Infinitea(se) (1)
2009 08 09 | journal
Reading Infinite Jest for a book club.
Not five feet away from me sat a well-known local musician also reading a book by someone who'd committed suicide - a Russian man who'd witnessed the revolution and ended his time by hanging himself. Heavy poems in translation about the bloodshed, the ugliness. He too was young, just 30 years old.
The upfront presence (2) of suicide in IJ is a little unsettling, but the methods are vastly more than that. They are not quick and clean. They are ragged, odd and ... I want to say grandiose, but that has a taint unsuited to what I want to convey. They loom, they seem theatrical, complicated. The description of James Incandenza's suicide sat in my belly not entirely unlike how beer does when you're not in quite the right mood for it - swimmingly, seasickly, a life of its own crawling the sides of your stomach. Joelle's suicidal situation was lacking in certitude. I couldn't help but think that perhaps she didn't quite want to mean it, that she didn't quite want to do it, that she wanted to be stopped or found or found out - she chooses, after all, to perform the ritual in someone's home during a party.
I suppose I've always thought of this sort of personal escape as wanting to be private and quick; that you would want it to be over as soon as it could be; that you would want to be certain it would work; that you would not want to be invaded at one of the more personal moments in a person's existence.
I am speaking from the perspective of someone who only had a minor flirtation with this idea of endings when she was 17 and, so she thought, being eaten alive by gargantuan angst. I don't know that I was even that serious about it. I am certain I was not; but, I was unhappy, confused, and rudderless. I do not, therefore, have that special insight into such things which might help me in better comprehending the need to end things, and end them in a certain fashion.
People keep talking about the difficulty in reading IJ, the difficulty in waiting (wading) through until the point where they realise they are hooked, that it's good, that they are enjoying it (3) - like my stuffed vine leaves there, which look awful to some, but reveal a hidden deliciousness when you bite through the slight toughness of the leafy binding. I think there are people out there who are not enjoying the book, you can smell it between the lines of what they say - cagey carefulness, talking about what they're reading without coming right out and saying it. It is difficult, can be difficult, in the face of so much overt enthusiasm to voice a dissenting view; like trying to tell a room full of Tolkien fans that you think Lord of the Rings is a load of crap, or that Tolkien was a lousy writer. And that's fair enough, not to like it. It won't suit everyone.
Am I enjoying the book? In parts; in other parts, not so much. I am not even certain I like this book, but I am compelled by it, fascinated by some of it, frustrated by it, astounded and annoyed. It is hard to wade through some of it. For me, the hardest bits are the scenes with Steeply and Marathe (although I must admit to being highly amused by Steeply's female accountrements and their visible journey around his person), and the section on Eschaton. The parts I've most enjoyed (so far) are the sections on addiction and Madame Psychosis; the heart-wrenching situation of Poor Tony and his coming down off heroin (which, of course, made me think of the similar parts in Trainspotting); the page(s) of facts (if Fizzies existed, I'd be tempted to attempt it); and the rather depressing situation of the eight-baller's stillborn infant.
I am at the July 31st milestone, a little behind but catching up quickly. And, feelings aside, I will wait til I've had all the parts before making a final pronouncement on the whole.
(1) Infinitease: The hooks that get you to keep going.
(2) As another Infinite Reader pointed out, though, DFW doesn't introduce you to something and then start talking about it, he just starts talking about it. There is no preamble, no ease-in - it's just there.
(3) Infinite Jestation: the length of time after you start reading the book before you realise that you're hooked, that you like it, or that it has you whether you like it or not.