Pete Hindle

My reading of Infinite Jest is part of Infinite Summer, an online reading group of the novel by David Wallace Foster

Infinite Jest: is it really that great a novel, or is it merely called a great novel owing to its size? After all, American’s like big things: Buicks, skyscrapers, Texas. And Infinite Jest is a big book, at 1079 pages in total.

Although currently on track with the reading schedule as laid out on the Infinite Summer website, I’ve been holding myself back. I’ve got a really high reading speed, and I’ve been reading other books at the same time, as I’m not finding Wallace’s writing style that interesting. Yes, it has some good points, and some amusing funny parts, but it’s sheer length finds it unfocused, the narrative is all over the place (despite being a few hundred pages in), and the over-reliance on footnotes is a distracting affectation.

(For instance, in this paragraph I’m writing in the main body of the text to tell you that the footnotes are considered one of the novels main strengths by IJ’s aficionados, pointing to the fragmentary nature of reading via the internet as an excuse for this strange writing quirk. But by writing in the main body of the text you keep the narrative flow but still impart information like I’m doing here. I think authors refer to this as ‘writing skills’.)

Infinite Jest is, no doubt, an interesting book. But whilst reading it I’ve been reminded of all those short novels that you are heartbroken to leave behind once finished. One such book that I’ve been using as ballast for my reading speed is Catherynne M. Valente’s Palimpsest, a story about searching for a way to a magical realm. I’d heard it was a good book via the underground sci-fi grapevine, but not paid too much attention to the plot. I probably should have done, because the mcguffin that gets you into the magical realm of Palimpest is having sex.

Valente’s book has a lot more sex in it than the ordinary fantasy books I come across – er, I mean read. But it is sensitively handled, and belies the underlying theme of the book – that of seduction. Those who wish to travel to Palimpsest are seduced by the city, and it’s promise of a different life, but Valente makes it clear that sometimes those promises are lies.

While Palimpsest was in no way the novel I was expecting, it’s concise effort to tell four interleaved tales served as an ideal counterpoint to Wallace’s rambling style. Valente knows how to write the sort of punchy prose that made me keep reading, her style reminiscent of a sexier, gothic-ier Neil Gaiman. Having finished Palimpest I only wish that there was a sequel I could pick up – I doubt I will be left with a similar yearning once Infinite Jest is finished.