To Read or Not to Read Infinite Jest

I only have one official reading goal for this year and that's to complete Infinite Jest.  I've had a copy sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of years and I finally decided to take the plunge.  I'm currently 312 pages in and if you're considering whether you should begin a similar undertaking, here are some things to consider:

When you are reading, do you like to know what's going on at all times?
If so, Infinite Jest might not be for you.  For starters, it takes place in a future time when each year is subsidized by a corporate sponsor.  The opening section is in the Year of Glad while the next section is the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment.  The Section after that is the Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad.  How these years are ordered chronologically isn't spelled out until page 223.  In addition, while the sections are usually short, you might read several sections in a row that occur in different years, focus on characters that you won't see again for another hundred pages, or seem to have no relation to each other.  If that makes you crazy, this book might not be for you.  If you're able to go along for the ride though, know that things will start to connect in delightful ways and that Wallace leaves clues sprinkled here and there in the text that will help you link things up.  There are also a wealth of online resources if you come across a character or scene that sound familiar but which you can't quite put in context.

Go read the first section of the book. Did you like it?
I think your reaction to this first section is probably a good barometer for how you'll experience the rest of the book.  Did you find it delightfully unorthodox or just annoyingly pretentious?  Would you describe the pacing as "circuitous" or just "rambling"?  As you get further into the book, you often won't know right off how one section relates to another, but if you enjoy the style of Wallace's writing, you can experience each scene in isolation then just file it away for later reference and move on.  If you removed this opening scene from the book and presented it as a short story, I think it could absolutely hold it's own.  I could read and re-read this section on it's own and love it every time.  However, plug the scene into the context of the 964 pages that follow it and, according to some semi-spoilers I accidentally saw, it will both foreshadow crucial events to come and not be fully understood until you've read the final page.  If you find this wildly intriguing, this book might be for you.

Does most of your reading take place in bed while you're waiting to fall asleep?
Any single section of this book is not hard to understand¹.  The only difficulty is figuring out how everything is related to everything else.  There are a lot of characters and events that don't converge until hundreds of pages into the book.  Remember though that Wallace is a master of word choice and he knows how to make details stick out in ways that won't be realized until later.  You might read a scene that has a single line about a drug dealer who keeps snakes in a trailer on the outskirts of the city, only to suddenly realize that you've read an entire section about said drug dealer 35 pages ago.  However, if your attention is split between reading this book and listening for your number to be called at the DMV or if you're only half alert when you read that sentence, you're going to have a much harder time keeping up.  If you ever saw the movie Inception (and if you haven't, you should) imagine trying to watch that movie while you were in and out of the room or starting to drift off.  You might still enjoy some of the scenes, but you're going to be very confused and not really appreciate the movie when it's over.

Do you love to get lost in a good book?
Have you ever gotten sucked into a book only to glance up at the clock and realize you should have been in bed hours ago?  Did you not care and keep reading because you had to know what was going to happen next?  Maybe this happens further into Infinite Jest, but I'm on page 312 and it's only happened to me in short spurts.  The format of this novel is such that the flow of reading is frequently broken up and disrupted.  For starters, the sections are short and often mixed together with seemingly unrelated sections or contain end notes that require you to flip to the back of the book.  That being said, several sections (and even one end note) have sucked me in and had my rapt attention.  Wallace's writing is good enough to do that, but he intentionally fragmented the story to serve a purpose.  If you're willing to keep with the book and enjoy it for what it is, the structure of the book complements the content.  Once you've finished the book you can go back and find an online guide to reading the book chronologically, but if you insist on doing this you first time through, just don't.  Go find something more linear and don't look back.

Final Thoughts
If you don't end up liking this book or you're just reading it because someone made you think that you ought to have read it, please don't make yourself miserable over it.  It can be hard to talk about Infinite Jest without sounding like an a highbrow literary asshole or at the very list a pretentious know-it-all.  I think this book is absolutely worth the time spent reading and trying to understand it, but people read for many different reasons and have widely varying tastes.  If you enjoy Wallace's style and are just frustrated trying to keep up and put everything in context, take notes, get a reader's guide, or take advantage of the wealth of online resources related to this book. Don't give up on the book too soon.  On the other hand, if reading any book is making you miserable and you're not enjoying it even while you're doing it, just stop.   Maybe you'll come back to it later or maybe you won't, but either way you'll be better off.



¹ If you do feel like you're hitting too many words or references that you don't understand, try keeping the online page-by-page annotations handy.  These annotations aim to be spoiler-free and both define some words that you might have to otherwise look up in a dictionary and provide explanation for references that might not be common knowledge.