11-year-old translates Infinite Jest into more than 100 Lego scenes

For literary types, David Foster Wallace's 1996 novel Infinite Jest is the great divider. You either belong to the elite club who has managed to get through the 1,079-page post-modern epic — that has been called "tedious," "difficult," and "and one of the funniest books you'll ever read" — or you stand on the other side of the line, dumbly thumbing through one of his shorter book of essays, like Consider the Lobster.

Now, a precocious 11-year-old and his professor father have strolled confidently over that line by translating the book's prose, winding plot line, and gigantic cast of characters into miniature scenes made out of Lego bricks.

American English professor Kevin Griffith, who has previously taught Wallace's novel in one of his classes at Ohio's Capital University, emphasizes that his son did not actually read the book. "Let me be clear," he told The Guardian, "Infinite Jest is not a novel for children."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Instead, Griffith chose more than 100 pivotal moments from the book and described them to his son, who then constructed the brick scenes in his unique vision. What unfolds on their website Brickjest is a colorful, dramatic, far-reaching story that may be just as confusing and delightful as the real thing (not that I would know).

See a few photos and captions for yourself below and head on over to their site for full experience. --Lauren Hansen