Thoughts on “Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace – Part 3

One of the signs of a great writer is the ability to use multiple voices and to make them sound fluid and natural. Wallace certainly accomplishes this. So far, I’ve been very impressed with his ability to shift voices and styles. One great example of this is when a junkie is describing his friend dying from shooting heroin that was laced with Drano. The language is real, and the scene is viscerally gut-wrenching. When I finished reading it, my heart was racing. I had to stop reading for a little while to process it. As I was reflecting on what I read, I could not help but wonder whether Wallace had witnessed something like this. Is it possible for a writer to describe something so vividly and realistically without first-hand knowledge? I don’t have the answer to that.

Anyway, the passage had such an impact on me that I figured I would include it in the post. Let me know if you find the writing as powerful and intense as I did. Be warned; some might find this disturbing.

Laced. It started the instantly C undid the belt and booted up we knew allready, yrstrulyI and PT thearized it was Drano with the blue like glittershit and everything like that taken out by subservant slopes it had that Drano like effect on C and everything like that it was laced what ever it was C started with the screaming in a loud hipitch fashion instantly after he unties and boots and downhegoesflopping with his heels pouning on the metal of the blowergrate and hes’ at his throat with his hands tearing at him self in the most fucked up fashions and Poor Tony is hiheeling rickytick over over C zipping up saying he screams sweety C but and stuffing the feather snake from his necks’ head in Cs’ mouth to shut him up from hipitch screaming in case Bostons’ Finest can hear involvment and blood and bloody materil is coming out Cs’ mouth and Cs’ nose and its’ allover the feathers its’ a sure sign of Drano, blood is and Cs’ eyes get beesly and bulge and hes’ crying blood into the feathers in his mouth and trying to hold onto my glove but Cs’ arms are going allover and one eye it like allofa sudden pops outof his map, like with a Pop you make with fingers in your mouth and all this blood and materil and a blue string at the back of the eye and the eye falls over the side of Cs’ map and hangs there looking at the fag Poor Tony. And C turned lightblue and bit through the snakes’ head and died for keeps and shit his pants instanly with shit so bad the hot air blowergrate is blowing small bits of fart and blood and missty shit up into our maps and Poor Tony backs offof over C and puts his hands over his madeup and looks at C thru his fingers.

(p. 134)