Infinite Jest in Infinite Jest â€� David Foster Wallace

From the Bookshelf of Infinite Jest â€� David Foster Wallace…

Infinite Jest

David Foster Wallace

Start date: January 1, 2013

Finish date: April 30, 2013

Discussion: Main Discussion Threads

Why we're reading this: â€œTo die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub.â€�…more
[close] â€œTo die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub.â€�

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Main Discussion Threads

Infinite Jest Discussion: pgs. 3-85
By Kris , Group Jester · 139 posts · 162 views

last updated Dec 30, 2014 02:05PM

Infinite Jest Discussion: pgs. 902-981
By Kris , Group Jester · 24 posts · 96 views

last updated Nov 14, 2013 01:14AM

What Members Thought

Aug 18, 2011 Steve rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

All David, All the Time

I suspect anyone who scales this mountainous tome will confess to some level of obsession for having done so. For me it took the form of extra reading time walking the sidewalks from the train to the office. I noticed I was given a wide berth when people saw the size of the prow coming their way. With such preoccupation you might imagine I was lost in the story, but it was more like getting lost in thoughts about the author himself. He and his sprawling intellect loomed la ...more

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May 22, 2009 Brian rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

There isn't a proper way to give a review to this book without overdoing hyperbole and superlatives surrounding its greatness. A friends asked me what it is about - I replied it was about the best fiction I've ever read.

DFW was a genius. Read this book. ...more

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Jun 02, 2011 Jenn(ifer) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: the-tops, read-in-2011, giggles, own, re-read, 5-f-ing-stars, you-should-read-this, gr-friends-recommend, beach-reads

Reading this novel is the literary equivalent of completing a triathlon. I'm exhausted, but it was so worth it! I've spent the past four months with all of these bizarre, tortured, exceptional characters and think, strange as it may sound, I will miss them quite a bit.

ps~ you will need 2 book marks, 3 if you want to keep the time line straight.
pps~ don't read the last 40 pages or so if you have a weak stomach.

oh, and to the late Mr. Wallace: ummm... what the f@ck?!? ...more

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Jan 05, 2011 Jimmy rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: better-book-titles, year-1990s, unpopular-opinion, novel, male

Writing a negative review of IJ is difficult because the book has its own immune system. The book rejects criticism before it's even made by arch-meta-self-consciously attacking itself first in an ain't-I-witty way but: hey wait, that really was a good point, don't dismiss it yet; just because you did it to yourself first doesn't mean it's not valid logic, etc.

Another self-defense: it's badly written because it's a commentary on addiction/entertainment/the addled mind that comes from just being ...more

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Oct 18, 2008 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mighty-tomes, own, read2013, around-the-usa, post-apocalypse-and-dystopia, location-usa-massachusetts

After years of post-modern reading boot camp, I embarked on the journey to finally read this book with a bunch of amazing readers in the

It will take me a few days to process my final thoughts and what I want to say, exactly. For now I'm giving myself five stars for finishing, how about that?

I'm trying to decide if I think this little quotation is the theme for me, from near the end:
â€œWe are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe. God or Satan, politics or gram After years of post-modern reading boot camp, I embarked on the journey to finally read this book with a bunch of amazing readers in the

It will take me a few days to process my final thoughts and what I want to say, exactly. For now I'm giving myself five stars for finishing, how about that?

I'm trying to decide if I think this little quotation is the theme for me, from near the end:
â€œWe are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe. God or Satan, politics or grammar, topology or philately - the object seemed incidental to this will to give oneself away, utterly. To games or needles, to some other person. Something pathetic about it.â€�

A few days later... The quotation really does sum up quite a bit - some of the novel takes places at Enfield Tennis Academy, where child prodigies (or children of rich people) go and play tennis all day long. Other bits of the novel take place at a drug/alcohol rehab house, and some between two triple or quadruple agents investigating a case.

Everything is set in a dystopian near future where some parts of North America have been destroyed, children are being born without skulls or with huge baby heads or other defects, and there are separatist wheelchair assassins that could pull you off the highway at any moment.

And I must not forgot this film, "the entertainment," that glues everything together - once you start watching it, you can't stop, until you die. The man who created it is the father of some of the students at the tennis academy (and founded the academy) and the actress in the film is in rehab, so there are some ties between them.

This is a novel where you would discover new parts every time. There are questions I can't answer after one reading and may not ever be able to answer, about abuse, wraiths, supernatural, yogurt beards, etc. The chapters aren't in chronological order, which makes the ending of the book a bit of a letdown. There are people out there who have sat down and figured out how to read it chronologically, and I'm tempted.

I kept track of the bits I liked as well as any words I had to look up, and if that kind of thing interests you, you can . There might be spoilers in the quotations. And just ignore the gleeful bit about cake.

I'm really struggling to encompass everything. I haven't mentioned the endnotes, and really to read this book you have to keep one marker in the footnote section and one where you are reading, because you have to flip back and forth so often. One footnote was 8 pages long. It would be easy to abandon it, and I had before. I'm very glad I've read it now. ...more

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Apr 30, 2010 Jack Waters rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: stop-everything-and-read-these-agai

Infinite Jest is enormous in many regards.

THE INTIMIDATION FACTORS:
Its sheer girth -- it's nearly the size of a phone book, and thicker than some.
1079 pages stare you down, laughing at the amount of your assigned pages for homework.
388 must-read footnotes spanning 96 pages.
Wallace himself once said the novel is structured like something called a Sierpinski Gasket. Google that.
An expansive vocabulary that may require a top-shelf dictionary as a companion.

Dave Eggers wrote the foreward in the te Infinite Jest is enormous in many regards.

THE INTIMIDATION FACTORS:
Its sheer girth -- it's nearly the size of a phone book, and thicker than some.
1079 pages stare you down, laughing at the amount of your assigned pages for homework.
388 must-read footnotes spanning 96 pages.
Wallace himself once said the novel is structured like something called a Sierpinski Gasket. Google that.
An expansive vocabulary that may require a top-shelf dictionary as a companion.

Dave Eggers wrote the foreward in the ten year anniversary edition of Infinite Jest, and his description is, "This book is like a spaceship with no recognizable components, no rivets or bolts, no entry points, no way to take it apart. It is very shiny, and it has no discernible flaws. If you could somehow smash it into smaller pieces, there would certainly be no way to put it back together again. It simply is. Page by page, line by line, it is probably the strangest, most distinctive, and most involved work of fiction by an American in the last twenty years."

The book is plain fun, though. Read a few pages of it when you have writers block. It will jar you out of any sort of writing rut you're in. Read it dozens of pages at a time, or pick it apart two or three pages a day. Your dedication will pay off. Of course, while reading, the book requires your full attention. As Eggers wrote, "It canâ€™t be read at a crowded cafÃ©." Believe me -- I tried that very thing.

As soon as I finished, my description to friends was that my upper body felt like it had been lifted in a hot air balloon while my lower body was simultaneously sinking in quicksand. Of course, I also touchdown spiked the book onto the fourth floor of the quiet library. It was that sort of feeling.

In the first few pages, the main character Hal describes being conveyed to an emergency room, detained and unresponsive to questions. When responsive, he is finally sedated. Hal says that it is the inverse of an ambulance, "Iâ€™ll make the journey first, then depart." Thus it is with reading Infinite Jest.

Now the question is this: Will you actually read it? ...more

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Apr 15, 2009 Christine Palau rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Do yourself a favor: read this book on a Kindle; the dictionary is already in tow, and you'll need it (no matter who you are). You can bookmark, underline, and make notes. Accesssing the endnotes is super easy. And best of all, you won't get carpal tunnel. Also the print is larger and the sections are easier to focus on.

Having said that, this is one hell of a book, and reading it on a Kindle strips away the joy of knowing that others know what you're tackling.

Has it changed my life? Well, I wan ...more

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Jan 23, 2008 Tom rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

An amazing and entertaining novel about the American Way of Amusing Ourselves to Death.

David Foster Wallace's magnum opus, one of the most magnum of opi, certainly has some SF elements in it. The novel, when it was published, was set in the near future (certain of the novel's events are happening as you read this), and features some advanced technology that probably won't be developed any time soon (I hope and pray).

The novel most famously features a movie that is so incredibly entertaining th ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Jul 23, 2009 Melody rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

This is an unorthodox book.

I've made that my first sentence because I plan to write an unorthodox review.

First, I will start with some whining and a warning. To those of you who follow my reviews: You might want to skip this one. There are plenty of reviews of this book written eloquently by others, that explore the meaning of the writings, paralleled with Wallaceâ€™s life, and coupled with the events of the day and of the future. I may or may not touch on those things. Iâ€™m writing this because This is an unorthodox book.

I've made that my first sentence because I plan to write an unorthodox review.

First, I will start with some whining and a warning. To those of you who follow my reviews: You might want to skip this one. There are plenty of reviews of this book written eloquently by others, that explore the meaning of the writings, paralleled with Wallaceâ€™s life, and coupled with the events of the day and of the future. I may or may not touch on those things. Iâ€™m writing this because it is bubbling up inside of me and needs to come out. I just decided to let it come out as a review of this book. I am going to post the review before I finish the book but not before I call my sister :-)

No way can I ignore the fact that midway into this book I had a Posterior Vitreous Detachment plus a Vitreous Hemorrhage in my left eye. It was originally diagnosed as a detached retina and I thought I was going to have to be whisked off for emergency eye surgery. So I guess Iâ€™m supposed to be thankful that my eyeball is just filled with blood which will eventually (I am told) be absorbed and then I will no longer be seeing the left side of the world (or would that be the right side of the world?) through what looks like a black veil with a cigarette burn in the center. But I have not reached that point yet; the point of being thankful for this hazy, hard-to-read-through-state (heck, hard-to-walk-state) of my left eye. And I also cannot ignore the fact that smack dab in the midst of this big fat book, my husbandâ€™s best friend and band-mate died suddenly of what was originally called the flu and now might be diagnosed as some sort of parasitic bacterial infection picked up in Saint Lucia. But regardless of what it was, it killed him suddenly and tragically and left behind a drug-addicted wife, wailing and keening and most probably doomed.

And so with that background, I observe â€� how do we know how much the books we read affect our thoughts and outlooks and analyzations of life? And how much does what we are experiencing during our real life, while we are reading a book, affect the messages we receive and the lessons we learn and how we interpret the words of a book we are reading? I've explored this thought before â€� how some books seep into our lives or how our lives seep into the meaning of a book. All I know is that this book â€� even with itâ€™s difficult moments, itâ€™s jumping from here and there, itâ€™s ramblings and dead spots â€� has crept into my life and changed my thoughts and even though reading it with one eye nearly blind has given me headaches and made me curse the fact that I still have 200 pages to go and damn those end-notes (especially those multiple-page ones) â€� it has also added to and altered and enriched my day-to-day walking around life. And Iâ€™m pretty sure itâ€™s for the better.
...more

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