Infinite jest : a novel

(1 review)

A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are. Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human - and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.

15 editions

Will Sargent reviewed Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Review of 'Infinite Jest' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

In some ways, the investment of time and energy it takes to read Infinite Jest results in the people who've read it wanting to make a value statement about how great it is. Look at the vocabulary! And the footnotes! Look at the sprawling interconnections! Look at how BIG it is!

And yes, it is big, and erudite, and DFW was very smart and had a big vocabulary and clearly read lots. But here's the thing.

It's cribbed. You can feel when he's writing on his own, and when he's writing based off a movie he saw, a jokes he retold, the books he's copying, even the Monty Python skits. This stands out even more once the stuff that ISN'T cribbed comes out -- when he writes about depression, you can feel the walls melt as he stands there, trying to make you see something unseeable -- and then he's …

In some ways, the investment of time and energy it takes to read Infinite Jest results in the people who've read it wanting to make a value statement about how great it is. Look at the vocabulary! And the footnotes! Look at the sprawling interconnections! Look at how BIG it is!

And yes, it is big, and erudite, and DFW was very smart and had a big vocabulary and clearly read lots. But here's the thing.

It's cribbed. You can feel when he's writing on his own, and when he's writing based off a movie he saw, a jokes he retold, the books he's copying, even the Monty Python skits. This stands out even more once the stuff that ISN'T cribbed comes out -- when he writes about depression, you can feel the walls melt as he stands there, trying to make you see something unseeable -- and then he's back up and running again, and all the vocabulary, qualifications and cleverness in the world won't stop you from seeing that in the end, it doesn't mean shit. It's the words of a man who knows he's not saying anything, and is hoping that maybe -- if he keeps talking long enough -- something will matter.

Of course the book chronologically ends with Hal unable to speak, crippled and inarticulate. Of course the actual end of the book signifies nothing. Of course there are hundreds and hundreds of footnotes with their own footnotes attached, each of them drawing smaller and smaller circles. It's all the same. It's all lost. It's an infinite jest in the purest sense of the word; a book that is itself a joke.