Let's talk about "Infinite Jest" and why it matters (this Wednesday)!
Join us Wednesday, April 10th, at 10am SLT to talk about the Metaverse aka a BIG book that came out in 1996 and is more relevant than it ever was!
I have been annoying friends, family and random people at the dog park (some cross the street when they see me approach!) about my obsession with David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” for quite some time. For years in fact!
I even had my friend Arietu from SL make a “face in the floor” avatar for Greek translator Kostas Kaltsas earlier this year …
…and back in 2019 I had my blue dragon avatar in Sansar read the book to an audience of 2 (well, sometimes there were 5 viewers, especially when I logged on with an alt!)
As my bookshelf expanded with multiple translations of IJ in languages I would not be able to learn in even the most generous calculating of my remaining lifetime, special limited edition printings, used duplicates of the German/English papberback editions and notebooks with fan-art covers, my wife and son grew increasingly worried about my mental health.
(to that I say: you guys just worrying about this NOW?)
Below: the beautiful hardcover edition of the Polish translation “Niewyczerpany żart” by Jolanta Kozak
Anyways: I will not attempt to tell you what this book is about - there is plenty great reviews and analysis on “BookTube”, like the clip below …
… I shall just say that although IJ is about addiction, abuse, suicide, dysfunctional EVERYTHING (families, governments, institutions of higher learning, pro sports) and despite this subject matter and despite the length of 981 pages + over 300 pages of footnotes it is so so much fun to read and I will guarantee you: once you start, you will NOT want it to end!
And that is why I would like to invite you to our casual hang-out on the SL Book Club archipelago on Wednesday April 10th at 10am to discuss your experience with this book. If you have no experience with it, come and lurk!
While we will have a few folks who started reading, and me (who is NOT an expert albeit as - I mentioned - certainly obsessed/ possibly possessed by “it”), newcomers are very welcome to “the show”, to listen, to ask questions, to dip toes into deep water ….
(wait: WHAT IS WATER?)
David Foster Wallace poured his heart and soul into this work, he did it for ALL OF US HUMANS, every single one, because he cared deeply, and even though he decided to end his own life, he knew that WE can only continue to LIVE if we pay attention to NOT checking our empathy at the door everytime it seems expedient or we are forced to do so by whoever might be running “the show” in that instance …
(why do I put “the show” in quotation marks? Come to “the show” and find out!)
Wallace’s literary work pushes back, gently, but with persistence and nuance, at the notion that we actually could live (meaning)fully - or even just happily- without solitude, without reflection, without engaging with complex and painful thought, without sincerely and deeply caring for others.
The work examines and questions the allure of pursuing a life of constant (self) pleasure, and it questions that “sales pitch” of entertainment (almost as if it were a cogniscient being).
And we have to resist this sales pitch if we want to truly live, and that resisting is hard, and it requires so much more diligence and also kindness, more than we think we currently have available for ourselves and to give to others, but we can succeed if we try, that is what I think Wallace ultimately says in “Infinite Jest” (gosh, resist, that word again, I used it in the previous post …)
For this core message as I interpret it, I thank him.
Thank you David! ❤️
See you WED and if you want to share your experience with the work or have links that relate to “Infinite Jest” please post in commments.
(Below a bookstore display in Tehran, Iran, with the the IJ translation into Farsi, done by Moeen Farrokhi )
See you in-world or somewhere with your nose in a book!
