To fully understand what Wallace was up to, the book bears being read, and reread, with Talmudic focus and devotion. For many Wallace readers this is asking too much. For many Wallace fans this is asking too much. And thus the Wallace factions have formed—the Nonfictionites versus the Jestians versus the Short-Storyists—even though every faction recognizes the centrality of Infinite Jest to his body of work. The fact that twenty years have gone by and we still do not agree what this novel means, or what exactly it was trying to say, despite saying (seemingly) everything about everything, is
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