Infinite Jest

by David Foster Wallace

My fingers are mated into a mirrored series of what manifests, to me, as the letter X.

I can’t explain why, but this little detail with the shape of the X just fascinates me

62.5% of the room’s faces are directed my way,

What a great detail. He could have just said “five out of the eight” or “5/8ths of the faces in the room,” but he did the math and gave us the figure down to the decimal. Which lets us know that’s exactly how Hal thinks. Who else but DFW would have thought to do that? Especially this early in the novel. We have such little information about this kid, but in one line he gives us so much.

sitting with their elbows on their knees in the defecatory posture of all athletes at rest,

Another great expression. How did he come up with this word “defecatory”? I mean, it’s perfect in its way of conveying both a striking visual image and a deeper subtextual meaning. This is the brilliance of DFW’s writing. He is so exact in his choices, and he has a mastery of the English language that few others can claim.

I think of John N. R. Wayne, who would have won this year’s WhataBurger, standing watch in a mask as Donald Gately and I dig up my father’s head.

Is this a reference to the scene in Hamlet from which this novel takes its title (act 5, scene 1) in which Hamlet takes the skull from the gravedigger and soliloquies: “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest...”?

He sat and thought and waited in an uneven X of light through two different windows.

A second reference to an X pattern, the first back on page 3. I have to assume that DFW is too deliberate it in his word choices for this to be an accident or coincidence.

whose mom’s a continental mover and shaker in the prescriptive-grammar academic world and whose dad’s a towering figure in optical and avant-garde film circles

These topics are similar to some of the essays he used for admission to the University of Arizona, back on page 7. Hardly noteworthy, but mildly interesting.

‘I want to tell you,’ the voice on the phone said. ‘My head is filled with things to say.’

Not sure of the significance of this but these are the opening lyrics from the Beatles song, “I Want To Tell You.” I want to tell you My head is filled with things to say When you're here All those words, they seem to slip away When I get near you, The games begin to drag me down It's all right I'll make you maybe next time around But if I seem to act unkind It's only me, it's not my mind That is confusing things. I want to tell you I feel hung up but I don't know why, I don't mind I could wait forever, I've got time Sometimes I wish I knew you well, Then I could speak my mind and tell you Maybe you'd understand I want to tell you I feel hung up but I don't know why, I don't mind I could wait forever, I've got time, I've got time, I've got time

and but so

I was waiting for this phrase, or more specifically this combination of conjunctions that DFW uses in here frequently. I’ve read enough of Infinite Jest before (including excerpts here and there) to know this was coming. And I really want to know why he does this. There must be a reason. When I read this, I hear a chorus of former English grammar instructors in my head crying foul, and I’d like to reply to them that if David Fucking Foster Wallace Himself can get away with this, then but so surely can I.