A few years back two particularly witty professors from Amherst wrote a series of short satirical pieces and lumped them together in a compilation titled Sense and Nonsensibility: Lampoons of Learning and Literature. As should already be apparent, the shorts in this collection are focused primarily on poking fun at the tradition of literature and some of its most notable figures via absurd means like faux interviews with long dead poets and the fabricated web pages of revered novelists. The excerpt of a review on the cover perfectly encapsulates the book’s essence: “Monty Python meets Immanuel Kant…”.
In one particular piece the authors create an Oscar-style award complete with a variety of different categories, some more ridiculous than others (in “Most Loathsome Character Who We Love In Spite of Ourselves”, God is nominated for his role in The Old Testament). It was here that I had my first encounter with David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: it was tellingly nominated below the behemoth that is Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past in the “Best Novel Unfinishable By Reader” section.
Of course I didn’t fully appreciate the humor until I glimpsed the physical dimensions of Wallace’s book, and then I didn’t appreciate the quiet and very serious truth in the humor until I tried to read the book and discovered that, sure enough, the book would be a challenge to finish (ridendo dicere severum—through what is satirical tell what is solemn).
Yet, having now –nearly- completed the second set of assigned reading, I feel that the book is becoming increasingly easier to progress through. A permanent set of characters is beginning to materialize (in addition to Hal and Mario Incandenza we are also reintroduced to Erdedy) and recurring themes have begun to mold into the story’s frame as fixtures (tennis and drugs are two prevailing examples). It seems that as I become more familiar with this strange reality that Wallace has constructed I become less distraught by seemingly abrupt changes in the narration or the placement of new characters. On the other hand there are still certain frustrating incongruities, for instance the series of scenes recounting the rendezvous between Remy Marathe and M. Hugh Steeply of the Unspecified Services, however comparatively cohesive, left me with a number of pressing questions (the least piquing of which is why Steeply’s agency requires him to dress in disguise, in this case a woman). Fortunately I’m having to have a little more faith in David Foster Wallace, and I suspect he will reveal both character’s relevance to the rest of the story in due time (he has already dropped some clues). At this point, I think any sort of conclusive assertion regarding Infinite Jest’s essence would be premature. Though I could recite a number of different themes in the book, I wouldn’t feel comfortable telling someone else what the book is about. Perhaps I never will. I think it was Mr. Karafiol who compared Infinite Jest to a puzzle (forgive me if I’ve given credit to the wrong source or similarly misrepresented you Mr. Karafiol). I think this is a particularly acute analogy—the book is by and large a sort of pleasant struggle, certainly difficult and demanding but not so terribly disparaging, a struggle that I expect will be vindicated by the eventual rewards. In the meantime, it's easy to become preoccupied with the hilarity of chapters like the one in which Mario is nearly assaulted by the beastly girl tennis star.