For several years now I have been saying I am due for a reread of Infinite Jest. It is true that I love IJ with everything I am, and it is equally true that the idea of rereading it is daunting. Most everyone with any interest in books knows it is long (over 1000 pages) but more importantly, it is a hard book to read. You need to be thinking at all times when reading it. It is relentless. Relentless in a good way, but relentless nonetheless. It is a superior opponent when it is up against my middlebrow sensibility and functional though not particularly notable intellect. About six months ago I came across this collection while browsing Hoopla and thought a few essays from DFW might prime the Infinite Jest pump, and so they did.

I have dipped in and out of this collection for months and just finished today. Some essays are better than others (the last essay on Federer and the essays on Michael Joyce and Tracy Austin are the best of the lot) but they are all insightful. fun and fascinating. Enjoyment of these articles does not in any way require a love of tennis. I am a very casual tennis fan. I generally watch a handful of matches a year and every piece worked for me. This is all about tennis, but also about many other things. DFW touches on divinity, the beauty of things that can not be algorithmically duplicated or explained, being an awkward teen desperate to find ways to define oneself, and about functioning in the world and observing it without feeling like one is meaningfully a part of it. You are likely to come away from this more interested in professional tennis than you were going in, but also thinking about God, focus, what comes after perfection, and about the tension between commerce and art. Just beautiful. He was the Federer of prose. ( )

For tennis players or fans, lots to chew on. For DFW fans, poignant, naturally. For most readers, meh. ( )

Primer libro que leo de Foster Wallace, un autor del que siempre he oído hablar bien. Me he quedado fascinado. Qué manera de contar las cosas. Qué manera de escribir. Qué potencia. Esto exige buscar inmediatamente otro libro del mismo autor y darle un repaso, por si acaso el primero que cogimos fue su única obra maestra. Se va a cumplir la profecía de nuestro amigo Mario:

Un minuto de silencio por ese libro ilusionado que era el siguiente en la pila y que se ve reemplazado por uno recién comprado. Otra vez.— Mario (@mario_jsg) 6 de noviembre de 2017

El libro es una unión de cinco ensayos con el tenis como tema común. Desde la infancia/adolescencia del autor como cuasicampeón regional en el medio oeste hasta sus visitas al Open de Canadá y el US Open como periodista acreditado, pasando por la crítica literaria de las memorias deportivas de una campeona de tenis, el autor habla y habla y habla de tenis (y de muchas otras cosas) sin que nunca nos cansemos de escucharle. Es fantástico. Tiene además tanto que decir que es frecuente que meta cincuenta notas al pie por ensayo, en las que hace graciosísimas acotaciones que por algún motivo no considera dignas del texto principal.
Me ha parecido un libro de altísimo nivel que se leía con la misma fruición que una novelita del oeste. Lo mejor de ambos mundos.

Algunas de sus mejores frases son hiperboles humorísticas:

Now a huge roar that makes the whole Stadium’s superstructure wobble signifies that the forces of democracy and human freedom have won the third set.

Otras son frases dichas al comienzo de un ensayo que te hacen saber que el ensayo va a ser bueno:

There are three kinds of valid explanation for Federer’s ascendancy. One kind involves mystery and metaphysics and is, I think, closest to the real truth. The others are more technical and make for better journalism.

Otras frases, soltadas al desgaire, revelan una profunda vida interior:

It’s about 1900h., that time when the sun hasn’t gone down yet but everything seems to be in something else’s shadow.

Sampras, who is not exactly a moonballer, seems almost frail, cerebral, a poet, both wise and sad, tired the way only democracies get tired [...]

Eso y sus descripciones en plan bombardeo de saturación han hecho que caiga rendido ante él. Tengo un nuevo héroe.

The sharply precise divisions and boundaries, together with the fact that—wind and your more exotic-type spins aside—balls can be made to travel in straight lines only, make textbook tennis plane geometry. It is billiards with balls that won’t hold still. It is chess on the run. It is to artillery and airstrikes what football is to infantry and attrition.

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The collected writings of David Foster Wallace on tennis, a game he was passionately interested in and had played competitively as a teenager. Many transcendent moments. Highly recommended. ( )

String Theory is a beautiful little hardcover book of five stunning essays on tennis by David Foster Wallace. He was a novelist, short story writer, and essayist, as well as a professor of English and creative writing. His life was a roller coaster of drug and alcohol addiction, depression, suicide attempts, and institutionalization. He died young, at the age of 46, by his own hand, in 2008. I have very rarely read such an intelligent and dynamic writer.

Reading this book was demanding. You cannot read DFW without paying strict attention, because each essay is compact, verbose, stunningly intellectual, and just plain fun all at the same time. Beware the long footnotes, but please read them. They do break up the flow of the essays somewhat but add so much.

The Introduction by John Jeremiah Sullivan is informative about tennis itself and about DFW’s participation in high school tennis and love of the sport. He is a writer in his own right, and I think I need to start reading some of his writings too.

The first essay is “Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley” about DFW’s personal experience of playing high school tennis. The second is “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart”, his review of her memoir Beyond Center Court: My Story. The third is one originally called “The String Theory” in Esquire Magazine but is here titled “Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Limitation, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness”. The fourth is “Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open”, and the last also has two titles: “Federer both Flesh and Not” and “Federer as Religious Experience”. All are excellent, challenging, bitchy, and fun. I read the last one in the New York Times when it came out in 2006, my first exposure to DFW.

If you’re a tennis fan, I strongly recommend this book. If you don’t particularly care for tennis but love beautiful and articulate writing, I strongly recommend this book. If you can’t stand the idea of reading beautiful writing about sports at all, please find any of David Foster Wallace’s other essays and enjoy the feast. ( )