Book like infinite jest

Wallace wrote to a friend that the fuckers cut by 600 pages from the first version. Reading david foster wallaces latest novel, infinite jest, i couldnt help thinking at times about 7yearold seymour glasss booklength letter home from camp, published in the new. Buy infinite jest 01 by foster wallace, david isbn. Except maybe for money, and id have to really need the money. Its not a stretch or very original to call infinite jest the defining work of the 1990s. What i gather is that dfw wrote a clever book so people can feel smart by reading it. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

My copy of the book is sawn in three, abused, with smudges of food across its pages, from when i couldnt stop. Develop lowerback pain from literal, not figurative, weight of book. I stupidly didnt read infinite jest until dfw died, but when i did, it was a revelation. In fact, having to take such a long time reading the book makes it even more satisfying when you finish it. Goodreads members who liked infinite jest also liked. There are jokes that take many pages to set up and the pay offs are laugh out loud hilarious. Because it is set in an imagined near future, many of the historical events to which infinite jest alludes are not real, although in some cases similar events have actually transpired since the book was published. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt.

Though at times the book can be hysterical like no other book, the heart of the book is unspeakably sad. I am somewhat tempted to immediately start again, since the end is the beginning and you really cant pick it all up in a single read, but if anyone has a good followup or comedown read suggestion id be glad to hear. Most of the action of the novel takes place in the year of the depend adult undergarment depend is a real brand of adult nappies. I felt like i was reading someone inside my head, and felt an. It is rare to find a reader who is lukewarm about this book. Despite being built up as the literary wunderkind of his generation, despite having been widely acclaimed as the author of one of greatest novels of the 20th century, he could not escape the realization that, at least as a novelist, he was a poser and a literary charlatan. As the novel unfolds, various individuals, organizations.

Best infinite jest quotes selected by thousands of our users. The point is, if infinite jest really is the best novel theyve ever read, thats a problem. Infinite jest by david foster wallace, paperback barnes. The infinite jest community note includes chapterbychapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quizzes written by community members like you. While i cant read the book not even the end notes for you, i. Its a big very big, bold, complex book that divided critics yet nevertheless landed with a thud on that list of novels everyone intends to read someday. Little, brown sent out cryptic postcards to publications teasing the book with phrases like infinite pleasure and infinite writer. Infinite jest might be the most polarizing novel ive ever read. Infinite jest comes, in time, to seem like some great clattering. When people do tackle it, they often give up within the first 200 pages or soone of the most difficult parts of. George saunders civilwarland in bad decline, neal stephenson snow crash. There is stuff that happens in the opening pages that explains events at the end of the book, albeit over pages and hundreds of footnotes away.

Beyond the ease with which one can lookup footnotes, consider the following. A gargantuan, mindaltering comedy about the pursuit of happiness in america set in an addicts. Once you start connecting the whole thing together, youll want to read it over and over its a lot like the entertainment other books that are lighter but somewhat similar. To talk about infinite jest means you have to bring up the length of the novel, the immense use of end notes there are 388some spanning several pages, and atypical use of grammar and punctuation. Heres how i finally read infinite jest and how you can, too. One of the most significant examples of wallace predicting a future event is the development of videocalling, which is called videophony in the book. With its baroque subplots, zany political satire, morbid, cerebral humor and astonishing range of cultural references, wallaces brilliant but somewhat bloated dirigible of a second novel after the b. When someone recommends you read this book, ask them how much virginia woolf, marguerite yourcenar, william trevor, or james baldwin theyve read. I remembered seeing this author in interviews and wanting to dive in this book. Steven asin infinite jest is the perfect book for the kindle paperwhite. Jest is a messy, deliberately infuriating, trailing comet of a novel.

But why are so many insufferable people in love with infinite jest. In 2004, chad harbach declared that, in retrospect, infinite jest now looks like the central american novel of the past thirty years, a dense star for lesser work to orbit. Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, infinite jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. What makes the books success even more noteworthy is that it. Today, i turned the last page of infinite jest, around a week late for my deadline. When i hear things like, only for the most patient or be prepared to spend a lot of time. In a sprawling, wild, superhyped magnum opus, david foster wallace fulfills the promise of his precocious novel the broom of the system.

Infinite jest is perhaps the great postmodern american novel for many reasons. If nothing else, the success of infinite jest is proof that the great american hype machine can still work wonders, in terms of sales. It is designed as a resource for potential readers who fear infinite jest is plotless. Maybe this is the joke, that its turning postmodernisms critical methods onto a critique of postmodernism itself. You start the book having no clue when it is happening and who the various characters are.

Wallace was in the midst of writing infinite jest, and his comments to mccaffery on fiction read like a cheat sheet for the book he had going. When i was asking my friends on what i should read next, they suggested infinite jest by david foster wallace. In 2009, a challenge was thrown out to people to read the novel over the summer. That you will become way less concerned with what other people. Infinite jest by david foster wallace year of glad year of the depend adult undergarment. Like most big works by important authors, the novel has never lacked for admirers. Word count does not imply quality, gravity, or beauty. Suggest change of waitingroom reading material from people to multiple copies of infinite jest. So if you like the essay, id suggest you get the book. The novel infinite jest is the story of this addictive entertainment, and in particular how it affects a boston halfway house for recovering addicts and a nearby tennis academy, whose students have many budding addictions of their own. Find books like infinite jest from the worlds largest community of readers.

I was thinking of starting the prophet, mostly because it. Just over twenty years ago, david foster wallace published his bestknown and most frustrating novel, infinite jest. I am reminded of the street theft of the jarvik arti. 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. Garbage, genius, or both 3 ways of looking at infinite jest. You can peruse their how to read infinite jest post here. Reading it is like being in a room with a brilliant, obsessive and strange friend who will constantly challenge and enrage you. The length of infinite jest should not be an obstacle to finding pleasure in it. And here, really, is the enigma of david foster wallaces work generally and infinite jest specifically. Its like wallace was trying to ward off any potential readers. Buy a cheap copy of infinite jest book by david foster wallace.

When the book was first published in 1996, the audio version wasnt available and to be honest, i was having too much fun in the 90s to be reading. David foster wallaces second novel is set in an absurd but agonizingly believable nearfuture, and it explores addiction, entertainment, pleasure, commerce, technology, and tennislots and lots of tennis. David foster wallaces magnum opus is definitely one of the most polarizing popular novels in recent memory. But this infinite jest summary guide may actually prove valuable to you at least, that is the hope. It is an exuberant, uniquely american exploration of the passions that make us human and one of those rare books that renew the. If one of your reading resolutions is to finally finish infinite jest, david foster wallaces mammoth novel, im here to help. I was aiming to train the model as to learn the themes and characters from the book, and convincingly imitate the authors writing style, while not overfitting to the text, ie. I like this theory, but it has one problem, which is that infinite jest is an obviously, unabashedly postmodern book. If no such convergence or projection occured to you, then the books failed for you.