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Books Transcendental Bob

Is the joke on me?

The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.” — David Foster Wallace

I finally finished David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest a few weeks ago. I’m still not sure what to make of it.

The book’s themes and characters continue to rise up in unsettled dreams, an unresolved, anxious feeling that has lasted long after I turned the last page. I still can’t tell if it’s a work of genius or some kind of sham, but it definitely affected me. It’s gnawing at me, and as much as I dread it, I might go back and read the son of a bitch again, even though my first read was a six-month slog.

I guess I’ll leave Infinite Jest in a prominent place, where its unresolved meditations on entertainment, freedom, pleasure, addiction, advertising and tennis will taunt me every time I walk past. Eventually, I’ll make another run at it. In the meantime, I’m whiling away my time rereading J.D. Salinger, finding echoes of Wallace’s joke every time I turn the page. Maybe this is some freaky Zen koan that I’m trying too hard to unravel?

How in the hell are you going to recognize a legitimate holy man when you see one if you don’t even know a cup of consecrated chicken soup when it’s right in front of your nose?” –Zooey Glass in Salinger’s Franny and Zooey

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Boobtube Bob

Infinite Jest’s flying circus

Director and Monty Python alumnus  Terry Gilliam offers his assessment of David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” in Mother Jones:

“I’m reading David Foster Wallace’s ‘Infinite Jest,’ and I seem to have been reading it for the last seven months. It’s the thickest, most word-heavy book I’ve ever read. And it’s wonderful!”

I couldn’t agree more. I’m a few months and several hundred pages into Wallace’s epic. Truly a brilliant book, but also very challenging. I keep thinking of “Moby Dick,” where Melville heaps detail upon detail on the reader. All that information becomes a literary speedbump, forcing the reader to slow down and dig deep into the story rather than gobbling it up like an action/adventure flick.

I’m particularly enjoying a trend in “Infinite Jest” where something seems really implausible, and then I catch an echo of it in today’s headlines. In Wallace’s universe, advertisers can buy naming rights to each calendar year. Events don’t happen in 2011; they happen in the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. Seemed ridiculous. But then I caught myself watching the Tennessee Vols lose in the Chick-fil-A Bowl …

As for Gilliam, the Mother Jones interview definitely is worth a look if you’re a fan.