David Foster Wallace’s modern classic Infinite Jest comes in at around 1,100 pages and weighs two-and-a-half pounds (according to Amazon). The behemoth book about tennis, filmmaking, drug addiction, and an army of wheelchair-bound Quebecois separatists has inspired legions of obsessive fans, so it’s somehow not a surprise that someone has gone and made a Lego retelling of it.
That someone is actually two people: Kevin Griffith, a professor of English at Ohio’s Capital University, and Sebastian, his 11-year-old son. Inspired by the Brick Bible, a retelling of Bible stories using Legos, Kevin explained the scenes to Sebastian, who then recreated them with Legos. The full project is at BrickJest.com, where you can see all of the scenes the duo recreated.
The endeavor succeeds not only because of its attention to detail but because of the inherent comedy of putting beloved childhood toys into decidedly dark situations. Take, for example, Hal Incandenza, a teenage tennis phenom, smoking a joint after tennis practice:
(Source, this and all subsequent photos: BrickJest)
A crazed teenage tennis player who plays every match with a gun pointed at his head:
Not to mention Narcotics Anonymous meetings.
Of course, not everything is fully constructed from Legos. Griffith and his son went for wood to depict one of the giant catapults that sling garbage into Canada.
It’s not exactly the Cliff’s Notes version; it’s more of a companion illustration than a comprehensive explanation of all of Infinite Jest’s plot points. If anything, it might inspire you to read the book, rather than catch you up on what you’ve been missing. And really, what about a plot that involves drug-addled teenage athletes and garbage-slinging catapults doesn’t sound worth reading?
(h/t The Awl)
