Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace

One of my more entertaining reads in recent years. The dense prose and alternatingly hilarious and horrifying sequences of addiction and withdrawal and their attendant mental torture grip you by the throat and don’t let go. The criticism of modern American excess is like a sledgehammer to the forehead. And it’s meant to be. After all, an obsessively clean, former crooner elected President who realigns the U.S. northern border (laying waste to large parts of Canada as well) to create a tidy waste disposal region is anything but subtle. Also not so subtle is the appropriation of video as a means of excess-induced death by “pleasure.”  But these are mere vehicles for showing off Wallace’s brilliant prose – especially if the indulgence of which by the reader mirrors the novel’s underlying theme. I couldn’t help reading it through to the end, all thousand pages plus notes. This is not exactly like reading Pynchon, to whom some compare the author. Pynchon is denser and a bit more obtuse (I’ve read Crying of Lot 49, V, and Gravity’s Rainbow). Wallace’s writing is comparably lyrical and a bit more accessible. If the material wasn’t at times so sordid (how else to describe a bespoilt, filthy transvestite heroin addict racking with symptoms of withdrawal holed-up in a public library bathroom?) one could liken reading Wallace to slipping into a cool spring on a hot summer day with the soft steady splash of a waterfall only interrupted by forest birds and a gentle breeze. Still, an apt comparison, maybe, despite the toughness of the subject matter. I am finishing off a five year run living in the greater Boston area (Watertown) and working at a hospital in the Longwood medical complex. I ride my bicycle and/or run to work every day traversing the areas of Brighton and Allston that are the backdrop for much of the story. For this the novel resonated even more.