Will’s Reviews > Infinite Jest > Status Update

be prepared for lots of constructions like “And so but then so yes” (taken from Warwick’s fantastic trashing of the novel). In fact, the third (it’s actually three sentences) sentence of the Fenton section which struck me so much begins, “And so but since”…

The language is rarely beautiful sentence to sentence, and is actually quite ugly most of the time, which is usually enough to make me abandon a novel, but there’s something about it. it does a great job of accruing meaning, as with the words “unclean” and “violated” in the first Don Gately sequence… and sometimes an ugly sentence feels appropriate—it is, after all, quite an ugly world Wallace is writing.

it also has an undeniable rhythm. Even if the sentences are hideous, they pull me forward into the next one wonderfully

there are a few gems tho, like “by the year of what would have been graduation,” which isn’t beautiful, but is masterfully narratively dense

the book is misogynistic: the female characters to this point are a neurotic mother, a series of unnamed sexual conquests, and Mildred Bonk, who doesn’t strike me as anything but a plot device for Bruce Green. I’m excluding Wardine because i have no idea what to say about that section…