Sven Birkets review in The Atlantic Monthly entitled, The Alchemist’s Retort: Multi-layered Postmodern Sag of Damnation and Salvation was written in 1996 and relevant for that exact reason. With time classics tend to be overly examined, and I appreciate Sven’s fresh take on Infinite Jest even though it was written over ten years ago. Birkets questions many things in his essay, attempts to illuminate parts of the book, and raises a few questions about society itself. Which, I believe, was one of DFW’s accomplishments in IJ.
Birkets turns to an earlier essay by Wallace for insight into IJ. Tennis, Trigonometry, Tornadoes: A Midwestern Boyhood was written in 1991 and does offer some answers. First, the essay examines Wallace’s own obsession with tennis “…and also conjured an intriguing metaphysics, bringing together the grid of the court, the larger grid of the Illinois farm country where Wallace grew up, and the vagaries of the mighty weather systems that move like free will through those precincts of determinism” (Birkets 106). This essay might give us some insight into Eschaton and E.T.A. Also, Wallace makes reference to a friend/rival in the essay, Gil Antitoi. Birkets points out the connection here between his friend and the brothers Antitio in IJ. Both hold Quebecois history. Good writers tend to cherry pick from their own lives the stories that resonate the most, and it’s no different with Wallace.
Birkets also believes Wallace is commenting on the bigger picture. He believes Wallace is following in the footsteps of such writers as Pynchon and Gaddis. Birkets states, “ You see, in this young writer’s vision the big picture, if we can speak of such a thing, does not have a ‘clear’ to come to: that is part of what the whole, the sum of the parts, is saying about the world, about reality” (Birkets 107). He argues, like Pynchon’s writing, there is a basic plot, but underneath there is a whole, “thematic second tier” (Birkets 107). Hal, Gatley and the two Quebecois-separatists operate on the fist tier, while the game as a metaphor for life, “cultural sensibility”, and human complexities operate on the second tier. Birkets has this to say about E.T.A. “This is a game world, a closed system, but the idea of play has been pumped out of it, and the remaining husk is but a slight barrier against the maniacal forces at large in the world” (Birkets 108). The unraveling of these characters and their relationship to the world operates on both tiers.
Finally, Birkets believes Pynchon and the like paved the way for Wallace to take fiction to the next level. He argues, “…we are all closet traditionalists in our expectations—and these must be shelved. Wallace rebuts the prime-time formula. Think Beckett, think Pynchon, think Gaddis. Think” (Birkets 107). He continues to examine Hal and Gately as opposing figures in IJ. He believes both characters demise and emergence allow IJ “to work as a postmodern saga of damnation and salvation” (Birkets 108). Through both of these lenses we can begin to get a sense of the world and ourselves.