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 Fulfilling Experience Mar 05, 2010
This is a great book for rigorous readers.
It's long on pages, short on descriptive dialogue, generous in unreliable points of view, and requiring of footnotes.
"Infinite Jest" asks tough questions and answers with profound insights - insights that are only available through the many wild and varied perspectives.
The book is satisfying for the patient and diligent who can get through each word using the end notes without fixating on literary analysis.
Once the right reading rhythm or hook is found for the particular reader there is something in this book for everyone.
The crudest available conceptualization of "Infinite Jest" would be 35 percent "Confederacy of Dunces," 35 percent "The Sound and the Fury," 10 percent upper division physics, 10 percent upper division game theory, and the remaining ten percent a mix of philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and history.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Don't take the endnotes seriously! Feb 26, 2010
It's not that often that I read a book which I have to put down in order to wipe the tears from my eyes -- from laughing. A book that a year later can still bring a smile when I think of certain parts. And although I gave it away after reading it, I'm now thinking of buying another copy to read again.
I think what may have tripped up so many of the people who hated this book is that they felt that they should be rewarded in some way for having made the 1000+ page trek. There's nothing at the end that makes reading this book worthwhile. No message, no deep philosophy, no characters that go through some satisfying, soul-deep transformation. It's Jest, folks, Infinite Jest. So enjoy, don't take it seriously, and feel that you got a bargain when you bought it: after all, it's less than $0.01/page...new.
I can honestly say (and often do) that at 1,000+ pages, I was sorry to see it end. I could have gone on for another 1,000 (in two volumes, hopefully).
By the way, the book has no ending that ties everything up. It's infinite, get it?
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Tough sledding Feb 06, 2010
A difficult book to unravel at first but once I found the rythm of the process
there were many rewards.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Just read it. Really. Feb 01, 2010
How can I review this book? This is like nothing else I've ever read--I hope this is only because I'm not well-read, because the idea that I never will read anything else like this is a very sad idea. Who else could write in excess of 1100 pages in which very little ever actually happens and have it be completely irresistible?
Wallace's voice and personality in this book are inimitable. The book, for this reason, is undeniably funny, because DFW is funny, but I can't help but think that the reviews that call it things like a "screwball comedy" are completely missing the point. The book, to me, is almost indescribably sad.
The question "is it really possible to know another person's heart" is so trite that I pretty much won't read any book whose review or blurb contains it--but this is what this book asks, and it asks it better than anything else whose author seems to have set out to write a book asking it, and the humor with which it asks it only makes the question itself more heartbreaking. Actually, this isn't really the question at all; the question is a lot better than this--how do people communicate with each other at all, what masks do they hide themselves behind and how do the choices they make and the things they give themselves away to cut them off from each other--and of course the book does all this infinitely better than I can do it here.
This is probably the aspect of the book (the professional conversationalist bit, the wraiths, &c.--although this is not a book that is easily broken down into "this bit pertains to this theme and that bit to that", and it recurs in many guises) that resonates with me the most--but there is so much more. Read it yourself to see what of its questions resonates with you. Something will.
It may be mostly a question of personality, whether or not DFW's decidedly-idiosyncratic style appeals to you--but if it does there is nothing like it. Read it. Then read it again. I loved this book, obviously, the first time through, mourned when it ended (after 1100 pages!); I'm now about a quarter of a way through the second time, and it's almost like reading a different book. Scenes that were pretty interesting, kind of funny and faintly bewildering the first time are downright rich on the second reading, taking on such new importance that a book that was incredibly powerful on the first reading is now somehow knitting itself together into something even more cohesive. Amazing.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Stunning.... Jan 25, 2010
Well it took me two months ! I`ve seen quotes of five days...seven days. Speed read a book of this stature ? !
This is a work to savour, a truly original novel that has to be slowly absorbed, paragraphs re-read and characters revisited to maximise the full impact of this astonishing and stunning piece of writing from the late great David Foster Wallace. In fact knowing the author`s fate, makes it even more poignant as one begins to understand just what was going on in his brilliant mind.
No need to discuss the themes and storylines as others have done it so articulately. So it is left for me to describe it as THE reading experience of a lifetime. Yet it shouldn`t be...it is a mark of the writer`s talent that he could keep the standard of his work going for almost 1100 pages of the smallest print one is likely to encounter. That must equate to what.... almost 2000 pages in `normal` type ? It should have frustrated, it should have bored at times, it should have seemed pretentious with words used that you can`t imagine even a dictionary holding. Yet not once did I think that DFW was trying to show how smart he was, which must be irresistible for one who actually WAS that smart. The book captures you and is as addictive as the addictions we read of in the pages, we learn to love the characters and care about them, we are momentarily irritated when the next chapter moves on to another of the protagonists and we are then absorbed in their problems...until we are then back where we were before,totally enveloped in the previous chapter`s character`s struggle. That should have been so frustrating...but it works brilliantly. That the whole is achieved with such spectacular results is I`d guess an outcome few if any other authors are capable of...I`ve certainly never read anything like this before.
I`m new to Wallace...the book is some 13 plus years old. How I`ve managed to miss his work thus far is baffling, as this should have been the talk of the literary world as we entered the new century. I now intend to make up for lost time with his other work...sadly with the knowledge that he died possibly before he even reached his full potential.
Infinite Jest...If you are reading these reviews before you decide, don`t be put off by some of the criticisms, rest assured you will not regret reading a single page of the 1079, and I defy anyone who enjoys it not to commit to reading the same magnificent 1079 pages again.
It really is that good.
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