Infinite jest: A coitus interruptus.

I am not very good at writing, I am the equivalent of Hal at the beginning of the book trying to express ideas, but here I go:

After 38 days of reading, and my second attempt to read the book, I finished Infinite jest. I don’t know what to make of the book, if it is one of the best books I have ever read or just a verbose version of If on a winter’s night a traveler mixed with Foucault’s pendulum.

I know the book is great structure-wise, I loved it but I was not able to feel the eagerness I usually feel when reading something I really like, I felt like I was reading it for an assignment, and it’s strange because the topics that it handles are among my favorite topics: loneliness, trauma, addiction and obsession.

I like how funny, ironic and self-referential IJ is. And the whole setup with Québécois terrorists, people jonesing, a very good Entertainment, the sports jocks, the Oedipal complex, the loneliness and fear were amazing and very amusing subplots. I don’t think Wallace intended the book to be enjoyed, more like to be dissected and analyzed and put back together.

I read the book because I like Calvino a lot, and because I read somewhere IJ was the antithesis of Umberto Eco (my favorite writer). I can see the influence of Invisible cities and If on a winter’s night, but reading the book I saw a lot of Eco’s Foucault’s pendulum, plus of his non fiction work on pop culture.

I think it’s a book worth reading, but it’s not a book I will read again.

I like all the monologue where this sentence appears: “That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it. That loneliness is not a function of solitude”.

My favorite character is Mario and when Hal thinks of Mario. I would have liked to hear more from Mario’s PoV.