David Foster Wallaces 1995 novel Infinite Jest is a difficult, but very
rewarding read. It is an especially rewarding read for people who have found
relief from the demons of addiction through 12-Step programs. But is a long and
difficult novel that few will ever finish.
While I was reading Infinite Jest, I came across passages in the novel that conveyed
subtle truths about the reality of 12-Step Recovery more beautifully written
than I have found anywhere else. I was astonished at the depths of Fosters
prose to explicate the most sublime nuances of the Program.
I have, without permission, reproduced the pages
of Infinite Jest that I found so
powerful. Each passage is introduced with a brief explanation of the
circumstances and the characters, and then a link to a PDF of the selection.
In this first section, our characters are in the
living room of a halfway house. Donald Gately has
just over a year of sobriety and now works for the house after being a
resident. This section briefly (though with DFW, nothing is brief) describes
the current residents of the halfway house. It mines the tedium of early
sobriety—of learning to get along with the others in your lifeboat.
This next section is, admittedly, a long one;
but it so completely describes how an actual AA meeting is run—and how
the many different AA meetings in Boston each have their own character—that
I have gone back to re-read this section several times. Donald Gately,
from the first section, is our tour guide:
He has this ability to convey his own
experience about at first hating AA to new House residents who hate AA and
resent being forced to go and sit up in nose-pore-range and listen to such
limply improbable clichd drivel night after night. Limp AA looks, at first,
and actually limp it sometimes really is, Gately
tells the new residents, and he says no way hed expect them to believe on just
his say-so that the thingll work if theyre
miserable and desperate enough to Hang In against common sense for a while
A note on context: Infinite Jest is a dystopian
novel written in the early 90s, but set in the early 21st century.
The world has gone to shit, including the calendar—the government now
sells naming rights to each new year. This section
takes place in the Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment; the next year with be Year of Glad.
I particularly like DFWs metaphor of the spider
when discussing the disease.
I love this third section because Gately attempts to piss off the rest of AA by announcing he
doesnt believe in God and that they are completely full of shit—and
everyone claps and hugs him afterwards.
This is also where DFW first talks about the
fish that asks the younger fish Hows the water? This is a powerful trope that is the
keynote to his famous 2005 commencement speech several
years later.
The fourth section begins with the miracle of
the box-cake (just follow the instructions—whether you believe them or
not—and then you have a cake!).
This next short section perfectly describes my
own discomfort hugging people as a newcomer.
This last section deals with depression. And it
may be the most difficult without context—and the context is
complicated. Know this: they are
talking about the suicide of an experimental filmmaker. Some of the dialogue
refers to particular films the suicidal director made.
I like this section because DFW so elegantly
describes the different types of depression, anhedonia;
and also describes the basic pain (pain with a
purpose, as described in section Four) that drives many addicts to use.
Well, that is the last section from Infinite Jest, but it was kind of a
downer. So I have the 2005
commencement address that I mentioned earlier, in the third section. What is
water?
Here are the words that David Foster Wallace has made me look
up:
Propitiate
Appease
Micturation
Urinate
Sedulous
Painstaking
Strabismic
Squinting
Adit
Access
shaft
Ephebe
A
youth (Greek)
Preternatural
Supernatural
Cunctations
Made
up word for gibberish?
Prolix
Verbose
Amanuentic
From
amanuensis—to write from dictation
Adipose
Fat
Fulgurant
Flashing
like lightning
Glabrous
Hairless
Saprogenic
Causing
decay
Cuirass
Armor
Cordite
xplosive
Orts
Leftovers
Pulchritudinous
Beautiful
Cognomen
Nick-name
Nacreous
Of
mother-of-pearl
Revenant
Ghost
Escutcheon
Shield
Eurotrochaic
Made-up word to describe European police sirens.
Scopophobic
Afraid
of being seen
Anathematic
Made-up
word from anathema
Acclivity
Upward
slope
Coprolaliac
Person
sexualizing feces or filth
Mbiusizing
Made-up
word from Mbius Strip
Chyme
Partially
digested food
Declivity
Downward
slope
Autolysis
Self-digestion
of cells
Saltire
A
diagonal cross on a coat of arms
Tektitic
Glassy
meteorite
Cataract
Waterfall
Jejune
Boring
or childish
Corona
Ring
of light
Wens
Cysts
Brckengespenstphnom
An
allusion to Pynchon involving giant shadows made from a high mount upon the
land below, due to a position of the sun
Transperant
Impaled?
(French)
Otiose
Worthless
Inutile
Pointless
Dentition
Teeth
Actaeonizing
Made-up
word based on the hunter from Greek mythology
Quoins
Architectural
blocks at the corner of a building
Inguinal
Of
the groin
Strigil
Skin
scraper used in Greek baths
Achondroplastic
Dwarf-like
Lisle
Cotton
thread
Embrasure
Tapered
fenestration
Circumambient
Surrounding
Sinciput
Forehead
Defile (noun)
Narrow,
lower passage
Guilloche
Decorative
border of interlaced bands
Hyperemic
An
excess of blood
Kyphotic
Curving
of the spine
Entrept
A
port of entry; a warehouse
Cyanosis
Bluish
skin
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