​‘Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary, 
How does your garden grow? 
With silver bells and cockle shells, 
And marigolds all in a row.’

— Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, 1744

Francis Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden (1911) is the greatest children's story I have ever read. 

In a bleak midwinter in Yorkshire, cousins Mary Lennox and Colin Craven along with their friend Dickon uncover a neglected garden on the grounds of Misselthwaite Manor.

Mary, 'quite contrary,' has just arrived from India after losing her parents in a terrible fire. She laments her fate, missing the warm weather and the company of her Ayah, her nursemaid. 

Mary's cousin, Colin, is a frail, bed-bound boy and has spent most of his life confined in his bedroom.  Although spoiled daily with attention from the house staff, he is as much a victim of his weak back as he is of his widowed and absent father. All the while Misselthwaite's head housekeeper Mrs. Medlock's enables his sour tantrums. 

Dickon is a handsome farm boy who lives on the moors. Hardworking and honest, he has an almost magical ability to connect with plants and animals. He helps both Mary and Colin to reconnect with the earth and themselves. 
​

For all the protagonists' weeding, planting, nurturing, and playing in their secret garden, the greatest growth shown throughout the novel is within the children's souls—and later the adults'. 

​Mary comes to England like a seed buried in frost, unable to plant herself in happiness. She is starving for both physical and emotional sustenance, and had been before her parents' tragic death. Only when she finally goes out onto the moors does her healing begin: "...the big breaths of rough fresh air blown over the heather filled her lungs with something which was good for her whole thin body and whipped some red color into her cheeks and brightened her dull eyes when she did not know anything about it.” Contrasted so beautifully is the constrictive and almost gothic energy of Misselthwaite Manor, which, indeed still houses a tragic past: Colin Craven. 

Colin, Master Craven's only son, is languishing, physically and emotionally. But his first conversation with Mary reveals his unspoiled curiosity for life: “‘Is the spring coming?’ he said. ‘What is it like? You don’t see it in rooms if you are ill.’” Mary then paints him a picture of the world he has been denied: “‘It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the earth.’” To which Colin “...had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like stars…” And when Colin falls back on dark thoughts, Mary refuses to let him spiral: “‘Don’t let us talk about dying; I don’t like it. Let us talk about living.’” 

The protagonists' healing explodes after the discovery of a brass key that fits the locked gate of a long-ago neglected garden waiting to be tended: “[Mary] unchained and unbolted and unlocked… she sprang across the step… the sun pouring down on her… warm, sweet wafts… and the fluting and twittering and singing coming from every bush and tree.”
​

Meanwhile, Master Archibald Craven has been traveling abroad, grieving for his dead wife, Colin's mother. Dark thoughts have consumed him, and he's let them grow and stay there. Burnett describes him as "courageous" as he "refused obstinately to allow any rift of light to pierce through [his soul]." And yet, ever so slowly, across Norway's fjords, and then more actively in the Swiss Alps by a stream, Craven's "mind and body grew quiet." He savors the change. “He was actually thinking tenderly how lovely it was and what wonders of blue its hundreds of little blossoms were. He did not know that just that simple thought was slowly filling his mind—filling and filling it until other things were softly pushed aside. It was as if a sweet clear spring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had risen and risen until at last it swept the dark water away.”

And the feeling remains: “The singular calmness remained with him the rest of the evening, and he slept a new, reposeful sleep; but it was not with him very long. He did not know that it could be kept. By the next night he had opened the doors wide to his dark thoughts, and they had come trooping and rushing back. He left the valley and went on his wandering way again. But, strange as it seemed to hum, there were minutes sometimes half-hours—when, without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to lift itself again and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one.” 

Now newly restored, Master Craven sets off for home. 
​

Director Agnieszka Holland's 1993 adaptation is a treasure. I think it deepens the internal conflicts of Mary Lennox more than the novel, especially in the film's climax. Holland also expands on the conflict between the children and the adults (Mrs. Medlock and some of the older servants). Lastly, I think the film turns up the volume of the gothic tone in Misselthwaite, with cold stone interiors, secret passages, scary hunting dogs, ghostly sounds, and haunted objects of Mrs. Craven. 

The acting is fantastic, especially from the three children: Kate Maberly plays Mary Lennox, Heydon Prowse plays Colin Craven, Andrew Knott plays Dickon, John Lynch plays Lord Archibald Craven, and the late, great Maggie Smith plays Mrs. Medlock. 

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment didn't speak to me in high school. I think it was partly because of the rather terse, stiff translation that I had initially picked up. However, I am so glad that I finally gave the Russian classic another try (nearly twenty years later)! Reading the David McDuff translation made Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikoff's dark journey through mid-19th century St. Petersburg and into the depths of his own soul a truly unforgettable experience. 

Our disaffected Russian student's sweating, trembling, hallucinatory state before and after his horrible crime is some of the greatest characterization and psychological writing that I have ever encountered in literature: the endless pacing in his claustrophobic, attic room as he broods and argues with himself, his elitist taunting of the police officers and wealthy patrons of the Crystal Palace, his confession to Sonya of his disgust for conventional 'louse' morality and his proto-Nietzschean views that the few extraordinary men stand above the louses' superstitious morality—all this is masterfully painted.

​As is Dostoyevsky's portrait of St. Petersburg: the city's central sewer-like canal which witnesses murder, prostitution, and corruption; the labyrinth of backstreets that trap the crowds like a pressure chamber of heat and noise and distrust; coffin-like apartments with walls too thin to keep secrets; the rich and detached Crystal Palace with its glassy, vaulted veneers high class; the spiritual decay creeping over a modernizing and increasingly envious society.

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
​

— Porfiry to Raskolnikoff, Crime and Punishment
​

And then, most importantly, there is Sonya. She is the eldest daughter of the drunken civil servant Marmeladov, whom Raskolnikoff meets and assists early on in the novel. Sonya and her family are perpetually poor, due to the father's alcoholism. Dostoyevsky paints her circumstances as utterly bleak, and yet her soul shines on brighter and further than anyone. 

In order to feed her starving siblings and stepmother, Sonya ultimately “takes the yellow ticket,” (i.e., becomes registered as a prostitute), thus sacrificing herself totally. Amidst societal scorn and even a  blackmail attempt, she holds steadfast to her family's security. Moreover, she shows true compassion for Raskolnikoff more than any other character—even after his dark confession. Sonya embodies the Christian counterpoint to Raskolnikoff’s and Svidgailov's nihilistic theory. She is the only hope of redemption for both characters. 
​​

Despite its 19th-century setting, the book wrestles with ideas that are everywhere and in every generation, namely two: the temptation to justify violence with high-minded ideology and how to achieve not just legal, but moral redemption for one's evil actions. 

The energy of the story is more about the fallout after the murder(s) than the murder(s) themselves. The psychological corruption and philosophical justifications leading up to the heinous deed, the self-deception involved in those justifications, the impact of the deed on society at large, and the potential redemption of the criminal both communally and individually. 

Apparently, many readers and critics of the time took Dostoyevsky's novel to be an attack on Russia's young generation. But famously, Dostoyevsky wrote to the literary critic Strakev that, “You alone have understood me,” when Strakev claimed that Crime and Punishment is “not a mockery of the younger generation, neither a reproach nor an accusation—it is a lament over it.” Dostoyevsky feared the rising trends of what he saw as a kind of nihilistic materialism in young people, yes, but also the culture at large. No doubt, the older pawnbroker and landlords of this novel are not exactly heroic or even good characters. Dostoyevsky's antidote, at least in part, seems to be the human will—to hold fast to the Christian faith and values that give life meaning. One of the greatest values is sympathy and even love for others. 

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment, Epilogue, Chapter 1
​

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment, Epilogue, Chapter 2
​

While in Siberian exile, Dostoyevsky was deeply affected by Victor Hugo's romantic novels, specifically The Last Day of a Condemned Man (1829) and Les Miserables (1862). In fact, I've been told that there is a terrific non-fiction work exploring just how Dostoyevsky was inspired by Hugo. I plan to investigate immediately.

The Romantic school of literature emphasizes 'what might be and ought to be,' or, in Dostoyevsky's case 'what ought not be'. This is contrasted with the naturalist school(s) of literature which depict 'what is'. Both Dostoyevsky's and Hugo's romantic works stagger the imagination with their moral weight, psychological nuance, and the power that humans have to choose their own destiny. Their characters hold individual values that are knowable to themselves and others. The characters can be mistaken or correct. They can come to understand the universe and their place in it. They hold the ability to beautify or uglify the world with their choices. Sonya and Raskolnikoff in Crime and Punishment and Javert and Valjean in Les Miserables are masterful, romantic characters.

There is something incredibly, refreshingly human about both writer's respective novels, though one is certainly darker than the other. These are also the two greatest novels that I have ever had the pleasure of encountering. If you love one, please try the other. If you haven't yet read either, seriously consider it! [JG]
​

“People are always ruining things for me.”

— Holden Caufield, The Catcher in the Rye
​

Few novels have the cultural gravitational pull² of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Published in 1996, the 1,079-page labyrinth glides through junior tennis matches, turns inward to vulnerable addiction therapy sessions, and expands outwards across the American-midwest-vastness of mass media culture. It’s encyclopedic, hilarious, grotesque, tender, and at times can be intentionally disorienting (with its nearly 400 endnotes) — but it's not insurmountable.

Upon its debut, the novel's reception⁵ was quite mixed. While it achieved instant commercial success with 44,000 hardcovers sold, some tastemakers accused Wallace of imitating American author Thomas Pynchon³. Others claimed the author was merely using characters to show off his own intelligence. Many readers and reviewers were simply and understandably intimidated by the novel's half-a-million word count. But in the 30 years since, Infinite Jest's dystopian vision for a media-obsessed America was quite prophetic, cementing it as a modern literary classic. In 2005, TIME Magazine listed it on their Top 100 Books (from 1923 to 2005). Critics Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo write that Wallace's "decidedly secondary" dystopian setting and plot lines allow for his "painfully funny dialogue and" ... "endlessly rich ruminations⁴​ and speculations on addiction, entertainment, art, life and, of course, tennis" to shine.

Set in the alternate-reality year 2009, the novel imagines an America that looks far less speculative today than Wallace probably intended. Its themes of entertainment and pleasure, depression and addiction, loneliness and meaning, and the ways we try and often fail to escape from ourselves is perhaps even more relevant today. Amid the novel's cast of political terrorists, tennis prodigies, and corporate sponsors, Infinite Jest transforms itself — a part-quirky comedy, part-tragic-character-study, and part-mythic chimera — into one of the longest and most earnest stories I've had the pleasure¹² of finishing. 

The novel, I think, is also a one-thousand-page plea for help—for greater visibility and desperate support—not just for its maker, but for any reader¹⁶ who also feels sad, alone, and at times unfit for the times. Tragically, in 2008, after a long battle with depression and substance abuse, David Foster Wallace took his own life in his home in Claremont, California. 
​

Wallace sets Infinite Jest in a restructured North American mega-nation. The U.S., Canada, and Mexico have merged into O.N.A.N. — the Organization of North American Nations. The acronym is not subtle: “onanism” means self-pleasuring, and the book is quite literally about a society that has made pleasure its highest god. The new president, Johnny Gentle, is a germaphobic, former crooner who solves America’s waste problem by “gifting” Canada a massive toxic dump called 'The Great Concavity' (modern Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, etc.).

Time itself has been corporatized. Instead of the Gregorian calendar, companies sponsor entire years: The Year of the Whopper, The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, The Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar, The Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken, The Year of Glad, and so on. ​At the center of the novel is a forbidden film called Infinite Jest (referred by some as "The Entertainment"). It is a film so beautiful, pleasurable, and addictive that anyone who watches it loses all desire for anything else, eventually dying of dehydration or starvation while watching it.

Three plot-lines orbit this deadly piece of entertainment, Infinite Jest:

1. The Enfield Tennis Academy¹⁷: Hal Incandenza, an academic and tennis prodigy, struggles with addiction and communication. His father, James—a physicist turned avant-garde filmmaker—created both the academy and the film Infinite Jest. James dies by suicide in a grotesque scene that scars Hal’s childhood. 

2. The Québecois Terrorists: They call it The Samizdat, echoing the underground dissident literature of the Soviet Union. They plan to unleash it on O.N.A.N. to cause mass hypnosis and social collapse. Counter-terrorism agents like Hugh Steeply try to stop them, while undercover operatives and double- (and quadruple-) agents weave through the novel like Kafkaesque spies who can’t tell if they’re surveilling or simply being watched.

3. Ennet House Recovery Center: The emotional core of the novel rests here, with Don Gately, a former burglar and Demerol addict, now trying to stay sober through AA and NA. His and his fellow addicts' stories are based heavily on Wallace’s own time in a recovery house. They ask the novel’s deepest questions about freedom and the meaning of our choices. Here we also meet Joelle Van Dyne, a radio host known as Madame Psychosis, and the actress starring in James Incandenza’s fatal film. She is so beautiful or so disfigured (Wallace keeps this ambiguous) that she wears a veil. She may be the film’s secret weapon...
​
While these three stories are not always told chronologically, they are nonetheless richly intertwined. The ending loops back to the beginning. You understand the story only by reading it like a spiral — forward and backward. And you must read the hilarious endnotes as they contain clues and answers. 
​

“Yes, I'm paranoid—but am I paranoid enough?”

― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

Wallace famously said that he structured Infinite Jest as a Sierpiński triangle, a recursive fractal pattern that looks incomplete but is structurally whole. It's a novel made of absences, demanding you read backward and forward to make sense of its gaps. Wallace's intention was to train readers to be active participants: flipping to endnotes, stitching scenes together, and solving the story's puzzles. The physical act of reading the book also mirrors a tennis rally: back and forth momentum shifts; short-fast bursts followed by longer periods of rest. For example, there is a grammatically correct three-page sentence, and also a three-page footnote listing the filmography of James Incandenza. Wallace was an accomplished junior tennis player and originally from the American midwest. Throughout his works, there's a sense of vast, open, geometric¹⁴ and even elemental spaces, buildings, and characters.
​

For all its cultural satire and political absurdity, Infinite Jest essentially is a story of broken humans longing for real connection—with themselves and others. The novel's lengthy and numerous recovery sessions, coached practices, and private moments of sobriety seem to all be there to sincerely share the heart of the novel: that you’re not as free as you think. Addiction is devotion gone amok. Real freedom begins with surrendering to one's limitations and seeking help from without. And meaning is found in choosing one's life purpose(s): family, academics, learning, sports, fitness, essentially anything that you can form healthy habit(s) around in order to enhance your life and other's lives. Purpose, for Wallace, excludes ideological and political obsession and, of course, addictive drugs. Both are false promises that lead to both physical and mental isolation, and eventually to personal and societal collapse. Wallace especially stresses that a healthy mind must live in a healthy body — the right food, drinks, medicines, and habitual exercise are as crucial as kicking the drug and quitting the cult. 
​

Wallace believed that books—through slow, demanding, private reading sessions and, perhaps also group discussions—were the antidote to the numbing speed of modern society's mass entertainment. Keep in mind that this novel was written decades before AI visuals, TikTok reels, algorithmic feeds, autoplay settings, personalized content, binge-watching as a cultural phenomenon, photo filters, and video face filters. But DFW was already weary of the deadly dopamine drip of constant novelty and variety.

​Conversely, reading¹² teaches patience, attention, and introspection. In fact, Wallace made sections of Infinite Jest intentionally boring to force readers to practice stillness in a culture that hates it. And this book, unsurprisingly, is rich with references to great literature that explore similar themes:

• Hamlet: the title's origin; towards the finale of Shakespeare's tragedy, the Danish prince holds up the skull of Yorick, his father’s jester, a man of "infinite jest," asking it where are all of his jokes now; of a nearby lawyer’s skull, he asks where are his cases and work? Wallace's characters also ask, 'What’s the point of doing anything?' 'What gives life meaning?'
• The Brothers Karamazov: three brothers representing head/heart/body; perhaps Hal is Ivan, Orrin is Dimitri, and Mario is Alyosha.
• Franz Kafka: jokes and sorrow as twins; “We spend our lives looking for the door and when we find it, it opens outward because we’ve been inside what we wanted all along.” — DFW¹⁸
• Moby-Dick and Gravity’s Rainbow: American encyclopedic novels​
  ​​​

JON'S ENDNOTES¹​

{ 1 } JON'S ENDNOTES ... Of course, this blog post on Infinite Jest deserves to be my first ever with a series of endnotes.¹³ At the outset of this book blog (circa 2013), I would hyperlink blog posts (sparsely at first, more extensively later) in order to suggest connections between ideas and, of course, to encourage more online surfing and discovery, especially on mobile devices (70% of my blog's traffic is on smartphones).¹¹. In 2015, I began including a "Quotes I Loved" section at the bottom of each blog post. But these nuggets of wisdom and beauty become too detached in that format. By listing quote at the bottom of a blog post like food ingredients, I think their power is dimished. So, I've settled into a more single-serving style of blog post: a few quotes to read and that serve to concretize the body paragraph's points. Capped off by a "You May Also Like" section at the bottom to encourage discovery of similar and different authors.¹⁵ 

{ 2 } GRAVITATIONAL PULL ... Not just cultural gravitational pull but actual gravitation pull. The 2008 paperback version whose cover is at the top of this post and features the iconic tennis ball green text, cerulean sky, and fluffy white clouds, weighs an impressive 2.55 lbs (1.157 kg since 1 lb ≈ 0.4536 kg). {6}. Multiplying by standard gravitational acceleration (≈ 9.81 m/s² though this varies slightly with latitude and altitude in ways no casual reader genuinely cares about), the book exerts a downward force—its weight in physical terms—of about 11.35 newtons. Even heavier though is IJ's hardcover. It weighs an impressive-to-carry and potentially nose-breaking-to-drop-while-reading-in-bed 3.2 lbs (1.451 kg). Again, multiplying by Earth’s standard gravitational acceleration (9.81 m/s²), you get a downward force—its actual physical weight—of ≈ 14.22 newtons. Meaning: your 3.2 lb hardcover exerts on your palm roughly the same force as a large housecat’s paw pressing down on a very small button. Whether hardcover or paperback, its gravitational pull is not much by astrophysical standards, but certainly something your bookshelf must account for. I like these 6-shelf ones from Shintenchi. 

{ 3 } THOMAS PYNCHON ... I don't really think DFW's IJ reads much like Thomas Pynchon's Gravity’s Rainbow. The latter is closer to James Joyce's Ulysses, I think, with its bending and breaking of grammar. In this way, I found IJ much more accessible than those two aforementioned (post)-modern⁷ novels.

{ 4 } "RUMINATIONS" ... The word "ruminations" when typed on my Weebly website editor gives me that scary red squiggly underline, suggesting that it's incorrectly spelled. However, it isn't. Ruminate; ru·​mi·​nate;ˈrü-mə-ˌnāt; transitive verb; Definition 1: to go over in the mind repeatedly and often casually or slowly; Ex: "…ruminating on the benefits of upgrading my Google Chrome browser from version 140.0.7339.213 to version 140.0.7339.214.; Definition 2: to chew repeatedly for an extended period. 

{ 5 } RECEPTION ... Apparently, DFW felt the reception of IJ was missing the tragedy of the novel and focused too much on the comedy of it all. 

{ 6 } FLUFFY WHITE CLOUDS ... Closest to cumulus clouds, but they're not really real clouds. In fact, according to some fan commentary and Wallace’s own reported reaction, he wasn’t thrilled with the hardcover's cloud design. He once compared it to the cloud pattern in an airline safety manual, suggesting he found it too generic or “American-Airlines flight–style.” For me, it reminded me of a Microsoft XP background circa 2001. Nonetheless, for the novel's focus on addictive media that might make it the perfect cover. 

{ 7 } MODERN VS. POST-MODERN ... I appreciate DFW's take on the difference between modern and post-modern novels: modern novels are deliberately difficult, and the authors seem to want to create a kind of walled, elitist retreat from the popular 'best' lists and from 'normie' readers. While post-modern books are crafted to be, yes, difficult—maybe even more so—, but to appeal in a more broad, democratic way. 

{ 8 } HABITUALIZE ... Apparently, both my Weebly website editor and also Merriam-Webster are claiming that "habitualize" is not a real word. But "habituate" is. I still think "habitualize" sounds better and reads clearer. Like how "naturalize" > "natuate". 

{ 9 } DFW'S ENDNOTES ... David Foster Wallace popularized a hybrid effect for his endnotes; some of them are actually essential to understanding the story's plot through clues, reveals, and added helpful exposition; others contain punchlines and quirky asides in DFW's unique humor; some other endnotes seem to be written in a way this is intentionally boring, almost bureaucratic text. And by encouraging those few willing and possibly crazy readers to flip 400+ times to the back and front, he habituates⁸ readers into a back-and-forth motion similar to a tennis match. 

{ 10 } DFW'S NONFICTION ... Consider the Lobster is pretty good so far, especially DFW's essays on Kafka, Dostoyevsky, and New England's lobster-eating culture. I mostly winced and shuddered through the first essay, though. I've heard excellent things about two other collections of his: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (especially his essays on tennis and David Lynch's films), and his short story collection Oblivion. 

{ 11 } AFFILIATE LINKS ... I should note that I also hyperlink directly to books and the occasional film on Amazon.com and may receive a small sales commission on any products purchased. This affiliate partnership is one small (frankly way too small) way that I can help pay for website, domain, and hosting costs for this site. Any books and products purchased through my affiliate links are greatly appreciated. 

{ 12 } READING AS MEDICINE ... Here are all of my yearly book roundups so far: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015. In them, I share my top ten favorite reads from the past year, plus ten or so 'runner-ups 'that I whole-heartedly enjoyed. Whether you pick up one or ten of them, fiction or non-fiction, now or in the future, I hope that they give you as much as they have given me. Not surprisingly, Infinite Jest is certainly on my 2025 round-up (coming in December per usual). 

{ 13 } ENDNOTES VS. FOOTNOTES ... While endnotes and footnotes serve similar functions (to provide extra information, clarification, citations, jokes, digressions, etc. without breaking up the text's flow, it's worth noting their differences. Footnotes appear at the bottom of the same page where the reference appears. This gives the reader near-immediate access to the note, more optionally disrupts the reading flow (intentionally or unintentionally), but does make the page more visually noisy. Footnotes have become associated with academic texts and some authors like Vladimir Nabokov, Terry Pratchett, and occasionally DFW¹⁰. A superscript number (Ex "Endnotes⁹")⁹ often appears in the sentence, and the explanation is right below. Contrast this to an Endnote, which are collected at the end of a chapter or at the end of the book. This placement is less intrusive, but requires flipping to a separate section (or tapping in an e-reader). It creates a push–pull reading rhythm (which DFW intentionally uses in IJ), and allows for very long, digressive, mini-essays without cluttering the pages.

{ 14 } THE NOVEL'S LENGTH ... It took me 65 hours to read Infinite Jest over the course of six weeks. That's about ten hours and two weeks longer than Victor Hugo's epic novel Les Miserables, five hours longer and two months shorter than Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy and two hours and two weeks longer than Ayn Rand's magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. The length and weight of IJ is partly the point. DFW wants us to get comfortable with feelings of confusion, of boredom, of not knowing exactly what’s going on, of being lost, and of needing to work, both physically and mentally, to find the answers.

{ 15 } YOU MAY ALSO LIKE ... Choosing only 4 other books for this blog post's "You May Also Like" section is difficult. I opted for two dystopias, a retelling of a mythic hero, and a play dramatizing the trial of the West's first gadfly. In The Handmaid's Tale we get a horrific future vision of a society that controls sex and pleasure too much (the opposite of IJ). In Anthem, we encounter a world devoid of the self; the word "I" is missing, though the novella has a much more optimistic tone and ending than most dystopias. In Zorro, we meet a young man questing for enlightenment, which he finds in new modern ideas, characters, and situations to undo the past's and present's prejudices. In Barefoot in Athens, we walk with Socrates, who famously asked critical questions about truth, justice, and beauty—but was ultimately damned for it by those who failed to answer his questions, revealing to us and themselves the depths of their own ignorance. 

{ 16 } SUICIDE ... I've lost two people I personally knew, though not well enough, to suicide in the past year. If you are in pain and need help, please speak up to someone. For yourself and for those who love you. 

{ 17 } TENNIS ... DFW once wrote that, “Midwest junior tennis was my initiation into true adult sadness.”

{ 18 } KAFKA ... From DFW's essay, Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness from Which Probably Not Enough has Been Removed

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is the greatest dystopian novel that I have ever read. 

Originally published in 1945, within this short barnyard fable lies a powerful depiction of political tyranny that remains relevant today. Despite the story's host of talking animal characters, the gradual—and sudden—steps of political change are all too human:

- The utopian dream of an anti-human, pro-animal world
- Secret animals meetings to learn the philosophy and plan their emancipation
- The morally-justified, violent rebellion against their owners
- The 'progressive' economic revolution of 'equality'
- The philosophy of  'Animalism' codified into law
- A propaganda program to control narrative
- The creation of a secret police
- Favoritism, in-fighting, and corruption by the new rulers
- War with neighboring farms
- Economic and spiritual collapse

The Rebellion
Manor Farm, owned by the aging, often drunk Mr. Jones, is steeped in neglect. One night, under the ring of light from a lantern, the animals gather to hear the words of Old Major, a venerable white boar who has had a troubling dream. Surrounded by Clover, the stout mare, Boxer, the immensely strong horse, and an assortment of farm creatures—hens, sheep, cows, the cynical donkey Benjamin, and the vain white mare Mollie—Old Major declares, “Our lives are miserable, laborious, and short… The life of an animal is misery and slavery.” He goes on to teach them the song Beasts of England, a revolutionary anthem that unites them in hope.

And when Old Major dies soon after, two pigs—Snowball and Napoleon—systematize his vision into a doctrine called Animalism. Finally, after a series of meetings and growing sense of injustice amongst the farm animals, (Jones forgets to feed them after a night of drunkenness), the animals revolt. Jones and his wife are driven off the property, and Manor Farm becomes 'Animal Farm.'

The new age of the animals has begun.

'Equality' Codified by Law 
The pigs, being the most intelligent, quickly assume leadership. They paint the Seven Commandments of Animalism on the barn wall:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

At first, life improves. After throwing all objects of oppression (stirrups, whips, bridles, chains, and leashes) down the drinking well, the emancipated animals harvest the fields themselves, working harder and with new-found purpose. They even create an Animal Farm flag, all-green with a hoof and horn, a symbol of unity and labor.

​Yet the buckets of fresh milk and just-picked apples begin to mysteriously vanish. It’s the first fracture in the animals' equality, but one hardly noticed and remembered...

Playing For Power
Snowball, one of the ruling pigs, dreams of progress—a windmill to generate electricity and ease labor. Napoleon, a fellow pig, agrees publicly but secretly plans otherwise. Their rivalry ends when Napoleon unleashes nine fierce dogs, ones he had stolen as puppies to raise secretly in the attic) — and the dogs  chase Snowball away from Animal Farm for good. 

Democracy dies faster. Sunday's political debates are abolished. Napoleon rules by decree, his words filtered through the silver-tongued Squealer, who rewrites history to fit the Party line. “Snowball was a traitor,” he insists. And the horse Boxer, ever loyal, adopts a new motto: “Napoleon is always right.”

The animals work harder than ever, but rations shrink. Still, they believe in the windmill, in progress, in the Revolution’s dream. Until the windmill collapses—and Napoleon blames Snowball again.
​