This long ramble began with my keeping a journal, a component of cognitive behaviour therapy. The journal is:

… a diary of significant events and associated feelings, thoughts and behaviors; questioning and testing cognitions, assumptions, evaluations and beliefs that might be unhelpful and unrealistic; gradually facing activities which may have been avoided; and trying out new ways of behaving and reacting (Wikipedia);

and it morphed into a discourse on my writing style and the different uses of the written language. The format retains a whiff of chronology (the journal origin) and reproduces other’s text (which ranges from first class to much less than) to illustrate my stages in discovering English.

To begin, I dusted off my Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 3^rd ed. (O3), Fowler’s Modern English Usage and Style Manual, brought up the on-line references Thesaurus.com (T.c) and dictionary.com (D.c) and began to tinker with words, phrases, sentences, punctuation, paragraphs, structure, meaning, and does it make sense. The O3 was bought in the 1970s and has been more an icon than a tool. Discovering that it was dated, I bought the two-volume, leather-bound 6^th edition, with CD, (the O6) for $25. The O3 has been regifted. The O6 is superb. It sat on my desk as an ornament for a few weeks as I sampled it’s contents. The CD version is excellent. I can type a word in Word or email of Firefox, copy it, and cross over to the digital edition and there it is, defined. If the spelling is wrong, the ‘Search For’ box is red. Very cool.

Since writing the first draft (June 2010) I haven’t been so gung ho about writing. Gung ho ‘…Extremely enthusiastic and dedicated’, and:

Our Living Language: Most of us are not aware of it today, but the word gung ho has been in English only since 1942 and is one of the many words that entered the language as a result of World War II. It comes from Mandarin Chinese gōnghé,  “to work together,” which was used as a motto by the Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society. Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson (1896-1947) borrowed the motto as a moniker for meetings in which problems were discussed and worked out; the motto caught on among his Marines (the famous “Carlson’s Raiders”), who began calling themselves the “Gung Ho Battalion.” From there eager individuals began to be referred to as gung ho. Other words and expressions that entered English during World War II include flak, gizmo, task force, black market, and hit the sack.(D.c)

I am using it incorrectly but I like the ‘eager individuals’ meaning. Poking about in the dictionaries somehow led me to David Foster Wallace, Democracy, English and the Wars over Usage (in Harpers – search Google). A self-proclaimed SNOOT who knows what ‘dysphemism means and doesn’t mind letting you know it, … the substitution of a harsh, disparaging, or unpleasant expression for a more neutral one. His essay is a review of Bryan Garner’s, A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, Oxford, 2009, which I now have.

Wallace initially bowled me over and his writing influenced me to try his conversational style; the unfolding of thought processes, translated into prose and re-read as a reflective process. This afternoon’s reading was Shipping Out: On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise (from Harpers); excellent flow, word-smithing and entertaining. Then the disturbing Consider the lobster that he wrote for Gourmet (still on their web archive). The tawdry, touristy Maine Lobster Festival was his platform to write on animal cruelty; people boiling lobsters alive and other animal horrors. With a growing appetite for more Wallace, I recalled an audio review of Infinite Jest on slate.com. But before going back to this some background on reviews.

Reviews

One of the pleasures of the Saturday papers has been the reviews of books, films, art, plays, dance and music. I enjoyed reading the critiques but lately, and I’m not sure if it’s me or changing review styles, I now skim. I noticed this first with Nicholas Rothwell’s writing on indigenous art in The Australian. I can’t detect his thesis within the convoluted sentences and paragraphs. Over the past decade I built some knowledge of indigenous art; the different styles by region and its history, and remain keen for more information. Alas, it is never forthcoming from Rothwell. I then found this obfuscation in other print reviewers. Introductory paragraphs tend to dwell on the genre, the oeuvre or whatever category they have put this subject into. Or the reviewer showcases their extended experience and knowledge.

A definition:

A book review (or book report) is a form of literary criticism in which a book is analyzed based on content, style, and merit. It is often carried out in periodicals … or online. Its length may vary from a single paragraph to a substantial essay. Such a review often contains evaluations of the book on the basis of personal taste. Reviewers, in literary periodicals, often use the occasion of a book review for a display of learning or to promulgate their own ideas on the topic of a fiction or non-fiction work. At the other end of the spectrum, some book reviews resemble simple plot summaries.Book reviews require special skills and oblige the reviewer with precise responsibilities. The professional reviewer does not just have to read and summarize the text, but to realize concealed, implied meanings. Skilled book reviewers’ explanations make the reader feel confident in their perception of the book or change it entirely. The reviewer must also state the main points of the reviewed book. While some aspects are less meaningful, others have to be marked out as prerogative issues. The task is even more complicated as the writer could unintentionally imply the idea the reviewer of the book can notice. Then, the book reviewer has to decide upon the validity of the author’s arguments and evidence. The reviewer has to be the judge and say “did the writer persuade the audience, or were his/her evidences not sufficient and weak.” The reviewer here makes a judgment on the adequacy of the book topic to the content. (Wikipedia)

From this I made a list of what to look for in a review (actually of a book to be reviewed but I’m testing it out on reviews first):

1. Content, style, and merit – subjects or topics; reference to form; worth.
2. Summarize the text – the thesis.
3. Realize concealed, implied meanings – not sure what this is.
4. State the main points.
5. Make a judgment on the adequacy of the book topic to the content – theme of a discourse; subjects or topics.
6. Not relevant – my addition.

 

Then I listened to the Slate.com audio review of Infinite Jest, made notes and categorized these according to my list. The reviewers were Troy Patterson (book critic for NPR, TV critic at Slate.com and the film critic at Spin), Katie Roiphe (New York Times – writes widely), and James Surowiecki (staff writer at The New Yorker). Their comments are listed here sequentially (as I listened).

Comment

Plot summary – addiction. Hard to get a handle on the plot. Intersections not explicit. No resolution. Not a traditional novel.

Sets out to create intricate plots. No attempt to resolve

His intelligence as a philosopher exceeds his intelligence as a writer. Wallace enjoys giving the reader a hard time. Hard to read but still compelled to read on.

Central fact is that the book is a mess. What is it that saves it? Stubborn and possibly intentionally irritating refusal of different narrative lines to converge into confluentialism.

Compulsive-obsessive

Gimmicks, showiness then amazing, riveting passages

Characters cartoonish

Lots of things about windows; defenestration, someone is frozen to a window

Overwritten set pieces. Doesn’t justify the work he puts me through.

Wallace’s depression – overwhelmingly sad. In danger of Sylvia Plath phenomenon. Suicide eclipsing his work.

He was already a saint before the matyrology began.

Artistic purity. Wallace’s non-fiction will live forever.

Men write like this because they can’t build a bookcase – literary machismo

Screw you; I’m going to make it hard to read.

Book changed my life for a week after reading it – deep analysis.

Lots of passages of hyperrealism – can’t figure out what he is trying to do.

Long sections with nothing to do with the major characters.

The number of people who are grotesque.

What do you have at the end of the book? Fragmented narrative that doesn’t add up. After getting through 1,000 pages I feel cheated.

Maybe not a novel; a new type of prose.

Walk out thinking differently; don’t want to underestimate the contribution

Can be read in chunks. A+ for effort (for writing or reading it?)

What of other reviews? I’ve learned to trust the ‘one-star’ comments on Amazon.com; there are 53 of these representing 24 per cent of all reviews. Here’s a sample.

Alas, Poor Reader, April 23, 2000 By benshlomo “benshlomo” (Los Angeles, CA USA)

Look, I enjoy experimental fiction. When authors trust their readers enough to challenge them, I cheer. I do not, however, enjoy books that break promises, and like it or not that’s exactly what Infinite Jest does.

Unlike other unconventional novels, such as the works of the oft-mentioned Thomas Pynchon, this one seems to prefer nasty tricks to genuine communication – it implies it’s going to tell a complete if complicated story and doesn’t deliver. That’s the sort of thing well-educated showoffs do. It’s one thing to subvert expectations, quite another to waste someone’s time. Infinite Jest is nothing more than a shaggy-dog story.

All literary parlor tricks, no heart, March 23, 1999 By A Customer

 (I don’t know if I can say it better than the very brief “tyranny of the English department” review below, but after choking down 1000+ pages I feel entitled to my two bits, dammit.)

I bought this book when it first came out and just now got around to reading it. Well, I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. After just three years it seems pretty dated with all the self-referential hijinks and loving/sarcastic pop culture references and all. It’s not that the book was too tough. I have no problem with nonlinearity or meta-meta-meta-metaphysics, and the footnotes annoyed me but I was willing to give them a chance. And I like heavy-handed social commentary in sci-fi form as much as the next gal. Yes and but then a lot of sentences begin with two or three conjunctions. Nice, very nice. If you like these things, you will like Infinite Jest.

If, on the other hand, you care about characters or beauty or any of those stupid corny things, you should stay away from this book. The postindustrial, posturban landscape is SO bleak. And the characters, especially the Incandenza family – I mean, Harold Incandenza and his mom Avril?! Please! – and the rest of the gang at the tennis academy were so howlingly vacant, I wasn’t sure I could stand to finish reading about them without breaking into demented, nostril-flaring hysterical giggles and ending up in a padded cell. I looked forward to the junkies-in-and-out-of-rehab bits for desperately needed warm fuzzies. And for what it’s worth, if this book is any indication Mr. Wallace doesn’t know jack about women, or like them much. No amount of po-mo cleverness can make up for pain like this.

Maybe it’s art, maybe it’s a big hoax. I don’t care — I just want to put it behind me. Let’s call it A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.

If only he’d written the last 100 pages, February 2, 1999 By Stephen F. Roth

Reading this novel, I constantly felt I was engaging a powerful, phenomenally imaginative mind. This guy has like 300 footnotes. The footnotes have footnotes. One footnote to a footnote consists of a 17-page small-print filmography of a (deceased) character. Phew.

About 200 pages in, the disparate themes and plot threads started to coalesce, and around page 800 I could feel that it would come to a remarkable, cohesive conclusion around page 1100. Unfortunately, the book is only 1000 pages long. It just plain STOPS. All the main characters are on the brink of major resolutions; all are coming together for the final conflagration (or whatever). And it literally stops, seemingly at a completely random point.

Now maybe this is an infinite jest, dragging you through 1000 difficult pages then dropping you, but I didn’t get it. I just felt like the author got tired and quit, or the editor said, “it’s time to print this baby,” or the printer forgot to print the last 100 pages.

 I Quit, April 24, 2009 By Apollo Creed “AC” (MO)

It always stings just a little more than usual when I hate a book I want to like. Nobody wants to dislike Infinite Jest (or to admit it, anyway, for fear of seeming too dumb to follow brilliant writing). So I guess I’m too dumb for Infinite Jest. Now my confession: I only read about four percent of the book. I took my time, tried to process each word, sentence, and essay-long paragraph, but in the end none of it said anything to me. When the author dumbed down his vocabulary (a happening seemingly exclusive to similes and metaphors), it was, in fact, brilliant. Too bad he used the other 99.5 percent of what I read to show off his amazing vocabulary and his equally stunning ignorance of communication skills. It was like he looked in a thesaurus for the most unusual and least-known words he could find and flooded his story with them. And if you could get past that, the content itself was boring.

Overhyped logorrhea, August 12, 2004 By Bill Leubrie “CapHill” (Seattle)

Infinite Jest? Interminable Jest, more like. This annoying novel is grossly overwritten, 1079 pages of 8-point type, plus 98 pages of footnotes in 6-point type. Large sections of it are superfluous logorrhea and should have been cut; the thing reads like the world’s most awesome speed rant, though this may be deliberate. The plot is rudimentary, all telegraphed in advance, and moves at a glacial pace. When I finally finished the thing, I wanted my time back.

I sampled the ‘five star’ reviews but they were unimpressive. Not a thorough analysis; I should read Infinite Jest and attempt a review but am put-off. The ‘one stars’ and the slate.com podcast wrap-up the decision for me; I’ll read it if I find abandoned in a bus or train. This outcome leaves me wondering if I have over-loved his non-fiction; a casualty of a new style perhaps.

This discovery led me to thinking that on re-reading some books, I wonder why I was impressed at the first reading. Bruce Chatwin’s Songlines is one; read early in it’s life cycle, I recently listened to him reading from his work (posthumously) and plucked it out briefly before re-shelving it, disappointed. I have experience with our indigenous culture and could not relate to the eulogized magic he wrote of, or the crude dialogue; Australians only speak like that on Kath and Kim (I had the shock of seeing one of their trailers when I once watched TV). This reassessment is not isolated. Listening to a Slate.com review of Don DeLillo’s White Noise, I heard one reviewer puzzle over why he had loved it when first published; his current opinion, “flagrantly bad”. I liked Underworld but it as it has disappeared and the other DeLillo we have is unreadable – flagrantly meaningless.

The next section moves from the review and the ostentatious display of English, to another style, Boaglish, the patois of the Bogan.