Sunday, May 26, 2013

Fatty Information Baked in a Triple Glaze

So, I'm not the first to see some connections between Infinite Jest and the work of Wes Anderson. Putting these two things into one Google search brings up scads of articles about the former being some sort of influence on The Royal Tenenbaums. I don't see the connections ending there, though, all of Wes Anderson's movies share their tone with Infinite Jest.

Both are often packed with information presented so that its shiny with irony in one way or another. Both involve giving a lot of information in a somewhat frantic manner. Both often involve the quirky or misunderstood.

In particular, however, the sections of Infinite Jest that concentrate on extra detail really bring to mind the films of Wes Anderson. The most recent of these, another about Ennet House, and the other rehab and care facilities around it, reads just like a scene from one of his movies. So much information is presented in the chapter - information that you can be sure has no real bearing on the book's plot (which remains unclear) - that it seems simply ridiculous.

It's as if the author himself is hamming up the act of writing a book, while the characters themselves take this tone as the norm and deliver the author's hammy-ness completely deadpan.

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