Activity

But maybe I wasn’t exactly the ideal reader for Infinite Jest then. Maybe I never was. I became peculiarly fixated on my loathing for the loathsome character Orin Incandenza, the anti–Sydney Carton and a serial seducer of young mothers whom I wanted to drag out onto the balustrade and slap across t…

“Look at me,” the ghastly maître d’, who was not a native English speaker, said, sitting back again. He made a sweeping gesture there in the back seat of the taxi, taking in his kingdom whole. “I have a nice lunch, and I kiss two very pretty girls.”

Whitney and I hadn’t perceived an id so unchec…

But there was also something mephitic about the thing.

Being a reviewer (Gore Vidal enjoyed reminding everyone of the distinction between a reviewer and a critic) is easy work, especially for a young person—you are always standing safely at a remove; nothing is risked, nothing is bloodied. Writing reviews can become your first little frisson of power, …

My only important relationship in those years was with a much older married man. As a result of this situation, I learned that each unreal relationship is its own Prospero’s island and that dreaming and unreality keep you on your island. I learned, too, that the false dream is better enacted than a…