Was DFW TOO Smart?

As hard as it is for me, a gigantic fan, to understand, there are as many people who hate DFW's writing as love it. I met one of these people in my recent fiction workshop, and we had a brief argument about DFW's style. She described his writing basically as the meanderings of an egotistical jerk, and she couldn't be persuaded otherwise. I was tempted to throw out something along the lines of "Fine, well then you just stick to your Nicolas Sparks and John Grisham," but held my tongue. :)

At any rate, her opinion is emblematic of the No. 1 knock on DFW - that his writing is complex and blustery, simply for the sake of being complex and blustery, that he's just showing off his extraordinary talent, like an outfielder slowing up to make a diving catch when he could just as easily have made a routine grab. In that same radio interview referenced in the previous post, DFW admitted that over-rendering may have been a valid criticism early in his career, but regarding Infinite Jest, he maintains that every word, every element of style, every character was carefully chosen for a particular reason. That it's not "gratuitiously hard and difficult." That everything means something.

A section I read this week - I'm now 276 pages in, 25.6% of the novel - may be viewed (by DFW haters) as an instance of DFW just showing off. It's almost certainly a section you'd skim if you weren't enjoying the novel as much as I am. The section is a list of "exotic new facts" you'd learn if you were a resident of a substance-recovery program, like Ennet House. While I can't make a convincing argument about how, exactly, this six-page section is critical to the story, I absolutely loved it. Many of the "facts" are downright hysterical. Here's a sampling:

- That females are capable of being just as vulgar about sexual and eliminatory functions as males.
- That no matter how smart you thought you were, you are actually way less smart than that.
- That it is possible to learn valuable things from a stupid person.
- That God - unless you're Charlton Heston, or unhinged, or both - speaks and acts entirely through the vehicle of human beings, if there is a God.
- That God might regard the issue of whether you believe there's a God or not as fairly low on his/her/its list of things s/he/it's interested in re you.
- That pretty much everybody masturbates. Rather a lot, it turns out.
- That trying to dance sober is a whole different kettle of fish.
- That cats will in fact get violent diarrhea if you feed them milk, contrary to the popular image of cats and milk.

A little silly? Perhaps. But also infinitely fun!