed, quick-witted, language-worshipping prose. Yes, he can be unapproachable when he wants to be, but I think you’ll find that here he is at his most engaging, his most brain-wrinkling, his most page-turning.
Infinite Jest is (and this is the central contradiction of the novel, though we don’t need to go into it) a fundamentally entertaining novel, in the best possible sense of the word. This is, I think, what sets it apart from other “difficult” texts: it may be difficult to fully understand it, but it is very easy to enjoy it, to be engrossed in it, to fall in love with it.
Now, personally, I do think it was helpful that I read almost all of his other works first, not just because it familiarized me with his style but also because it familiarized me with his obsessions. There are elements of Infinite Jest—the tennis, the pop culture—that you might be inclined to dismiss or gloss over if you don’t know that to DFW these are some of the most important things in the world, and so naturally are going to be pretty central to the meaning of any work in which they appear. And there’s also just a sense of culmination here that feels satisfying. It really does feel like his magnum opus, and you’d need to have read at least the preceding works to really appreciate that.
So, to summarize: my advice for approaching Infinite Jest is to do so with curiosity, an open mind, and maybe some pre-existing familiarity with the author. I think you’ll be glad you did.
Certain of Eventual Failure 