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A summer online challenge has quickly made “Infinite Jest,” David Foster Wallace’s behemoth 1996 novel, this summer’s must-read book. It’s one of the most talked-about and difficult books in the last 20 years. Through the medium of online blog posts, forums and chapter breakdowns, “Infinite Summer” has become a community of readers; a book club for the 21st Century.
“Infinite Summer” was started by Matthew Baldwin, a Seattle-based writer and contributor to online magazine “The Morning News.”
“I first picked up I.J. shortly after its release,” Baldwin said. “At the time I read the first 70 pages … but shelved it upon my return home. Still, what I’d read stuck with me, and I always intended to return to the novel at some point.”
The procrastination isn’t without good reason: Infinite Jest is three pounds, 2.2 inches thick and 1,079 pages long (98 pages of which are endnotes critical to the novel’s context, written in painfully tiny typeface). Jason Kottke, a contributor to “Infinite Summer,” said it was “useful to rip the book in half for easier reading on the subway or on the beach.”
The “Infinite Summer” challenge is this: Read roughly 75 pages per week. After a little more than three months (the scheduled end date is Sept. 22), participants will complete the book.
“The book is massive, and it requires a commitment not just of time, but also of space,” said Jim Brown, an “Infinite Summer” reader who graduated from UT in May with a Ph.D. in English. “You have to ask yourself: Will it fit in my bag? Am I really going to carry this around?”
Deriving meaning from the madness is no easy feat, either. The plot itself is a tennis match, a continual back-and-forth between settings and time periods that mandates at least three bookmarks.
When “Infinite Jest” was written, Wallace was already a critically acclaimed author and essayist. The novel was heavily hyped, praised early on by reviews that dubbed Wallace the next “heavyweight of American fiction” (according to a ‘96 Time magazine review). Since its publication, “Infinite Jest” has spurred a cult-like following, complete with worldwide fan clubs and a plethora of plot and character guides.
The novel takes place in a futuristic world where, among other things, all of North America has converged into one large land mass. Advertising has taken on new roles, with products being able to buy rights to name years. (For example, “The Year of The Depend Adult Undergarmet” or “The Year of the Trial-Sized Dove Bar). Wallace flips between two sets of characters — residents of a drug rehabilitation halfway house and attendees of an elite tennis academy — to simultaneously tell two different stories.
“Infinite Jest is unique, not just in its length but in its style,” Brown said. “The book … immerses you in a world that is sometimes believable and sometimes absurd.”
Equal parts farce and social criticism, Wallace focuses on an array of themes: the roles of entertainment, substance abuse and family, to name a few. The novel is autobiographical on some parts — Wallace was a ranked player on the junior tennis circuit, spent time in rehabilitation centers and battled depression before his death in 2008.
The prose is also difficult, as Wallace never shows his audience any pity, going on 20-page tangents about fictional filmographies and writing in long, rambling sentences that require dictionary references.
But beyond the book’s daunting length and Wallace’s linguistic acrobatics, “Infinite Jest” is fun to read. It’s at times hilarious and at times heartbreaking, with rich dialogue and a lovably dysfunctional set of characters. And for this, “Infinite Summer” deems the challenge a worthwhile endeavor.
“I think ‘Infinite Summer’ is one of the best things to happen to ‘Infinite Jest’ — and contemporary reading habits — in a good long while,” said Matt Bucher, an Austinite and administrator of the David Foster Wallace e-mail LISTSERV “wallace-l.”
“Infinite Summer” posts are written daily from a cast of writers that includes four regular “guides” (including Baldwin). Posts address a variety of topics. In one, Baldwin has a page-long musing about the paradox of “Infinite Jest” being both nationally revered and inarguably off-putting. In another, Colin Meloy, lead singer of the indie band The Decemberists, writes about purchasing “Infinite Jest” in a 1997 impulse buy.
“There are quite a few big names participating in the reading, rather to my amazement,” Baldwin said. “It’s unfathomably cool.”
Besides Meloy, contributors include best-selling author Kevin Guilfoile and The Washington Post political writer Ezra Klein, who started the sister site “A Supposedly Fun Blog” where he and several other politicos are chronicling their reading, Baldwin said.
“‘Infinite Summer’ specifically opens up the world to one of the most talented writers of our generation,” said Matt Frederick, a UT alumnus reading “Infinite Jest” for the second time. “It offers a motivation to start a journey that will ultimately reward you.”
The reading project has received some opposition, namely people who find “Infinite Summer” a sort of fanfare homage to a fascination with Wallace’s suicide.
If anything, “Infinite Summer” is a chance to be exposed to Wallace’s style through a unique medium.
“[Wallace] may not be for everybody,” Frederick said. “But he is for some people. And if those people find him through this, then that’s what it was all about in the first place.”
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