Infinitely Impactful

Infinite Jest will eventually invade any reader.  If you stick with this book (and I realize that is asking a lot), there will be a point when David Foster Wallace will infiltrate your being.

That moment came for me when a drug addict gave birth to a faceless baby.  I received a warning, so I braced myself, but DFW had a talent for invasion of personal space.  This scene impacted me personally based on two cases of mine, and, much like his manipulative quiz/essay/mind-f#@k from Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, I felt abused afterward.



One similarity was the first case I ever argued while still a student. I saw pictures that remain clear to me today.  That case was Michaelis v. State, 115 P.3d 1098, 2005 WY 80 (Wyo. 2005) (you can read it Here if you want details, but it involved a child who would be 11 years old this year had she lived past three months).

The other case cemented my decision to forever avoid family law, and that is as detailed as I'd like to get.

The point is that this book will present something uncomfortably-familiar to any reader.  DFW specializes in personal invasion by presenting open dialogue that will sound really similar to the kinds of closed dialogue that goes on in the heads of thinking people.  Absolutely everyone thinks things that bring them shame.  We often chuckle about those things by saying pithy and self-deprecating things like "Wow, I'm going to hell for that thought."

DFW makes you confront those uncomfortable things by staging them in a fictional world. The reader gets to squirm about such thoughts as if he or she said them in a crowded room. He also succeeds by presenting uncomfortable-yet-relateable mental pictures (as he succeeded with me).  The reader, successfully placed into a vulnerable and naked state, follows DFW on a mental walk-about that becomes even more profound under such paralysis.

It's like he's a spider that stuns its prey and then carefully wraps the alert-yet-helpless reader into a web of discomfort from which profound understanding is born.  The concepts are deep and fascinating, but you almost have to be stunned to see it.  It's like appreciating a walk-about by doing it barefoot.

It's a trip, man.

I continue to read this book in awe of DFW's talent.  And his depth remains intense.  Reading this book has been fantastic challenge and a joy.  It has impacted me and made me feel violated.  Yet, it is among the most rewarding reads I have ever experienced.

I will have more to say on this book later.  For now, if you have about 13 minutes to spare, listen to this book club TV discussion of the book.  You can see how it challenges people.  Even those critical of it seem to have been impacted in unforgettable ways.

This book is an all-time great modern work.