conceptual
fiction
fiction
Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
Shhh! Keep quiet and I will let you in on a secret.
Nobody dares say this in the literary world, but
novelists have scaled back their ambitions in
recent years. All big projects have been put on
hold. Special clauses are being inserted in
publishing contracts. I have it on good authority
that you can’t write a novel longer than 650 pages
without getting a 27B-6 form signed by three
senior editors. And no one wants to be the first to
sign.
In the old days, authors aspired to write the Great American Novel—
or the Great Commonwealth Novel or the Great Fill-in-the Blank
Novel as the case may be. Not any more. Nowadays, fiction has
been downscaled, just like your job, your car and your 401-K.
Today a writer’s highest aspiration is a movie deal or (the holiest
of holies, pause while I genuflect) a place in Oprah’s Book Club.
Even the phrase Great American Novel is now off limits—only
uttered with a sharply ironic tone.
For your own good, you should practice saying it in front of a
mirror. Put a Snidely Whiplash sneer on your face and spit it out
between clenched teeth: Great American Novel . . . hah! Trust me,
if you get the tone just right it will help you earn a tenured position
in the English Department.
In short, big, sprawling books are dead. But
somebody forgot to tell David Foster Wallace.
The poor schmuck! While everyone else was
downscaling, he was working on Infinite Jest.
Wallace clearly was operating under the old
Pynchon-house rules. He thought he could
pull out all the stops and write A Heart-breaking Work of
Staggering Genius. (Whoops, that title was taken a few years later
by Wallace admirer David Eggers, but you get the idea.) Nice try,
DFW (the author, not the airport), but who was gonna publish a
novel that approached a half-million words, with footnotes that, on
their own, are as daunting as the “Penelope” section in Joyce’s
Ulysses? Yes, there are 388 footnotes in Infinite Jest—all of them in
a tiny font, and some of them as lengthy as New Yorker short
stories.
This book seemed a non-starter even before it used up the first
toner cartridge on the Wallace family printer. But our clueless
author miraculously found a publisher, and must have gotten the
three requisite signatures, because Infinite Jest arrived, with a
heavy thud on the loading dock, at your local bookstore on
February 1, 1996, just in time serve as the perfect Groundhog Day
present. When they put it on the scale at the checkout counter,
everyone gasped: four pound of prose, and no fat.
Even more surprising, this daunting book found its audience,
garnering praise from delighted readers and enthusiastic reviewers.
Writing in The Atlantic Monthly, Sven Birkerts declared: “Wallace
is, clearly, bent on taking the next step in fiction.” Newsday
proclaimed: “If you believe the hype, David Foster Wallace is about
to be crowned the next heavyweight of American fiction. And the
accolade is probably deserved.”
Of course, the leaders of the downscale camp demurred, especially a
certain Michiko Kakutani, affiliated with a prominent Northeast
daily newspaper, who dislikes sprawling fictions the way inner city
parents disapprove of their kids wearing pants two sizes too big.
She wanted Infinite Jest to be tighter around the waist, smaller and
more form-fitting; she compared the novel to an unfinished
Michelangelo sculpture weighed down by big chunks of marble that
need to be cut away. But even Kakutani was forced to admit that
Wallace was “a writer of virtuosic skills who can seemingly do
anything.”
In truth, Wallace put the equivalent of four novels into Infinite
Jest. Even stranger, these four novels have seemingly little to do
with one another—although the author eventually forces them
together with brazen contempt for literary decorum. First, Wallace
has written the Great Sports Novel, a detailed and brilliant account
of life in a very competitive tennis academy. Wallace has grafted on
to this coming-of-age tale an equally detailed and gut-wrenchingly
honest novel about recovering addicts in a halfway house. Then we
have a sci-fi tale based on the concept of a mysterious video that is
just too entertaining . . . so much so, that people who start watching
it can never stop. Finally, on top of all these stories Wallace
constructs a political satire about a crooner turned President who
re-shapes North American borders in alignment with his own
personal obsessions.
Yet the way Wallace presents these stories is never conventional,
and sometimes so wildly fanciful that you need to put down the
heavy tome—thud!—and chuckle or just draw a deep breath. A big
chunk of the political sub-plot sketched above is conveyed in the
form of the description of a filmed puppet show. (Imagine the
peculiar flavor of John Adams' Nixon in China to the power of ten.)
Other important story lines are developed in the footnotes, or
presented in street jargon full of malapropisms, or in streamlined
question-and-answer interludes in which all of the questions have
been conveniently omitted.
In short, none of this 1,079 page novel is padding. None of it is
"straight narrative" or conventional story-telling. The constant
creativity that Wallace shows, page by page, paragraph by
paragraph, sentence by sentence, is dazzling in the highest degree.
By any definition, and not just word count, Infinite Jest is a big
novel. Big in its aspirations, big in its scope, big in what it delivers.
Yet this flamboyant novel is also one of the most down-to-earth
books you will ever read. At its very core, this book is a critique of
flashiness and attitude, and argues for a healthy distrust of irony
and intellectualizing. Here is my verdict: Infinite Jest has a heart of
gold. The viewpoints it presents with the greatest vividness are so
simple that, at times, they come across as truisms and clichés. But,
again and again, our author forces the dead cliché back to life—
which may be one of the most difficult tasks any author can face.
Wallace’s ability to marry this austere and unadorned core of his
vision to the grand superstructures of his interlinking tales is one of
the most compelling aspects to a novel that is rich in things to
admire.
So put aside your sneer for a few days. Send your ironic attitudes
off to the cleaners, and forget to pick them up. You can always go
back to making fun of the Great American Novel next month or
next year. In the meantime, take a chance on a book that aims to
scale the heights. Who knows, you may decide you want to give up
on downscaling completely.
by David Foster Wallace
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
Shhh! Keep quiet and I will let you in on a secret.
Nobody dares say this in the literary world, but
novelists have scaled back their ambitions in
recent years. All big projects have been put on
hold. Special clauses are being inserted in
publishing contracts. I have it on good authority
that you can’t write a novel longer than 650 pages
without getting a 27B-6 form signed by three
senior editors. And no one wants to be the first to
sign.
In the old days, authors aspired to write the Great American Novel—
or the Great Commonwealth Novel or the Great Fill-in-the Blank
Novel as the case may be. Not any more. Nowadays, fiction has
been downscaled, just like your job, your car and your 401-K.
Today a writer’s highest aspiration is a movie deal or (the holiest
of holies, pause while I genuflect) a place in Oprah’s Book Club.
Even the phrase Great American Novel is now off limits—only
uttered with a sharply ironic tone.
For your own good, you should practice saying it in front of a
mirror. Put a Snidely Whiplash sneer on your face and spit it out
between clenched teeth: Great American Novel . . . hah! Trust me,
if you get the tone just right it will help you earn a tenured position
in the English Department.
In short, big, sprawling books are dead. But
somebody forgot to tell David Foster Wallace.
The poor schmuck! While everyone else was
downscaling, he was working on Infinite Jest.
Wallace clearly was operating under the old
Pynchon-house rules. He thought he could
pull out all the stops and write A Heart-breaking Work of
Staggering Genius. (Whoops, that title was taken a few years later
by Wallace admirer David Eggers, but you get the idea.) Nice try,
DFW (the author, not the airport), but who was gonna publish a
novel that approached a half-million words, with footnotes that, on
their own, are as daunting as the “Penelope” section in Joyce’s
Ulysses? Yes, there are 388 footnotes in Infinite Jest—all of them in
a tiny font, and some of them as lengthy as New Yorker short
stories.
This book seemed a non-starter even before it used up the first
toner cartridge on the Wallace family printer. But our clueless
author miraculously found a publisher, and must have gotten the
three requisite signatures, because Infinite Jest arrived, with a
heavy thud on the loading dock, at your local bookstore on
February 1, 1996, just in time serve as the perfect Groundhog Day
present. When they put it on the scale at the checkout counter,
everyone gasped: four pound of prose, and no fat.
Even more surprising, this daunting book found its audience,
garnering praise from delighted readers and enthusiastic reviewers.
Writing in The Atlantic Monthly, Sven Birkerts declared: “Wallace
is, clearly, bent on taking the next step in fiction.” Newsday
proclaimed: “If you believe the hype, David Foster Wallace is about
to be crowned the next heavyweight of American fiction. And the
accolade is probably deserved.”
Of course, the leaders of the downscale camp demurred, especially a
certain Michiko Kakutani, affiliated with a prominent Northeast
daily newspaper, who dislikes sprawling fictions the way inner city
parents disapprove of their kids wearing pants two sizes too big.
She wanted Infinite Jest to be tighter around the waist, smaller and
more form-fitting; she compared the novel to an unfinished
Michelangelo sculpture weighed down by big chunks of marble that
need to be cut away. But even Kakutani was forced to admit that
Wallace was “a writer of virtuosic skills who can seemingly do
anything.”
In truth, Wallace put the equivalent of four novels into Infinite
Jest. Even stranger, these four novels have seemingly little to do
with one another—although the author eventually forces them
together with brazen contempt for literary decorum. First, Wallace
has written the Great Sports Novel, a detailed and brilliant account
of life in a very competitive tennis academy. Wallace has grafted on
to this coming-of-age tale an equally detailed and gut-wrenchingly
honest novel about recovering addicts in a halfway house. Then we
have a sci-fi tale based on the concept of a mysterious video that is
just too entertaining . . . so much so, that people who start watching
it can never stop. Finally, on top of all these stories Wallace
constructs a political satire about a crooner turned President who
re-shapes North American borders in alignment with his own
personal obsessions.
Yet the way Wallace presents these stories is never conventional,
and sometimes so wildly fanciful that you need to put down the
heavy tome—thud!—and chuckle or just draw a deep breath. A big
chunk of the political sub-plot sketched above is conveyed in the
form of the description of a filmed puppet show. (Imagine the
peculiar flavor of John Adams' Nixon in China to the power of ten.)
Other important story lines are developed in the footnotes, or
presented in street jargon full of malapropisms, or in streamlined
question-and-answer interludes in which all of the questions have
been conveniently omitted.
In short, none of this 1,079 page novel is padding. None of it is
"straight narrative" or conventional story-telling. The constant
creativity that Wallace shows, page by page, paragraph by
paragraph, sentence by sentence, is dazzling in the highest degree.
By any definition, and not just word count, Infinite Jest is a big
novel. Big in its aspirations, big in its scope, big in what it delivers.
Yet this flamboyant novel is also one of the most down-to-earth
books you will ever read. At its very core, this book is a critique of
flashiness and attitude, and argues for a healthy distrust of irony
and intellectualizing. Here is my verdict: Infinite Jest has a heart of
gold. The viewpoints it presents with the greatest vividness are so
simple that, at times, they come across as truisms and clichés. But,
again and again, our author forces the dead cliché back to life—
which may be one of the most difficult tasks any author can face.
Wallace’s ability to marry this austere and unadorned core of his
vision to the grand superstructures of his interlinking tales is one of
the most compelling aspects to a novel that is rich in things to
admire.
So put aside your sneer for a few days. Send your ironic attitudes
off to the cleaners, and forget to pick them up. You can always go
back to making fun of the Great American Novel next month or
next year. In the meantime, take a chance on a book that aims to
scale the heights. Who knows, you may decide you want to give up
on downscaling completely.
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to reviews)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way
Comes
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's
Stone
Saramago, José
Blindness
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Verne, Jules:
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules:
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Ted Gioia's personal web site
SF Site
Jospeh Peschel
The Misread City
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction and
its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials
from publishers, authors,
publicists or other parties.
A Reading List
(with links to reviews)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way
Comes
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's
Stone
Saramago, José
Blindness
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Verne, Jules:
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules:
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Ted Gioia's personal web site
SF Site
Jospeh Peschel
The Misread City
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction and
its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials
from publishers, authors,
publicists or other parties.