From the Bookshelf of Infinite Jest – 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: “To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub.”…more
[close] “To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub.”

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Main Discussion Threads

Infinite Jest Discussion: pgs. 3-85
By Kris , Group Jester · 139 posts · 168 views

last updated Dec 30, 2014 02:05PM

Infinite Jest Discussion: pgs. 902-981
By Kris , Group Jester · 24 posts · 97 views

last updated Nov 14, 2013 01:14AM

What Members Thought

Jul 16, 2016 Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics, fiction, post-modern, american-20th-c, favorites, american-21st-c, novels

Admittedly, Infinite Jest is a tough book. You start the book having no clue when it is happening and who the various characters are. There is stuff that happens in the opening pages that explains events at the end of the book, albeit over 1000 pages and hundreds of footnotes away. I'd say it is quite elliptical. That being said, it is an amazing piece of literature. I forced myself through the first 300 and then 400 pages and at about 500 pages I finally hit my stride and was able to follow thr Admittedly, Infinite Jest is a tough book. You start the book having no clue when it is happening and who the various characters are. There is stuff that happens in the opening pages that explains events at the end of the book, albeit over 1000 pages and hundreds of footnotes away. I'd say it is quite elliptical. That being said, it is an amazing piece of literature. I forced myself through the first 300 and then 400 pages and at about 500 pages I finally hit my stride and was able to follow through to 1071 (yes this was the British printing not the American one). I loved the characters and the high comedy that is here as well as all the wacky situations in the drug rehab centre and the tennis academy. The president reminded me a lot of the current American regime (I could almost see the Statue of Liberty carrying a Trump Tower logo across her forehead or maybe a Chick-Fil-A sign) and the text was occasionally of incredible beauty and insight.

Take this passage from the Marathe/Steeply dialog:
“Someone who had authority, or should have had authority and did not exercise authority. I do not know. But someone sometime let you forget how to choose, and what.Someone let your peoples forget it was the only thing of importance, choosing. So completely forgetting that when I say choose to you you make expressions with your face such as “Herrrrrre we are going.” Someone taught that temples are for fanatics only and took away the temples and promised there was no need for temples. And now there is no shelter. And no map for finding the shelter of a temple. And you all stumble about in the dark, this confusion of permissions.”

This is such a perceptive description of why Drumpf was elected. A vast swath of Americans are driven by short attention soans, knee-jerk reactionism based on their inability to choose and their reliance of "alternative facts." President J. Gently is eerily similar to Drumpf - the coming destruction of Standing Rock by the pipeline (from which Drumpf himself - oh, sorry his son - will profit), how is that different from the Concavity? DFW's book can be read as much of a warning againsy Drumpf as Roth's The Plot Against America or Lewis' It Can't Happen Here. And I digress...An important book for the 21st C! And oh, so relevant!

I talked for a few hours to fellow Goodreads reading addict Nocturnalux and tried to get her convinced that this should be on her reading list. It remains for me a landmark work requiring infinite patience to get the reveal of the infinite joke at the end. ...more

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Aug 01, 2023 Arul rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourites

A book — an amalgamation — of pain. Every character is in someway suffering. Alcoholics. Clinical depressives. You name it.

It has it's dark humour moments too. I laughed at this so much.

"a psych ward, where brisk good cheer would amount to a kind of gloating. This is why doctors on psych wards so often wear a vaguely fake frown of puzzled concentration"

I oft quote this to my clinical depressive friend instead of giving him toxic optimism or universally appealing wisdom.

"That sometimes huma

A book — an amalgamation — of pain. Every character is in someway suffering. Alcoholics. Clinical depressives. You name it.

It has it's dark humour moments too. I laughed at this so much.

"a psych ward, where brisk good cheer would amount to a kind of gloating. This is why doctors on psych wards so often wear a vaguely fake frown of puzzled concentration"

I oft quote this to my clinical depressive friend instead of giving him toxic optimism or universally appealing wisdom.

"That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt."

David Foster Wallace is admirable, hyper-intelligent, always chose the good in people. I look up to him. I watched all of his interviews. And also the biopic — The End of the tour: where Wallace and his interviewer has serious intelligent discussions, and discussions on how fun Die Hard is. (Sadly, never seen it!) He even said to his interviewer (David Lipsky) when he's getting out of the car: to be a good person. In the movie he's portrayed as too sensitive for the world, and lives in solitude and won't easily accept interviews. I in some ways relate both to David Foster Wallace (Yes! Highly presumptuous) and his book — Infinite Jest. Wallace is a Television fanatic. He spent most of his time watching Television. It's even depicted in the movie, how Wallace is deeply immersed in television when it is on. (when he's not high) He even said in an interview the reason that he don't even have television in his home is because, if he had it, he will watch it all the time. And he even said entertainment is fun and an temporary escape but it in the long run it will surely turn out to be detrimental. He even depicted that in Infinite Jest. People are coveting over an entertainment capsule which is unlimited entertainment and some hard-core entertainment fanatics watching this, strapped, and drooling. He showed the downside of the entertainment culture.

I actually spent most of my childhood watching television: rom-coms, oscar-winners, block-buster hits on Star movies (which is available in India) and HBO. And when I got my personal computer, I started to heavy-torrent, like a lot of movies. I download like fifteen movies per day. The torrents will be always on queue. All the great movies, Game of Thrones (in whichever quality I prefer). I deplete like fifteen giga-bytes/day. There was superfast internet on night-time. So, I usually start the downloads at night and watch the movies at day time. I remember watching these movies vividly: The Favourite (oscar-contestant by Emma Stone), The Curious case of Benjamin Button. Great movies. (+ Call me by your name,The shape of Water, Green Book) It's fun getting immersed in someone else's life or a great plot line not having to deal with life's shit. I even planned on spending eternity like this; until I ran out of great and really entertaining movies to watch. It's hard searching for a really good-entertainer for a while. It's just like Wallace told. It's dangerous in the long run. Makes you a drooling, dribbling, comatose, pathetic, cheetos-eating, dependent zombie in your parents' basement.

Chuck Palahnuik once said if someone gave Sylvia Plath and David Foster Wallace, less stress-inducing jobs to do, they would've been alive. He especially said this about Wallace that who wants to die in a belt around the neck on the patio when your book is printed out, and the copy is lying in the bathroom floor. Heart-breaking. But I think they both would've died either way. They're manic depressives for God sakes! Wallace even mentions talent as a dark gift. (I'm just gonna insert an Ernest Becker quote here) The road to creativity passes so close to the madhouse and often detours or ends there.

David Foster Wallace is actually an friend to me all through the book. The book required unbridled concentration at times. It will be so hard to keep up. It's funny. And it's insightful. Darkly humourous and philosophical. Some lines are deeply resonating, especially when you're in pain/anguish yourself. ...more

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Mar 25, 2014 Rebecca Peterhansen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Lovely, I've been meaning to read this for a long while. However, I feel like I just can't relate to the characters or their situations. The book is amazing and there are a million wonderful reviews about it. A marvelous work nonetheless. ...more

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