L'infinie comédie: un pavé culte enfin traduit

source

TL;DR

A Montréal review (La Presse, Littérature, 18 September 2015) by Sylvain Sarrazin marking the long-delayed arrival of Infinite Jest in French (L'Infinie Comédie, trans. Francis Kerline, Éditions de l'Olivier, 2015 — nearly two decades after the 1996 English publication). It is a warm, descriptive appraisal, not a translator interview: Sarrazin walks the novel's three braided storylines, its sponsored-time near-future setting, and its maximal, labyrinthine construction, and rates it a Rubik's-cube of a book — scarcely the most approachable, but a delight for whoever plays along. The piece advances no interpretive theory about any plot or ending crux; its value is as a reception primary — a Québécois paper's first-week notice of the French edition. Its one archive-rare feature is what it does not do with the novel's Québec material: writing from Montréal about a novel whose antagonists are extremist Québécois separatists, Sarrazin names them in flat plot summary and reacts to the choice not at all.

Key claims

The event: a cult brick, finally in French. Sarrazin frames the translation as the belated arrival of a novel “adulé aux États-Unis” (adored in the United States — gloss ours) whose French rendering “s'est fait attendre pendant... près de deux décennies” (kept people waiting for... nearly two decades — gloss ours; the suspension dots are the source's). He tallies its bulk up front: close to 1,500 pages, of which more than 150 are given over to the “Notes et errata”, the whole thing “imprimé en pattes de mouche” (printed in a spidery small hand — gloss ours). The book-credit line closes the piece: L'infinie comédie, David Foster Wallace, trans. Francis Kerline, Éditions de L'Olivier, 1488 pages.
The three storylines, in plot summary. The novel is “Un prisme à mille folles facettes” (a prism of a thousand mad facets — gloss ours), a multi-track tale braiding, among others, the Incandenza family and its prestigious tennis academy; addicts of every stripe frequenting “un refuge pour accros en pénitence” (a refuge for penitent addicts — gloss ours); and “un groupe de séparatistes extrémistes québécois ayant mis la main sur une arme de destruction massive” (a group of extremist Québécois separatists who have got their hands on a weapon of mass destruction — gloss ours). That weapon, the novel's “le Divertissement”, is a video that reduces to mush the brain of whoever watches it — “par surdose de plaisir” (by an overdose of pleasure — gloss ours).
The sponsored-time / unified-continent setting. The action unfolds “au sein d'une Amérique du Nord unifiée (États-Unis, Canada et Mexique ont formé une alliance)” (within a unified North America — the U.S., Canada and Mexico having formed an alliance — gloss ours), a world “où les années ne sont plus chiffrées mais commanditées” (where the years are no longer numbered but sponsored — gloss ours), e.g. the Year of the trial-size Dove soap-bar.
Character sprawl and satire. Scenes, places, events and above all characters (loaded with nicknames) “se mêlent et se multiplient comme du chiendent, parfois pathétiques, souvent loufoques” (mingle and multiply like couch-grass, sometimes pathetic, often zany — gloss ours), the ex-crooner Johnny Gentle among them. The whole is “Hautement satirique et ironique, expérimentale à souhait, considérée comme un monument du post-modernisme” (highly satirical and ironic, experimental to a fault, considered a monument of post-modernism — gloss ours).
A book that demands total engagement. The novel “requiert un engagement total du lecteur” (requires total engagement from the reader — gloss ours), confronted with sometimes very obscure chapters and “contraint de consigner des mémorandums afin de ne pas perdre le nord dans ce labyrinthe littéraire déluré” (forced to keep memoranda so as not to lose his bearings in this unhinged literary labyrinth — gloss ours). Sarrazin's verdict image: “Un livre semblable à un cube Rubik, pas des plus abordables, mais jouissif pour qui se prête au jeu” (a book like a Rubik's cube, hardly the most approachable, but a delight for whoever plays along — gloss ours).
“Un monstre sacré” — the American reception, retold. In a second movement under that subhead, Sarrazin recaps the novel's American standing: “La traduction d'Infinite Jest en langue française vient réparer un tort relativement surprenant” (the French translation repairs a relatively surprising wrong — gloss ours), since the book and its author had rapidly taken a prominent place in the American literary landscape. Published in 1996 when Wallace was only 34, it became a best-seller “malgré la complexité, la longueur et le caractère encyclopédique du récit” (despite the complexity, the length and the encyclopedic character of the story — gloss ours), and the “brique devenue classique” (brick become a classic — gloss ours) was widely dissected: “elle a été très largement disséquée, commentée et théorisée par de nombreux analystes littéraires” (it has been very widely dissected, commented on and theorized by numerous literary analysts — gloss ours).
A film keeps the flame. As proof of an enduring importance, Sarrazin notes that a film about Wallace (who took his own life in 2008), The End of the Tour, came out “en juillet dernier” (last July — i.e. July 2015).

Theories & evidence

(This is a descriptive review; it advances no interpretive theory about a plot or ending crux — see the TL;DR. The two blocks below record the one crux the review's reception language glances at and its reception material.)

CONNECTION: A reception witness to Infinite Jest's encyclopedic, labyrinthine construction — a 1,500-page “monument du post-modernisme” whose 150+ pages of “Notes et errata” and obscure chapters demand that the reader keep memoranda

Crux: encyclopedic-design
Stance: mentions
Evidence:
- [S — FR] Sarrazin names the encyclopedic scale directly: the novel is a best-seller “malgré la complexité, la longueur et le caractère encyclopédique du récit” (despite the complexity, the length and the encyclopedic character of the story — gloss ours). [second movement, “Un monstre sacré”]
- [S — FR] The reading-experience register: the book “requiert un engagement total du lecteur” (requires total engagement from the reader — gloss ours), who is “contraint de consigner des mémorandums afin de ne pas perdre le nord dans ce labyrinthe littéraire déluré” (forced to keep memoranda so as not to lose his bearings in this unhinged literary labyrinth — gloss ours); it is “Un livre semblable à un cube Rubik” (a book like a Rubik's cube — gloss ours). [first movement]
Notes: A mentions-grade reception sighting, not an argument. Sarrazin describes the maximal, labyrinthine, apparatus-heavy construction (the 1,500 pages; the 150+-page “Notes et errata”; the memoranda a reader must keep) but advances no claim about what that construction is for (encyclopedic-design's actual crux) — it is texture, consonant with the translator-desk term-density testimony held in the German/Italian/French translator notes — a mention-level sighting only. The endnote apparatus is named (“Notes et errata”, 150+ pages) as a physical fact only, with no argument about its function, so no separate endnotes-function block is opened.

CONNECTION: The novel's difficulty as reputation, not obstacle — a belatedly-translated cult “pavé”, an American classic dissected by the academy, whose scale is a delight for whoever plays along

Crux: (no home slug — reception/reputation)
Stance: n/a (reception texture)
Evidence:
- [S — FR] The belated-arrival frame: a novel “adulé aux États-Unis” whose French translation “s'est fait attendre pendant... près de deux décennies”, now repairing “un tort relativement surprenant”. [deck + second movement]
- [S — FR] The canonization frame: the “brique devenue classique” was “très largement disséquée, commentée et théorisée par de nombreux analystes littéraires” — difficulty as prestige, not deterrent; and the verdict that the Rubik's-cube book is “jouissif pour qui se prête au jeu” (a delight for whoever plays along — gloss ours). [second + first movements]
Notes: Logged as a reception/reputation sighting with NO home slug — the belated-translation, cult-classic and academic-dissection material is reception-scoped and the archive holds no legacy/reputation/canonization slug (index checked; nothing coined here). It is the same difficulty-as-reputation reception layer the archive's 1996/2015 reception poles already hold, arriving in a Québécois notice of the French edition. NOT a fold; NOT a coinage.

Themes

Translation and belated reception (the two-decade wait; the “pavé culte enfin traduit” frame; the “tort relativement surprenant” the translation repairs); the encyclopedic, labyrinthine construction (close to 1,500 pages; 150+ pages of “Notes et errata” in tiny print; obscure chapters; the memoranda the reader must keep; the Rubik's-cube verdict); satire and the post-modern monument (the “Hautement satirique et ironique” register; Johnny Gentle; the sponsored-time years); addiction and entertainment (the “refuge pour accros”; “le Divertissement” as a lethal video, brain-mush “par surdose de plaisir”); Québécois separatism (the “séparatistes extrémistes québécois” holding the weapon of mass destruction); the unified-North-America / O.N.A.N. setting (the U.S., Canada and Mexico “ont formé une alliance”); and Wallace's American canonization and death (the 1996 best-seller at 34; the 2008 suicide; The End of the Tour).

The Québec angle

Written and published in Montréal, the review handles the novel's Québécois material with complete neutrality. Sarrazin names “un groupe de séparatistes extrémistes québécois ayant mis la main sur une arme de destruction massive” as one of the three braided storylines and moves straight on; he does not name the Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents, does not mention the wheelchairs, and offers no comment — no defense, no objection, no reflection — on the fact that a celebrated American novel casts extremist Québécois separatists as the holders of a weapon of mass destruction. For a reader curious how the novel's separatist antagonists land with a Québécois readership, the notable thing here is the absence of any reaction: the separatist plot is presented as flat plot summary, exactly like the tennis academy and the halfway house.

Cross-references

kerline-books-2015 — the direct sibling: the Books magazine interview with Francis Kerline, the translator whose L'Infinie Comédie this review marks, published the same autumn. Kerline supplies the translator's-desk account of the same edition (the near-nightmare of the work, the deliberately broken syntax, the Infinie Facétie / L'Infinie Comédie title decision); this La Presse piece is the reception notice of the finished book.
The translator-testimony cluster — blumenbach-trashpool-2011, nesi-minimaetmoralia-intervista, kerline-books-2015 — adjacency only. This is a French-language RECEPTION primary, not a translator interview: it credits Kerline in the book-line but does not interview him or discuss the translation as translation.
letraslibres-no-necrologica-2008 — the Spanish-language reception companion (Fresán's death-week profile): the nearest neighbour as a non-English reception primary that situates the translated IJ in its own literary culture, here Québec rather than the Spanish-speaking world.
The Québécois-separatist storyline — the “séparatistes extrémistes québécois” and the lethal “Divertissement” Sarrazin summarizes sit beside the archive's treatments of the A.F.R. and the Entertainment; this review's value is that a Montréal paper describes them without editorial reaction.

Notable passages

Sarrazin's words (his firsthand critical prose) unless marked. French is the verbatim anchor; the English in parentheses is our gloss (paraphrase). The source's own quoted matter — four novel terms/descriptions — appears in « … » guillemets and is a citation of the published French translation (Kerline), not Sarrazin's own voice and not Wallace's English; those are marked [novel, French translation]. French typography reproduced as printed (straight ASCII apostrophes; “oeuvre” as o+e).

“Un prisme à mille folles facettes” (a prism of a thousand mad facets — gloss ours); “Une énigme tortueuse et torturée” (a tortuous, tortured enigma — gloss ours).
“un groupe de séparatistes extrémistes québécois ayant mis la main sur une arme de destruction massive” (a group of extremist Québécois separatists who have got their hands on a weapon of mass destruction — gloss ours).
[novel, French translation] “le Divertissement” (the Entertainment — gloss ours) — the French edition's name for the lethal cartridge, cited by Sarrazin; a video reducing to mush “la cervelle de quiconque la visionne, par surdose de plaisir” (the brain of whoever watches it, by an overdose of pleasure — gloss ours; the second clause is Sarrazin's).
“au sein d'une Amérique du Nord unifiée (États-Unis, Canada et Mexique ont formé une alliance)” (within a unified North America — the U.S., Canada and Mexico having formed an alliance — gloss ours); the years “ne sont plus chiffrées mais commanditées” (no longer numbered but sponsored — gloss ours).
[novel, French translation] “Année de la mini-savonnette Dove” (Year of the trial-size Dove soap-bar — gloss ours) — the sponsored-year example, cited in guillemets from the French edition.
“se mêlent et se multiplient comme du chiendent, parfois pathétiques, souvent loufoques” (mingle and multiply like couch-grass, sometimes pathetic, often zany — gloss ours) — the character sprawl.
[novel, French translation] the ex-crooner Johnny Gentle, “le premier président états-unien qui ait fait tournoyer son micro en le tenant par son cordon pendant son discours d'investiture” (the first U.S. president to have swung his microphone by its cord during his inaugural address — gloss ours) — cited in guillemets as the French edition's characterization.
“Hautement satirique et ironique, expérimentale à souhait, considérée comme un monument du post-modernisme” (highly satirical and ironic, experimental to a fault, considered a monument of post-modernism — gloss ours).
“contraint de consigner des mémorandums afin de ne pas perdre le nord dans ce labyrinthe littéraire déluré” (forced to keep memoranda so as not to lose his bearings in this unhinged literary labyrinth — gloss ours).
“Un livre semblable à un cube Rubik, pas des plus abordables, mais jouissif pour qui se prête au jeu” (a book like a Rubik's cube, hardly the most approachable, but a delight for whoever plays along — gloss ours).
“La traduction d'Infinite Jest en langue française vient réparer un tort relativement surprenant” (the French translation of Infinite Jest repairs a relatively surprising wrong — gloss ours).
“malgré la complexité, la longueur et le caractère encyclopédique du récit” (despite the complexity, the length and the encyclopedic character of the story — gloss ours); the classic “a été très largement disséquée, commentée et théorisée par de nombreux analystes littéraires” (has been very widely dissected, commented on and theorized by numerous literary analysts — gloss ours).
“Preuve d'une importance toujours vivace, un film consacré à Wallace” (proof of a still-vigorous importance, a film devoted to Wallace — gloss ours), The End of the Tour, out “en juillet dernier” (last July — gloss ours).

Accuracy notes

Cite-as-written throughout (orthography preserved as printed).

“Éditions de L'Olivier” (capital L). The book-credit line prints “Éditions de L'Olivier” with a capital L (line 264); the publisher's own name is Éditions de l'Olivier (lower-case l, as the Kerline note records). Reproduced as printed (cite-as-written).
Page count: 1488 vs “près de 1500”. The deck rounds to “près de 1500 pages” (line 204); the book-credit line gives the precise “1488 pages” (line 264). Both reproduced as printed; they agree (1488 ≈ nearly 1500), and 1488 matches the Éditions de l'Olivier edition recorded elsewhere in the archive.
“oeuvre” without the ligature. The body prints “cette oeuvre” with a plain o+e (line 236), not the œ ligature. Reproduced byte-true.
The suspension dots. “s'est fait attendre pendant... près de deux décennies” (line 208) uses three ASCII periods, not the ellipsis character; reproduced as printed.
Biographical facts check out. Wallace was 34 when Infinite Jest was published in 1996 (born Feb 1962 — correct); he “s'est suicidé en 2008” (correct); The End of the Tour was released in July 2015, and “en juillet dernier” relative to an 18 September 2015 review is that July (correct).