Green Is Everywhere - Even In Infinite Jest (sort of...)

To try to maintain some semblance of sanity while I'm reading Infinite Jest, I've also been working my way through a non-fiction book called Hot, Flat and Crowded. The book, written by star NY Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman, is basically a 400-page argument for why America needs to go green - and soon. (Hot = global warming; Flat = Internet has led to globalization, leveled playing field; Crowded = population explosion). Friedman argues that America can again take its place at the head of the world table, a status we've lost due to the Iraq war and Bush, if we lead a worldwide green revolution.

I enjoyed the book - mostly because environmental responsibility (in design, construction and facility management) is one of the "beats" I write about fairly frequently for the magazine I work for. Friedman is very good at relating environmental responsibility to practical benefits - he doesn't just argue that green is "the right thing to do." That argument rarely resonates with skeptics. Green IS the right thing to do, but as IBM has figured out and illustrated in its new ad campaign, going green is way beyond a "feel good strategy." Green actually saves money, it doesn't cost. Friedman argues that it's way past time for America to enact carbon emission legislation (Obama campaigned on a cap-and-trade system), better fuel efficiency standards (China's are tougher than ours right now - what a joke!), and more emphasis (including incentives and tax breaks) on renewable energy and alternative energy R&D.

And but so, there is sort of a connection between Friedman and Infinite Jest - I'm 351 pages in, 32.5% of the novel, by the way. In a conversation between main character Hal and his older brother Orin (which takes place in a 20-page footnote [yes. 20...freakin'...pages]), they frequently reference the Great Concavity. In DFW's parallel world where Canada, the US and Mexico have merged into the ONAN (Organization of North American Nations), the Great Concavity is basically an enormous toxic waste dump. It includes the area north of an imaginary line from Buffalo eastward through Massachusetts' norther border and south of Quebec. There are giant catapults in Boston that launch trash into the Great Concavity, and the area includes "kids the size of Volkswagons shlumpfing around with no skulls, green sunsets and indigo rivers, feral-hamster incursions, and lobsters like monsters in old Japanese films."

Now, I don't think DFW was a staunch environmentalist or anything, but because Infinite Jest is, at its core, a parody, you could make the argument that the Great Concavity is a subtle dig at American wastefulness. That if we continue gorging ourselves resource-inefficiently, nothing short of a three-state sized landfill will be able to accommodate all our waste! Don't forget: Reduce, reuse, recycle! ;)

(One last thing: Here is a fantastic bio of DFW from a recent Rolling Stone.)