Kitty Corner: I’m possessed with a zest for Infinite Jest

If you were gunning for Kitty Corner Season 2, rife with more juicy sob stories about my attempts to contend with my identity, my ambivalence toward actualization and my wildly spiraling emotional instability, well then, I’m sorry to disappoint.

Last semester, I noticed a woeful lack of literary content within the Daily Trojan Lifestyle section. The last book review we published was in our summer orientation issue, and it was Indian Ink, a recommendation from USC President C. L. Max Nikias’ suggested summer reading list. On the flip side, just to give you a basis for comparison, we publish at least one album review each week, often more.

Yes, I get it, no college student has the time or inclination to read but everyone listens to music. But the intensity of devotion that other people have toward their favorite songs and artists, the passion with which they defend their predilections, how central music is to their individuality and sense of self — it’s analogous to how I feel about literature. The way people judge others for their music taste, I judge people based on their favorite books. And if you don’t have a favorite book because you haven’t picked one up since The Giver in sixth grade? Well, we probably don’t have a ton in common.

So instead, this semester, I’m making a conscious effort to fill a perceived void. According to several trustworthy sources, book recommendations are “boring” and “too safe,” but cut me some slack; there are only so many angsty topics I can draw from that are meaningful to me. Plus, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to show off my impeccable taste in literature, if I do say so myself.

So what’s the critical inaugural novel? What book is so important to me, so influential on my penchants and proclivities, that it’s the first title that jumps to mind?

Since this column will, sooner or later, expose me as the pretentious piece of shit that I am, I figure I may as well come out swinging and recommend Infinite Jest for my first piece. Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and confirm everyone’s suspicions that I am, in fact, That Asshole.

Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, is a behemoth of a book that defies explanation. It’s widely considered to be a Great American Novel, joining the ranks of Moby Dick, Lolita and To Kill a Mockingbird, and was a massive commercial and critical success when it first came out in 1996.

The book weaves several storylines together, but most of the action revolves around a cartridge called Infinite Jest, which contains a film so mesmerizing that anyone unlucky (or perhaps lucky) enough to catch a glimpse of it instantly elects to spend the rest of their days in a euphoric stupor, at the expense of their biological obligations, until expiration follows not long after. So yeah, you can see how this premise might beget some provocative material.

Infinite Jest is not my favorite novel, not by a long shot. It’s a little too maximalist, a little too stuffed with flourishes and fanfare, for my more pared-down palate. Plus, the sheer act of reading it is a goddamn headache, since half the book is just an extensive footnotes section for the other half. Exasperated readers have resorted to ripping the book apart to expedite the process of flipping back and forth between pages.

But when I first read the novel in December of my high school junior year, it triggered a paradigm shift in how I thought about words, writing and narratives. I realized how fun it can be to play with language, stringing together sentences and magically conveying complex concepts with some squiggly lines. When I finished the book and and commenced staring at the ceiling for an hour, I could feel my mind churning, could hear my heartbeat pulsing in my ears. I felt as if I had been turned inside out and all the raw blood and flesh and sinews were now exposed to the chilled winter air — a singular sensation that I have yet to experience with any other book.

Kitty Guo is a sophomore majoring in journalism and computational linguistics.  She is also the lifestyle editor of the Daily Trojan. Her column, “Kitty Corner,” runs every other Wednesday.