Infinite Jest

by Wallace, David Foster
ISBN: 9780316066525
5 (5)
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Used - Trade Paperback - 9780316066525

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Overview

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.
  • Format: TradePaperback
  • Author: Wallace, David Foster
  • ISBN: 9780316066525
  • Condition: Used
  • Dimensions: 9.20 x 1.90
  • Number Of Pages: 1104
  • Publication Year: 2006

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  • Its difficulty is proportionate to its payoff.

    Evan D. - 2 years 6 months ago

    What is it about? It's about tennis. It's also about drugs, sobriety, film history, and a gang of wheelchair-bound assassins (among other things). Somehow, though, David Foster Wallace skillfully ties all of them together. It has footnotes (1). It takes place in a future where years are subsidized (Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar, Year of the Whopper, etc.) and divides its time between a tennis academy and a halfway house for recovering addicts. It also deals with an ultra-rare movie featuring a woman so beautiful, seeing her face causes insanity (2), the grief process (3), and how global politics and nuclear war can be reenacted in a tennis game. It's dense. You'll be confused at first. Keep reading. Read the footnotes. Keep reading. It's a hard read, but it's incredibly rewarding. You'll want to reread it. You'll keep thinking about it. Keep reading. (1) Lots of footnotes. Seriously (a). (2) "There's noooo business like shoooow business..." (3) And how to cheat it. (a) Like, footnotes within footnotes. Often stretching for pages at a time. Be prepared to use multiple bookmarks.

    HPB Staff Review

  • Emotional But Also Hilarious

    David D. - 3 years 6 months ago

    In an alternate future where the president of North America is a Vegas crooner and time itself is sponsored, tennis prodigy Hal Incandenza is rejected from university when his attempts at honest human interaction are misinterpreted as a psychotic episode. How did he -- and this world -- get to this point? After this first scene, most of the novel takes place in flashbacks to November YDAU (Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment -- sponsored time, remember) in a sprawling and satiric plot that includes Alcoholics Anonymous, wheelchair-bound Quebecois separatists, and a video so entertaining that people die watching it on endless repeat. Throughout the novel, David Foster Wallace questions our ability to distract ourselves with entertainment by repeatedly daring the reader to laugh at the ridiculous details of horrifying events. (Only one of many examples: the president turns the border between Quebec and New England into a toxic waste dump where giant mutant hamsters roam wild.) At its heart, IJ's message is that all modern ills (drug abuse, family dysfunction, poor foreign relations) are borne from thoughtless self-indulgence, and it's amazing how many such ills DFW manages to connect. Laugh, cry, but most importantly, Engage and Think.

    HPB Staff Review

  • Just read it

    Ryan M. - 4 years 11 months ago

    I would recommend reading 'Broom of the System' before this, to get an appreciation for Wallace's style.

  • An amazing book

    Meghann S. - 5 years 3 months ago

    An intense and long book but if your like dry humor, weird plot twists, and beautifully written fiction than it is worth trying.

  • Well worth a lot of suffering

    Campbell C. - 5 years 11 months ago

    Tip top book, glad I didn’t try to read it too early in my life because I had wanted too. This is a very sill, very mature, preposterous book and not for the weak-willed.