Counter-Currents
David Foster Wallace & the Christianity of Filling in Forms
Part 1
Frank Lyons
David Foster Wallace
3,999 words
Distracted from distraction by distraction.
—T.S. Eliot
Unfortunately, as things are, the festival’s sure to fail. But I have the power to save you guys. Through death I’ll release you from your earthly suffering.
—Unnamed female character from Chainsaw Man, Chapter 196
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2 comments
You brought up pretty much the only two book that conquered me, Infinite Jest and The Brothers Karamazov. I got about a hundred pages into each. Would my life be better if I had finished them? My OCD says yes, but perhaps not.
There’s no page-burning ‘what happens next?!’ quality to Infinite Jest. Only cause I like deep wordsmithing and lyrical play did it interest me, particularly Don Gately at Ennet House in Allston, the marijuana addiction angle, and the wackjob Incandenza family. I found the tennis Eschaton chapter extremely tedious as it’s the one sport that angers me even more than golf. I do commend Jason Segal for doing a swell job as Wallace in The End of the Tour.
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