By Elizabeth Weil
What makes this guy so appealing? Of course the man’s talented. Also smart, insightful, funny, and humane. But when fads flare up, it’s often telling to take a closer look.
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Back in New York, hub of things literary, some of Wallace’s editors–like Gerald Howard, editor of The Broom of the System and Girl With Curious Hair–claim that they maintained a decade-long faith in Wallace’s “absolute genius.” But Michael Pietsch, editor of Infinite Jest and a self-proclaimed “ferocious admirer” of Wallace’s work, says he’s suffered more Wallace-related panic attacks than he would care to admit. After reading an early section of the book, he had “no clue how the characters connected except they were either doing drugs or playing tennis.” When the 1,800-page manuscript came in–which he’d been told was running long–he was shocked to learn “how long long could be.” Even after trimming the beast of 800 pages, Pietsch still harbored “major concerns” as to whether readers would be willing to give Wallace a month, minimum, of book time. “By the end David was addressing his letters to Eyestrain Pietsch,” he says. “It was very lonely and frightening, because everybody’s initial response was always ‘A 1,000-page book–are you kidding?’”
“Infinite Jest was really just supposed to be sad,” he said, pulling on his smoke and holding it in. “I don’t know what it’s like for you and your friends, but I know that most of my friends are real unhappy. We’re all these white, upper-middle-class people with jobs that are just in the upper one-millionth percent in terms of interestingness and income. And we’re all–or most of us at least–in these real weird, addictive, desperate, unhappy relationships with things that are ostensibly pleasurable.”
The Wallace frenzy has a spooky fin de siecle feel. As the Atlantic Monthly’s Sven Birkerts wrote, Infinite Jest “has internalized some of the decentering energies that computer technologies have released into our midst.” But–and this is more ominous–Birkerts isn’t alone in his preapocalyptic, center-cannot-hold sentiments. From a slacker fan in New Orleans (who, not coincidentally, is a big fan of the Unabomber’s manifesto) I heard: “Our generation’s job may be to dismantle things–they will come apart on their own volition, but in discordant ways–and Wallace shows us how to do it with care, scholarliness, and the correct metaphors.” From a Yale grad and urban planner: “Wallace writes and our generation quivers like strings of an ancient lyre. . . . If the empire is falling, he is the kind of writer you want to have around.” And from a New York woman who has such a searing crush on Wallace that she had to leave several of his readings in order to get drunk: “The plot lines don’t come together. Things don’t converge–and when do they, really? It’s sort of high time to admit that things don’t make sense in the end.” Wallace shows us the sad state we’re in; we love him for it. It’s a little twisted, but it’s the stuff of good fiction.
