Infinite Jest in Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace

Nov 16, 2012 Garima rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: channeling-challenge, miles-to-go-before-i, its-not-you-its-meta-or-gfhrytyt, sui-generis, w-for-wallace, prude-me-not, my-2-cents, testing-patience-1-2-3, we-reads, funny-funsome-sarcasome

Know what they say about novels such as Infinite Jest: Don’t seek Perfection or Pleasure but rather seek the Infinite Possibilities.

I have a lot to say about this book but before that there’s a little I don’t want to say about it. Here it is:

☽This book is never ending.

☽It bored me at times too.

☽Some of the end notes were annoying.

☽I read many other books when I was supposed to read this book.

☽Whenever somebody asked me what IJ was all about, I was unable to come up with a clear-cut answer.

☽I ski ...more

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Mar 05, 2012 B0nnie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourite-books

Mulholland Drive (M.D.) is the movie that made me a David Lynch fan. Infinite Jest (I.J.) is the book that has made me a DFW fan. I mention this because the first time I saw M.D., I immediately rewatched it. Likewise for I.J. - as soon as I finished it, I flipped to the beginning and started again. This is a book so fractured in structure that it needs serious re-examination and puzzling over. M.D. and I.J. break up the story rather than direct telling, dropping clues and hints along the way. Th ...more

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Aug 02, 2011 Jason rated it really liked it

Shelves: groupthink, for-kindle, reviewed

There don’t appear to be enough reviews of Infinite Jest on Goodreads so I thought I’d go ahead and write another one.

Anyway, I kind of hated this book. I hated that its characters are essentially parodies of themselves which limited my ability to connect with them on any meaningful level. I hated the lack of linguistic nuance with which most of the characters speak, particularly given that the predominant speech pattern here is rife with superfluous clauses and multiple possessives, a pattern n There don’t appear to be enough reviews of Infinite Jest on Goodreads so I thought I’d go ahead and write another one.

Anyway, I kind of hated this book. I hated that its characters are essentially parodies of themselves which limited my ability to connect with them on any meaningful level. I hated the lack of linguistic nuance with which most of the characters speak, particularly given that the predominant speech pattern here is rife with superfluous clauses and multiple possessives, a pattern not normally attributable to prepubescent teens, especially. I hated the long, meandering passages that go nowhere and refuse to be ostensibly related to anything or be placed in any sort of clear context, much like this review. In fact, often times reading this book was like trying to follow a conversation wherein all the participants have attention deficit disorder. Infinite Jest is a book that needs like some major dose of Ritalin® stat.

But except so in spite of all that, Infinite Jest was still able to pretty much blow me away. Set in the over-commercialized, not-too-distant future, Infinite Jest is primarily about anhedonia and the psychological pathway that leads from it to its secondary effects: loneliness, depression, social detachment, obsession with whatever’s available to fill the void, and finally to addiction and dependency. There’s a passage in IJ about a M*A*S*H addict (yeah, you heard that right) who becomes slowly but increasingly reliant on his M*A*S*H episodes to displace the anhedonia from which he suffers until the point at which the M*A*S*H episodes actually become the sole focal point of his day rather than its mere highlight, and eventually his need to see M*A*S*H supplants all his other basic needs to the extent that his entire survival practically hinges upon his capacity to sit down and watch M*A*S*H. Along with the rest of the narrative, this passage is written with an underlying sense of humor that rounds off its depressing edge and makes the whole thing almost life-affirming.

What I loved about the M*A*S*H story is twofold. First, it serves as a junction box for the theme of addiction and its relation, not just to drug and alcohol dependency in Infinite Jest, but also to the characters’ reactions to James Incandeza’s lethal Entertainment. And second, it provides some understanding into my own addictive nature, specifically with this fucking website. Goodreads is like crack for an Extrovert, and while I’m not equating that type of addiction to one with drugs or alcohol, the reason I want to hug David Foster Wallace as much as I do is that he is generous with his inclusion criteria. He doesn’t say, “No, you’re not as bad off as the rest of us because you only chug NyQuil® occasionally when you’re in a rut.” He says, instead, “Yes, you can somewhat relate to where we’re coming from because you can identify with this one minor trait of dependency, so please come and join us!” And so but in the interest of avoiding the inevitable fate to which that M*A*S*H guy ultimately succumbs, I’m going to just log off Goodreads for a couple of weeks.

ESFJ out! ...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews-5-stars, dfw, exert-yourself, read-2012, reviews

100 Words in Search of Precision

In the spirit of "Star Trek”, DFW boldly wanders through the darkness of the modern world, holding a candle, recording everything he witnesses in minute, almost helmet-cam detail.

He isn’t just preoccupied by or satisfied with the absurdity and comic potential of the world.

He wants to scrutinise it, diagnose it and cure it.

Out of the minutiae comes meaning and illumination.

It’s up to the reader to sift through the minutiae, to discard the mullock and the fool’s gol ...more

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Dec 01, 2012 Megan Baxter rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I feel like I just ran head-on into the brick wall that is Infinite Jest, and my head isn't quite clear enough to figure out what I thought yet.

I mean, it was a slow-motion run, given that I started this back in December and read it very, very slowly. I've taken a lot of time to think about it. Why don't I know what I think?

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the recent changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, ...more

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May 22, 2011 Nick rated it it was amazing

Shelves: rightly-revered-ritings

An encyclopaedic trawl through human consciousness, Infinite Jest is an entire universe of a book formed of head-bendingly-encyclopedic magnitudes of ideas and detail. There is a core to this universe of ideas -of literature, mathematics, philosophy, comedy, science and humanity- which is inherently tragic - of people lost in their time, searching... Grappling with ‘what it is to be a fucking human being’, living with addiction. It's a tale about the pernicious nature of addiction, the human con An encyclopaedic trawl through human consciousness, Infinite Jest is an entire universe of a book formed of head-bendingly-encyclopedic magnitudes of ideas and detail. There is a core to this universe of ideas -of literature, mathematics, philosophy, comedy, science and humanity- which is inherently tragic - of people lost in their time, searching... Grappling with ‘what it is to be a fucking human being’, living with addiction. It's a tale about the pernicious nature of addiction, the human condition of solitude, and the pursuit of connection and purpose in a world that often appears inexplicable and absurd.

And the debris of what it is to be a human being, in this incredible book, is magnified, dragged into the light for every pore to be exposed; every complex, core or ancillary detail; every astonishingly beautiful and devastatingly brutal, hideous and abhorrent detail of the minutiae of existence and consciousness exposed like a raw mass of nerves to be prodded and poked - to extract a mere giggle or, a life changing realisation.

It’s also devastatingly hilarious, full of depth and compassion; is profoundly moving and ridiculously rewarding. For everything good about life and art is in here... This is, for me, what literature is and does.

Infinite Jest’s back-of-book-blurb reads:

‘Somewhere in the not so distant future residents of Ennet House, a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the nearby Enfield Tennis Academy are ensnared in the search for the master copy of Infinite Jest, a movie said to be so dangerously entertaining its viewers become entranced and expire in a state of catatonic bliss’

And but so at the heart of the book is a quest for the ‘master copy of Infinite Jest’.

Readers of Infinite Jest are themselves questing - connecting disparate plot strands, which echo through the episodic pieces, with the shifting chronology; the narrative perspective and the location(s). The master copy of Infinite Jest is the gravitational pull in this universe. An invisible force - for it is mainly absent throughout the story. What is omnipresent throughout is the interaction of reader and text and this is what makes it so ‘addictive’ and so compelling to read.

In a radio interview DFW explained that Infinite Jest is structurally based on a fractal object called a Sierpinski Gasket - smaller triangles inside other triangles:

http://www.zeuscat.com/andrew/chaos/s...

...although apparently ‘after editing’ is was, according to DFW ‘a sort of lopsided Sierpinski Gasket’.

This book -thematically and structurally- is utterly compelling. Infinite Jest shook me out of a malaise; took me out of myself and lifted me up to see many aspects of my life in the same gruesome detail. I’m a better person for reading it - I hope.

Engaging with this beautifully-strange, complex and inventive book Is time well spent. My first reading was a dizzying enthralling experience - I couldn’t comprehend everything but I was enthralled. I complimented this first reading with research. With a deeper understanding of the book now, and of the literary tricks-’n-tools used, I’m veryveryvery much looking forward to revisiting this mad and fantastic universe of ideas. (I’m making a heart shape sign with my hands)
10 stars. ...more

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Nov 30, 2012 Mala rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: best-sellers, all-time-favourites, post-modern-fiction, american-writers

"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."

Disclaimer: This is not a proper meat & potatoes review discussing plot, spoilers, alternate reality etc, etc, rather this is like Gately's shoddy cooking- boiled hot dogs, dense damp meat loaf...my poor food for thought!

The IJ experience:

I'll confess at the outset that, there were times, when this book gave me the screaming meemies, the howling fantods- but true to my completist pledge; just like Don Gately, I plodded on.

Cons ...more

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Jul 18, 2012 Matthew rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, read-in-2012, gnostic, cinema, media-studies, encyclopedic-melancholic, the-cave, encyclopedic-narratives, american, dfw

A recollection

Infinite Jest may very well be one of the best books of the last 30 years. It concerns the elusive search for entertainment in our lives, elusive because entertainment becomes commodity and lacks meaning in many lives, and sometimes distracts from looking for meaning in our lives. And yet, a novel is meant to distract, to seduce, to pull you in to its world. In Wallace's future everyone is trying to escape it seems, one way or the other, from the horrifying face of reality and dea ...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Gary the Bookworm rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Infinite Jestis an extraordinary accomplishment, for both its author, David Foster Wallace and his readers, most of whom demonstrate some degree of compulsion to stay with it. Difficult to categorize, it clocks in at almost 1100 pages and has been hailed as a post-modern classic. Told in what appears to be randomly-arranged episodes, it recounts the travails of the epically dysfunctional Incandenza family, founders of an elite tennis academy, sometime in the near-future, and their neighbors

Infinite Jestis an extraordinary accomplishment, for both its author, David Foster Wallace and his readers, most of whom demonstrate some degree of compulsion to stay with it. Difficult to categorize, it clocks in at almost 1100 pages and has been hailed as a post-modern classic. Told in what appears to be randomly-arranged episodes, it recounts the travails of the epically dysfunctional Incandenza family, founders of an elite tennis academy, sometime in the near-future, and their neighbors, addicts of every stripe and color who inhabit a rehab center down the hill from them. Reading it is something like channel-surfing in a time machine.

The Incandenza patriarch, a film maker, is responsible for an entertainment video so powerful that viewers expire as they watch it. A group of Québécois terrorists seek to gain control of the video for political reasons. Countering their effort is the government of ONAS (Organization North American States) a corporate-dominated conflation of the former nations of the US, Canada, and Mexico. Subsidized Time has replaced the months of the year and the president of this reconstituted entity is a pop singer-turned-politician named Gentile who demonstrates both intellectual deficits and ethical lapses.

The narration shifts as each of a seemingly endless array of characters takes center stage. As disparate as they seem, discernible patterns emerge as we read about them. Most share terrifying personal histories and, in order to ameliorate their emotional pain, they have developed debilitating drug dependencies and a host of neuroses and/or depression. Wallace spares us nothing as he conjures up the various treatment options for substance abuse and the events leading up to it. We read about harrowing tales of child abuse, incest, addiction, denial, exploitation and betrayal. Part of his artistry is that he assumes a tone which suggests both irony and earnestness-a kind of sarcastic sincerity which seems to be both appropriate-and wildly inappropriate-at the same time.

As I read, I couldn't stop thinking about Walt Whitman and his Leaves of Grass. Whitman's barbaric yawp was a celebration of the promise of America in the Nineteenth Century. Wallace's vision of America at the close of the Twentieth Century is dramatically different. Whitman's individualism has morphed into a desperate alienation. Drug addiction has gone mainstream. Suburban Moms are as apt to abuse drugs as ghetto teenagers. 12-Step programs are available for overeaters, alcoholics, gamblers, compulsive shoppers and a myriad of other obsessives. Sports figures use dope-and deny it-as they strive for mastery only to discover that their achievements are hollow. For Wallace, the one common thread in contemporary America is the sense that something critical-perhaps undefinable-is lacking. His dystopian vision of the future seems eerily prescient. While he avoids preaching, he isn't afraid to pose some very tough questions in this harrowing, intermittently hilarious, and, ultimately, heartbreaking journey into the soul of modern America.

...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Ayaa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourites, dystopia, 1001, dfw, post-modernism

So to borrow from a great comment once on youtube, "Any motherfucking hipster think they got this, is motherfuckin lying!!"

Now that is out of the way, this is a massive 1079-page book with 200 pages of endnotes in tiny font and passages that goes on for ages. First time I started it it was last March I read the first 17 pages, closed the book, took a nap and woke up as good as new. Second time around took me 3 months to get past the first 250 pages and it was still this dense-I-have-no-idea-wha So to borrow from a great comment once on youtube, "Any motherfucking hipster think they got this, is motherfuckin lying!!"

Now that is out of the way, this is a massive 1079-page book with 200 pages of endnotes in tiny font and passages that goes on for ages. First time I started it it was last March I read the first 17 pages, closed the book, took a nap and woke up as good as new. Second time around took me 3 months to get past the first 250 pages and it was still this dense-I-have-no-idea-what-you-want-to-say, but then around like 320-350 page magic happened and I was hooked. It was still hard don't get me wrong specially to my english-isn't-my-native-language-self, but it was worth it. The first book i ever took a pen and kept writing in the margins all relevant and irrelevant ramblings. Good news is I'll read it again and again and again, bad news is I have to! you feel compelled once you hit the 981 page (yes the last 200 pages are endnotes i wasn't lying you know...) to go back to page 1! it's a dis-ease.
Helpful references:
http://www.wallacewiki.com/david-fost...
http://wiki.ursinus.edu/index.php/Inf...
and for the second reading may be:
http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/...

To me it felt like two people have wrote Infinite Jest, this magnificent brilliant, messy, over detailed, beast. There is the pretentious Wallace that wants to write a hard book that is for the reader that actually reads (not the type that reads and runs according to Salinger), one of the best writers/voices of his generation and whats not. And then there is the DFW that is telling simple stories and observations about the world around him. Where everything is only vague and implied, some kind of a whisper in your ear and you're not entirely sure whether you heard it or not. His unique style of telling a story, his wicked sense of humor, all of his characters (there are dozen of them) that are so perfectly portrayed to show how imperfect they truly are, they are cruel and grotesque, nice and humble, they are able to make you lose your faith in humanity, and restore it in the same page. The way he tells a story is he finds the most complex way to tell it, he'll shove a simple situation down your throat, leave it there, hangs you to dry, goes and does his thing, drawn you in personalized descriptions, tells you their family history, going back and forth, mathematical equations, chemical expertise, some more family secrets, goes back to base touch up some details, by that point your own imagination of the scenes and those ridiculously humanized characters and his own subtle telling are so intertwined they are inseparable, like you both have built it from scratch, and you're emotionally attached to them all you wanna do is jump in and say it'll all be okay knowing full well it won't. And it changes the way you look at people, how much we don't actually know about all those who surround us, like what could be their stories and how much can you know someone, like really know someone.

So what is it all about? it's about entertainment and addiction and desire, desperation, witty, genius, and fart jokes(too many perhaps...), it has a plot, and subplots, and sub-subplots, a maddening conclusion. All in all it's a sad book about sad people, brutally honest, genuine and personal, by a brilliant writer, that knew about sadness himself (after all he eliminated his own map), which makes me really sad to even start to think about him.

What it kept coming back to (in toto), what all this was about, for me it was about empathy. how you are thrown into the back row of denial, with cigarette smoke in the air and an addict on the podium sharing their story, and it's teleportation you're no longer here holding a book and reading fiction, you are there, either sitting your face covered in linen in the back rows, or pore-range close, you take their stories and you sit their and you do, empathize. and it makes me think of Holden Caulfield asking the cabbie where do the ducks go when the pond freezes over?!

I read this book because of Jesse and Dean from Liberal arts (2012), and the raving reviews on Goodreads, but still mainly Jesse and Dean.
...more

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