In an otherwise unremarkable review of three mysteries, Ron Rosenbaum notes that, while he loved David Foster Wallace's "cruise ship tour de force," [sic, I note, self-righteously] he was "infinitely" dissappointed in Infinite Jest.
We share in common a great love of Wallace's nonfiction. Everything and More was an excellent book, marrying great literature, math, and history into a unique work. I read it on a foggy weekend-away vacation while the inlaws watched the kids and my wife and I hung out in a hotel in Half Moon Bay, and I remember both the vacation and book as being extremely pleasant.
Infinite Jest was the first item of his I read, and it was a great joy to me to go back and read his nonfiction, after, and see him develop his voice. Perhaps, also, I have a personal connection with the novel - my late step brother was a near-tennis pro who got so involved in drugs and alcohol that they ended his life. It was hard not to see family and friends (and myself) in many of the characters, and the unfolding of the story was masterful. Wallace had as throw-away side plots devices that most authors would base a whole novel on, and Infinite Jest has to rank for me as one of the most satisfying, frustrating, funniest and unpredictable books I've ever read.
His essays, in general, I found to be slightly less than his final (I presume) novel. While they were enjoyable, I think they had a certain easy elitism to them. "Ticket to the Fair," in which he attends the Illinois State Fair, is funny, but has many cheap laughs at the expense of uncultured flyover-state denizens.
Far and away the worst example of these, though, is "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," the aforementioned tour de force about taking a cruise. In this, a boorish Wallace takes a cruise on the Zenith. He decides beforehand to take no companions, eschews shore leave, and packs a tuxedo t-shirt for formal night. Surprisingly, he finds cruises to boring.
I am of course, obligated to note that I'm not much for cruises themselves, either. My wife and I took one to Alaska some years ago, and we had a lot of fun - but mostly by avoiding the cruise ship itself as much as possible, and spending the time we were aboard reading and watching Alaskan scenery pass by our cabin's balcony. Making fun of cruise ships as being uncultured is like...well, making fun of state fairs. Anyone can do it. I suppose I can understand complaining that Infinite Jest is full of "derivative, post-Pynchon, oh-so-tiring tricks." I just can't understand the same pen celebrating an essay that rechristens the Zenith the sophomorically obvious Nadir.