Semester of the Oversized and Taxing Book

Eric Moss

It ought to be a commendable curiosity that invokes in a group of students the desire to take on an academic pursuit that is as intellectually demanding as it is physically cumbersome. And yet, for those conscious of its contestable cachet, carrying Infinite Jest across a liberal arts college campus—one resplendent with the whispers of burgeoning, woke criticisms in search of a foothold in the marketplace of ideas—makes it easy to become the target of a well-practiced and abundant side-eye. It is an arduous endeavor to appear humble while touting a novel whose ostentatious reputation is outdone only by the protracted sentences therein, which sometimes extend over multiple pages, giving the finger to Strunk and White or any other gatekeepers of the deteriorating stronghold of proper syntactic convention. This great symbol of intellectual snobbishness is ironically, in many ways, a materialized statement against it—but only to those who have unlocked its potential (the better people, of course).

At first, I stripped the book of its cover to conceal my shameful pursuit. I have since found that just as wearing pink might be a way of confronting fragile masculinity, adorning Infinite Jest in its rightful dress is a test of fragile intellectuality. In order to conquer the beast, you have to be imperious enough to pick up the sword. 

Any physical or spiritual challenge issued by wielding the gargantuan David Foster Wallace work appears overshadowed still by the intense balance on every page between messages seemingly trite and simultaneously epiphanic—and the mental acuity required to regularly discern and unpack the gravity buried in certain statements. Infinite Jest, while limited to about 1,000 pages, poses more than 1,000 avenues of exploration on subjects like addiction and lost agency, topics with which many either interact in a peripheral manner or for whom the subject matter cuts to the core of their identity. Not only does David Foster Wallace forge some binding ties of cohesive sentiment to link a disparate audience, but he manages to craft messages that resonate in reverse channels, allowing benighted and fortunate readers to face difficult topics, while also demonstrating to those plagued by such afflictions that they are no different than any others suffering the same. This singular novel contains a multitude of messages both visceral and uplifting,  and yet fiercely human. 

Even still, readers might find it curious that the platform on which DFW delivers much of his narrative is the tennis court. After all, it’s hard to make a case for the accessibility of a novel when its content often revolves around a rather exclusively privileged sport instead of something more accessible, like basketball. Perhaps even the trendy pickleball court, however, would lack a certain panache to support an inflated currency of inside references, occasional offshoots of modern German, and the drugged-out neologisms of complex characters. 

Nevertheless, Infinite Jest artfully persuades its readership that no matter what our own story might be—whether an addict, an athlete, or a scholar—we are all connected by the little details that surround us, the ones that glow faintly until we immortalize their otherwise incandescent hues with our own authority and insight. Unless you’re one of those people that hasn’t read the book. We’re better than you, of course.