Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun

So Infinite Summer is over. It actually feels like only yesterday when I read a short bit in the Phoenix while I was riding on the C line and, on a whim, hopped off at Coolidge Corner and picked up a copy at Brookline Booksmith. It’s incredibly fortuitous, actually, that there was one copy left; the way these whims work, I probably never would have bothered picking it up if the first store I went to didn’t have it.

The goal was to read ±75 pages a week for the summer. I was far outstripping that pace for a while, to the point that I would read the weekly commentary on the Infinite Summer blog and think, cripes, that happened weeks ago. But after a while, I found myself reading less and less. And eventually, a few weeks ago, I was right there at the spoiler line. And even lagging a few pages behind! Now, I can point to any of a number of reasons for that that make a lot of sense. But I’m also fairly certain that if the depths of my unconscious were delveable, we’d find out that there might have been some intention there. Because with every page, I wondered “Will I ever read a book this good again?”

I’m still not sure.

Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to write a bunch of posts this week about how tremendous and great and brilliant a book this is. But I’ll start with recollecting this post I read earlier in the summer from Freddie at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen. It reads wonkily English-majory at first, but I recommend getting through the whole thing, because the payoff at the end is important (pardon the lengthy block quote, folks).

[David Foster Wallace], like all authors today, wrote in the knowledge that the literary world would be filled with exactly those kinds of readers and critics who would dismiss his work out of hand for its artiness and pretension. And yet Foster Wallace wrote on, like a lot of writers do, in the stubborn belief in the good faith of his audience. . . . Julian Sanchez, commenting on the controversial footnotes, says “having notes at all announces ‘behold, I am a quirky, convoluted pomo novel .’” Again, I can’t blame him for feeling that way. But no book announces any such thing. Rather, it has that announced for it by the “fuming, unwanted ambassadors” that Ben Marcus rightly derided, the antique gatekeepers who unasked and unwanted try to save readers from books. This novel, faults and all, is a work of faith, and when read with trust and courage, will reward both.

It got me thinking about faith. It’s one of the most enigmatic, slippery concepts, and yet for so many people, so much hinges on faith. In a lot of ways, its enigmaticness and slipperiness are the point. But I think reading a book, in general, is an exercise in faith. (I’m NOT implying that reading A book is the same as believing in THE book. There are degrees here, folks.)

I mean, a movie, a TV show, a play; just like books, these are things that you can walk out on if they’re horrible. But even if you didn’t, movies and shows last a very finite and manageable amount of time. But a book, especially one as long and involved as Infinite Jest, is begging you to trust it. To have faith that things are actually going to work out, that things are going to make sense, or, barring that, not make sense in a way that is consistent and tolerable. A book is an investment, of time and actual like, mental engagement.

For this reason, an unsatisfying book is much worse than a lame movie or show. You see a bad movie, and it’s like, eh. You roll the dice and you takes your chances. But a bad book is like a betrayal. We open its pages with faith that the journey an author is taking us on is worth what we’re sacrificing. Unlike religious faith, the consequences aren’t as steep (thankfully). But that feeling of giving up something to the unknown and (for the moment) the unknowable, that’s what happens when you start a book. And when the book is 1000+ pages long, and as tough and demanding as Infinite Jest, you’re really hoping that things work out, for the characters in the book and for yourself.

It did! Stay tuned, everybody.

Tags: books, David Foster Wallace, faith, Infinite Jest, Infinite Summer

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 11:24 pm and is filed under Reading and Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.