Reviewing Infinite Jest and other Futilities
"It's on my 'to do' list."
"It's my New Year's Resolution--for next year."
"It's one of my top-thirty goals this year."
"I'm going to tackle that as soon as..."
Hm. These all sound like people describing a dental procedure they know they need to do, but it's not an emergency, so it's not vital for them to set an appointment. But they aren't talking about a dental procedure. Interestingly, I've heard all of these statements from people when I told them I was reading Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace. As if I'm supposed to think better of them because it's on their "to read" list, even though it seems that's where it's destined to stay. They treat it like it's this task they have to complete, along with training for a half-marathon put on by the local medical clinic every spring. It isn't. It isn't a huge mountain to climb, it isn't a root canal, and it isn't tackling a disorganized garage on a blistering Saturday afternoon. Not if you love Wallace and his writing. So why do so many people treat reading Jest like a chore?
My theory is that it's some sort of prestigious literary hoop within certain circles, and to jump through said hoop is a sign that they are in the literary "know" while at the same time retaining this "hip" quality of being a DFW fan without actually doing anything active to actually be a DFW fan. Cynical? Maybe. That, and you can't have only a rudimentary understanding of the English language and read anything by Wallace. So it's a tip-off that you're at least verbose enough to follow along and that grants a certain kind of intelligence nod in this elusive circle that's been created.
That said, I go to great lengths to avoid this type of pretentious garbage, so let me just say this outright: if you think of IJ as a task for bettering yourself, your social standing, or as a sexy way to get laid by a girl in librarian glasses, just stop right there. Do us all a favor and don't bother with it. It's just a book, and reading it is like reading three or four books back-to-back, so it's not like it's any different than that. The point is, if it's not fun for you, why do it?
Bottom line? Infinite Jest is an entertainment, true, just like any other piece of writing. Yes, it has something incredibly important to say, but I can take any superhero movie from Hollywood and deconstruct it down to deep, universal themes and make it sound like Citizen Kane, so don't get all hoity-toity on me about "literature." Please. The difference is, Wallace knew the themes would go unnoticed by many, and I think that's why he wrote it as he did. To entertain and be a part of the system that he himself was examining.
The one thing that comes across loud and clear--Infinite Jest is fun. I will set this disclaimer again that any book review is subjective, so there is no "right" or "wrong" in them, unless you totally miss the point, and I think a lot of people do. It's right in the title: Jest. It's a clown, it's a gag, it's hilarious, and it is FUN. It was fun to read and it was probably a total riot for Wallace to write (between the bleeding, of course). The irony of this book: while some portion of the reading population treats it like a chore they have to complete before they are allowed to brag at their book club, they are missing the real reason they aren't reading it, and it's this: most people don't want to WORK that hard for their entertainment. And if you read IJ, the irony of that will crack you up.
Of course, the deep themes are breathtaking, and the brilliance of this writer is a brilliance that dwarfs most writers I've ever read. It's almost mind-boggling. To say it's one of the most important books of our time is, of course, subjective. But I think it is and I think I'm right. And it isn't difficult to get to these themes. Wallace pummels us with them between hilarity. He never lets us forget what he's trying to say. You really don't need to work that hard for the message. Themes of addiction are in your face, but not the tired and worn diatribe on addiction. He isn't using this book as a platform for some didactic warning against addiction, despite what conclusions other people have drawn. In the book, Wallace shows us that addiction is in our natures, in our psyches, and in fact, I posit that the message of IJ, "in toto," would be that we crave addiction. We seek it out. We are dying to "give ourselves over to something completely." We view serious drug addicts as "other," when we, ourselves, are all addicted to something. The difference? Our addictions are socially and societally sanctioned.
But more than addiction, this book explores loneliness and fear and what we do to stave off the silence, keep the dark at bay. We consume, consume, consume, and we never stop to think that the plethora of choices available to us is causing a social cancer that's eating away at the souls of our individual psyches. Dramatic? Maybe. Maybe not.
If you think about it, our physical and psychological makeup is not much different than the human habilis who existed a couple of million years ago. If we could go back in time and bring a Chuck-A-Rama with us and we escorted these ancestors to a line-up of foods available to them, what would they do? Think about it. At that time, their choices of food varied according to season, area, and availability. What if they suddenly didn't need to move, no more nomadic life for them, and they could choose from chicken, beef, vegan, gluten, or dairy-free? What if they didn't need to physically work for their basic human needs, ever again? I think they would have a certain period of violent adjustment, and then they would be...like us. Eventually. The proof is, well, right here, in front of us. Wallace wrote about instant gratification before it ever became linked with today's western civilization and technology. He was spookily prescient.
And we are in crisis. We are in physical and emotional and spiritual crisis.
We think we are lucky because we have so many choices. But IJ posits that to want is much more invigorating and purposeful than to have. And there are so many miserable people who have, and yet so many who simply always want, no matter how much they have. Choice is both a blessing and a curse.
And it's not like we want our choices taken away. But we thoroughly enjoy taking our own choices away. It's called "order." And human beings thrive with order. We just want order on our own, specific terms. We want our escapism tailor-made, just for us. We want to choose our masters to whom we will be dutiful slaves. We want the illusory control over our addictions, so we choose a different reality show, a different diet, a different weekly box-office hit, a different Bejewelled app, but we never stop. We don't know how to stop. To stop would be to face our greatest fears. Fears such as contemplating the meaning of our existence, the purpose of our lives in the grand scheme, and are we really alone?
And part of our addiction is the addiction to the Self and how we are perceived by others. So we strut and wave our CVs, our big houses and shiny cars; we Photoshop our images for social media and count our "Likes" and we place our value in the things outermost without examining the innermost cost. We watch our sports teams, we attend our church meetings, we watch our shows and we attend to the minutiae of our daily lives, so focused on what's in front of us, we don't have to look down wind.
The solipsism of these last two decades, with the advent of huge technological advances, is almost absolute. Although the advent of "leisure" as a possibility and a concept has been around much longer. This solipsism is how we allow people in this country overflowing with food to starve to death. It's how we allow people to suffer and die in a country rife with quality medical care, but no way for a certain portion of the population to access it. Do you think, in a hunter-gatherer tribe 2.6 million years ago, a widow and her children would have been allowed to starve? Left to fend for themselves, abandoned? No. They cared for their tribes' members. And I know this because anthropological research shows that tribes who displayed high levels of altruism were more successful and more proliferative than those tribes who displayed a tendency for selfishness and a disregard for community. The people who survived were those who took care of their own. It's in our DNA to be altruistic; but things, they are a-changin'.
Our solipsism has become self-sustaining. We allow the weak and the downtrodden to fall away. Selfishness is being encoded into our DNA as we speak. If you question that, take a look at any thirteen-year-old and try to evoke empathy in them. It's not there, and this should terrify us. We had shows in the 90's like Seinfeld, where well-to-do malcontents created chaos out of nothingness and wallowed in self-obsession and self-involvement and that was our entertainment because we could all, on some level, relate.
As for our children, we have to actively teach empathy and compassion to them or they will be swallowed up in themselves and the self-centeredness of the technological age. And that, friends, is an incredibly lonely place to be. There are only so many distractions before the emptiness takes hold. And what will our children do to fill that emptiness? Well, as we are seeing, there is no limit to what they can consume to stave off the inevitable. Meanwhile, we are all in crisis. All of us. If we don't start paying attention, we could lose it all.
And so the somber, deadly serious themes of this book are there, there for the taking between each satirical line. The book is an entertainment, yes, but an entertainment to lure you into a big truth. It's life-changing. And if it's life-changing for you, you have the choice to act on that change. Or not. Interestingly, we still haven't realized that the true paradox of altruism is that what is good for the 'other,' is ultimately good for All.
So read the book; don't read the book. It doesn't matter. It won't make you sexier or smarter or more fuckable. It will, if you let it, change the way you see the world. What you do with that is up to you. Or just read it for fun. Let it entertain you. I would be interested, however, to meet anyone who could read it for the sole purpose of a good laugh. I suppose, in a way, that would be the most infinite jest of them all. And I can't help thinking that that was Wallace's jest. The knowledge that he would be imparting this great truth, and yet there would be many who would "tackle" it with the lofty idea that they are somehow a part of the jest, when in fact, they are the butt of it.
