To call Infinite Jest my favourite book would be doing a disservice to it. Of course it’s great, of course Wallace has a virtuosic use of the English language. It’s hilarious. I’ve never giggled so much over a book; I’ve been unable to remain a stoic Londoner on the tube and broke out chuckling many times over the quite-long period of my life that involved reading this interminable novel. And yet, Infinite Jest is about addiction and it’s harrowing and tragic. The nuance of that sadness amidst the humour, that gallows humour, that I’m sure Wallace would have the appropriate word for if he were to be writing this review.
For its negatives, the book is a rambling mess. It’s an unmitigated splurge of Wallace’s thoughts on paper, I far more believe that Infinite Jest was written on a single scroll across a few days of double digit hour drug fuelled sessions than was On the Road. And I love its rambling mess! It’s never-endingly hyperactive and suits my raised-in-the-techno-age flitting mind that can scarcely concentrate on a single scene for longer than a few pages. This book is more like social media than most social media. Give me random characters and constant meaningless tangents, give me lists of technical medical words and insults like ‘he wouldn’t lend his grandmother a quarter for the rubber at the end of her crutch’, and give me no resolution. Of course there’s no point to the book, but I don’t think that makes it ironic or a critique of readers. I think that Infinite Jest is incredibly sincerely written, any book that just about holds it together over a thousand pages must be.
For a brief period of reading Infinite Jest, life was incredibly simple. There was only ever one book, and one book I knew I’d never finish. I’d never make any progress because any sessions sat reading — vertically of course because Infinite Jest is firmly in the category of books far too heavy to hold while lying prone — would be swallowed up by footnotes spanning several pages in size eight font, or digressions into googling what ‘ascapartic’ may mean. I wouldn’t say I was addicted to the book, but I was deeply appreciative of how it simplified my life. No longer would I visit book shops, because I wouldn’t be finishing this book any time soon, any spare moments I could default to reading Infinite Jest, and I knew it would always be there for me, because I’d never finish it.