Infinite Jest by David Foster WallaceMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Hooter: The search for the master copy of a highly addictive movie whilst learning about the stoic and esoteric residents of a city between a drug rehab and a tennis academy.
The Infinite Jest took me back to my school textbooks. He has approx 100 pages of footnotes alone in this massive book. The language used tends to be a lil less obscure than Tharoorian English but you get the gist. I knew what I was getting into with respect to being a struggle to read this book but feels like an accomplishment to get through. Most glowing recommendations of this book talk about having truly understood it's worth in the 3rd or 4th reading, not sure I am going to get there anytime soon. First stab - if you get past the language and the construct, the book has wit and takes a lot of contemporary America anecdotes along the way. Unfortunately, I wouldn't say I am very well versed with contemporary America of his time except for the TV shows that gave me some insight so honestly, quite a few of the jokes probably went over my head. The Wheelchair assassins who are in the quest to find the copy to give their secret cult unlimited power add color to the proceedings but again DFW stays away from any flowery prose and keeps his writing very witty and objective, almost dry to a certain degree. Movies and tennis make for recurring themes through out.
I enjoyed the read in bits and pieces but not sure if it was worth the struggle hence the 3 hoots. Maybe I ain't intellectual enough for the infinite jest. The meta baseline of this work is mind blowing but the slog to get through it.
Example of the intellectual wit: The title comes from a line in Hamlet, "Alas, poor Yorick!—I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy."
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment