David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest"

[tonywalt]

Great review. How does it compare to War and Peace or is there no comparison- just length? LOL!

It is the War and Peace of our generation. It is The Comic Satire of Modern Life-there is no other in the same league.

[Zagreus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJpfK7l404I Rumour has it this song is inspired by Infinite Jest, though I haven't ever read the book and can't say whether it's actually so. Thought you guys might appreciate it nevertheless. Cheers.

[Bibliophile79]

Read it about two years ago, it was alright

[ladderandbucket]

Didn't like it much. Obviously I'm in a minority, but I don't think I missed anything. The theme of the book was quite interesting - I had more fun pondering its complexities than I did actually reading it - but it was hardly worth 1300 pages of my time.

I should have trusted my instincts and bailed out early. Somebody told me it picked up after 200 pages. Elsewhere I read it took 400 pages. IMO it doesn't really start until 600 pages in - but the second half only looks good in comparison to the first.

There are flashes of brilliance. DFW had intelligence and talent, which he often used to be deliberately annoying. His style feels like a magnification of everything I don't like about Don Dellilo - unlikable characters, unconvincing dialogue, ill-advised experimentation - with none of Dellilo's poetry. In fact, I suspect DFW had not much appreciation of poetry at all.

His essays are great though. And yes, I'm an idiot for spending so much time on a book I didn't like.

ETA - the most infuriating thing is that, because the book was so complex and inconclusive, the first thing I wanted to do when I finished, was to start reading it again and try to work out what happened.

I'm sure this was DFW's intention as it reflects one of his major themes - our joyless addiction to entertainment. There is a running joke in the book about pseudointellectual art films that play tricks on the audience. It's pretty clear that DFW knew exactly what he was up to. He employs a lot of this kind of metafictional trickery in the book, and in this respect it has a kind of genius. I finished reading it a week ago, and it's obviously still in my mind. But I don't feel as if this justifies the many tedious hours I spent wading through it.