Books I Haven’t Read: Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

In terms of things that make little sense, I thought I’d start off the ‘content’ aspect of my book, reading and writing blog by talking about books that I’ve never read. Considering I try to read a couple of hours a day, you’d think I’d have a lot more to say about the authors I am enjoying, rather than the books I’ve not read yet. This is arguably true, but with the ease of access to eBooks and charity shops, my book collection continues to balloon passed an acceptable, and conquerable size. Some of these books may never see the light of day ever again – if they serve as food for thought, at least their purchase was not in vein.

So – ‘Infinite Jest’. A weighty nemesis if ever I saw one (admittedly, my version is on Kindle, but shush…).

For some reason, I’ve decided that merely reading books wasn’t enough. Perhaps it was due to the fact that year after year, I could never quite remember the books I’d read, or if I could, I’d struggle to remember plot or characters. I started to use Goodreads to log my reading, and was introduced to the Reading Challenge. I began to challenge myself to read so many books a year – a commitment in number in the same way that my buying of running shoes was an commitment in cost to running the marathon. Now that I said I’d read 75 books in a year, I would – and I did.

One of the books I didn’t read was ‘Infinite Jest’. Shortly after I made myself the challenge to read a certain number of books, I felt that this wouldn’t be enough. Why don’t I challenge myself in terms of content as well, really up the ante? In a phrase, show off. I started Googling the most difficult books to read, or challenging reads, or any other number of phrases designed to make myself feel smug. This was at the point I came across David Foster Wallace and ‘Infinite Jest’. It also led to the purchasing of ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ by Thomas Pynchon, another novel which hasn’t had its e-spine cracked yet.

When I go all in, I go all in – I bought three books by David Foster Wallace just off of reviews and recommendations, without even reading so much as a word of his writing. ‘A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again’ and ‘Consider The Lobster’ were the other two purchases; collections of essays, a skill in which I’d heard Wallace was more adept in. I was excited, and couldn’t wait to jump in.

But I was worried.

What if I don’t get it? What if it isn’t for me? What if I am defeated within the first five pages, left to wallow around a Wallace-less world, those dedicated enough to get it mocking me with their thesauri in hand?

I tried to read ‘A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again’ and enjoyed what I understood of the first couple of essays. His writing was genuinely funny when I actually knew what was going on, though his preponderance for using highfaluting vocabulary at perfectly cromulent times made it hard going. I probably didn’t help myself; I used to read it in bed, at the end of a hard day at work. The set-up was never going to be right in this context to fully understand the difficult conceptual ideas that Wallace was discussing in such loquacious ways (can’t beat them, join them…). It was the only Kindle book I’ve read that had the ‘time left in book’ (a cruel invention if ever there was one) figure always going up as soon as I’d read a page or two – it was the metaphorical roadblock after the motorway of a Lee Childs or Peter James story.

Wanting a challenge, but not desiring to stop every few lines to seek out meanings of words, I never really attempted to tame ‘Infinite Jest’. Even now, when I do fancy a crack at it, I’m put off by my other ongoing challenge – to read ‘War and Peace’. It may be a longer book, but at least I’m guaranteed to understand what is going on…mostly.

Will I ever read the book? I really hope so. One time in my life when I’m less skittish about the books I’m reading and I can give over sufficient time to really involve myself in the book, maybe I will. Until then, it’ll just remain another Book I Haven’t Read.