Happy 30th Birthday, Infinite Jest!

Even if you don't know me personally, if you know I'm a Gen-X dude who loves literary fiction, you could probably safely infer that Infinite Jest is a foundational text for me. And you'd be right. Don't worry, I'm not here to rehash my long history with the novel (you can read a little more about that in this post if you're interested) and you certainly don't need a plot summary or discussion of prominent themes. 

Instead, as the novel turns 30 years old (published Feb. 1, 1996), I wanted to commemorate this moment and talk about two things:

1) Quickly, my experience reading the novel for a second time late last year.

2) More importantly, Hermione Hoby's absolutely WONDERFUL essay in the New Yorker, “Infinite Jest” Has Turned Thirty. Have We Forgotten How to Read It?

First...people saying: Wow, you re-read a 1,079-page novel? Are you f#$king insane? Haha. Yes. Yes, I am. But I had help this time -- a bunch of book nerd friends and I read the novel as a group last fall. Of course, yes I noticed a ton I missed previously. Of course, yes, it was a totally different novel 17 years after the first time I'd read it -- not because the novel changed but because I did, and the world did. And of course, yes, I still loved it. (Here is a short post on the re-read, if you're interested.)

Sure, a small part of me was a little anxious that it wouldn't live up to the hype in my own brain the second time. I needn't have feared.

And that brings us to Hermione Hoby's New Yorker piece. When I first saw the image of a young DFW and the headline implying we've lost the ability to read long and difficult books, I was like "great, another DFW takedown piece. Groundbreaking." But it is exactly the opposite. Hoby FEROCIOUSLY defends not just the novel, but also its length, complexity, and even DFW's exalted status, and the silly trend toward demonizing DFW fans. 

I loved her piece, and would encourage you to go read it. And though I understand the tl;dr irony of picking out a few passages from a long essay defending a long novel, here are four parts of Hoby's piece I thought were particularly great. 

1. On reading Infinite Jest after DFW died by suicide, which was my experience, as well -- and how that couldn't help but shade Hoby's reading of the novel: 

Death casts an ennobling sheen on any writer, but especially on one who, to use another “Infinite Jest”-ism, eliminated his own map—a coinage that tells us something about Wallace’s aversion to treacly solemnity, even the trace amount present in the euphemism “took his own life.”

2. Yes, Infinite Jest is inarguably male-coded and male-centric. Hoby writes that, as one small piece of evidence of this, the two female main characters -- Avril Incandenza and Joelle Van Dyen -- are both absolute smoke shows. But Hoby also notes that the 30th anniversary edition of Infinite Jest includes a forward by Michelle Zauner (of Crying in H-Mart and Japanese Breakfast fame). And also, Hoby herself loved it, despite the fact she's not "supposed to." 

Encountering the novel in my twenties, I was unaware that I was committing a form of gender treason; I knew only that little or nothing I’d read had come close in terms of sheer pleasure. The book had more brio, heart, and humor than I thought possible on the page. It was bizarrely grotesque and howlingly sad; it was sweet, silly, and vertiginously clever. 

3. I've spent the last 20 years telling anyone who will listen that I love DFW's writing because he's the perfect mix of the high- and low-brow. Hoby puts it even better: 

The blend of brainy and base is typical Wallace. Here is a guy anxious to assure you that he may have produced a Dostoyevskian work of profligate genius, but he’s also just a regular dumbass like you.

4. Finally, here is Hoby's case for reading fiction generally, but Infinite Jest specifically...and especially why reading is important now. This is SO well said.

His great novel proposed that the compulsive, addictive character of America, not least its addiction to entertainment, could best be resisted through the engaged reading of fiction. Here is a book about addiction that offers itself as a kind of counter-addiction, an example of the compounding value of sustained attention. The infamous length of “Infinite Jest” is, in this sense, a central feature of its ethic: not bigness as brag but duration as discipline.

RIP, DFW.