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Original Essays | September 17, 2013

Lyanda Lynn Haupt: IMG Celebrate Fiercely: Creative Life in Wild Cities

1 comment By Lyanda Lynn Haupt

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Michael Toms for the iconic New Dimensions radio show. Toms, often called the... Continue »
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Infinite Jest: A Novel

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Infinite Jest: A Novel Cover

ISBN13: 9780316066525
ISBN10: 0316066524
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Autumn is lovely. Not only do the leaves turn the most astonishing hues, coloring the hills and valleys yellow, red, purple, but they're so happy, friendly even, chattering amongst themselves as they fall, full of compliments and encouragements, never forgetting the end is nigh but also, well, let's just enjoy this one beautiful day. And it is a good day, for over at Powell's you can buy two featured titles — and get a third absolutely free.

Review-A-Day

"Infinite Jest is a sprawling tour de force, which is often melancholy, funny and essayistic within the space of a few pages, and almost every page is rich with the local pleasures of Wallace's ability to render the ordinary in unusual and imaginative ways....Back Bay Books...should...be congratulated on having priced their edition at $10, a policy that will perhaps help to bring this rich, funny and ambitious novel to a wider audience." Stephen Burn, The Times Literary Supplement (read the entire TLS review)

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

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 part philosophical quest, romantic adventure, 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 renews the very idea of what a novel can do.

This tenth anniversary edition includes an Introduction by Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius).

Review:

"A virtuoso display of style....There is generous intelligence and authentic passion on every page." Arthur Sheppard, Time Magazine

Review:

"There's no doubt that Wallace's talent is immense and his imagination limitless. When he backs off and gives his narrative some breathing room, he emerges as a consistently innovative, sensitive, and intelligent writer." Dave Eggers, San Francisco Chronicle

Review:

"[T]his skeleton of satire is fleshed out with several domestically scaled narratives and masses of hyperrealistic quotidian detail. The overall effect is something like a sleek Vonnegut chassis wrapped in layers of post-millennial Zola." Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review

Review:

"Wallace's brilliant but somewhat bloated dirigible of a second novel will appeal to steadfast readers of Pynchon and Gaddis. But few others will have the stamina for it....[I]ngenious and often outrageously funny..." Publishers Weekly

Review:

"A work of genius...grandly ambitious, wickedly comic, a wild, surprisingly readable tour de force." Seattle Times

Review:

"If you can stand the extreme length, ignore the footnotes, and have a bed-desk to rest this tome on, this book can be fun....Distinct, idiomatic, wild, and crazy, this book is destined to have a cult following." Library Journal

Review:

"Well, there is nothing epic or infinite about this, although much that's repetitious or long....[T]his is not so much a novel of ideas as a novel of brand names and acronyms. They sweep past one's eye in a flutter that leaves only one thing to hope for, and that is style." Paul West, The Washington Post Book World

Review:

"[S]o few American writers show anything resembling Wallace's critical engagement with the popular culture that disowns them. At minimum, he's the funniest writer of his generation. I can't decide if I want his next book to be shorter or not." Jonathan Dee, Voice Literary Supplement

Review:

"Wallace has not so much written a novel as created a system, an intricately engineered internally consistent system that is fueled by his endless imagination, his pure verbal prowess and a language that looks familiar but feels utterly invented." David McLean, Boston Book Review

Synopsis:

"Infinite Jest" is the name of a movie said to be so entertaining that anyone who watches it loses all desire to do anything but watch it. People die happily, viewing it in endless repetition. 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. As the novel unfolds, various individuals, organizations, and governments vie to obtain the master copy of "Infinite Jest" for their own ends, and the denizens of the tennis school and the halfway house are caught up in increasingly desperate efforts to control the movie — as is a cast including burglars, transvestite muggers, scam artists, medical professionals, pro football stars, bookies, drug addicts both active and recovering, film students, political assassins, and one of the most endearingly messed-up families ever captured in a novel.

On this outrageous frame hangs an exploration of essential questions about what entertainment is, and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment interacts with our need to connect with other humans; 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. The huge cast and multilevel narrative serve a story that accelerates to a breathtaking, heartbreaking, unforgettable conclusion. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human — and one of those rare books that renew the very idea of what a novel can do.

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About the Author

David Foster Wallace is the author of Infinite Jest, The Broom of the System, and Girl With Curious Hair. His essays and stories have appeared in Harper's, The New Yorker, Playboy, Paris Review, Premiere, Tennis, and The Review of Contemporary Fiction. Wallace has received the Whiting Award, the Lannan Award for Fiction, the Paris Review Prize for humor, the QPB Joe Savago New Voices Award, and an O. Henry Award.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 18 comments:
greengills, January 1, 2013 (view all comments by greengills)
It's probably a lot too late to rave about this swirling dystopian nightmare fantasy about entertainment, sobriety, tennis and the militant importance of grammar, but here I sit, clutching my well-loved copy, with dog eared pages bookmarks and web history full of Internet searches. The fractured fractalism of the stories, the narrative, the schizophrenic use of the language, the realism, the absurdity, the footnotes and errata, completely blew me away. I think this may have ruined reading forever, in the best possible way.
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naranja, January 1, 2013 (view all comments by naranja)
Hilarious and incredibly sad, enormous and never-ending (you'll be glad that's so), the book that simply is sublime. This is the only book I have ever laughed out loud at, multiple times (and any book that uses the word "puppet-a-clef" is pro in my book); yet Wallace balances this with ideas so melancholy and moving. Read it. Love it. I urge you to.
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popsb, January 1, 2013 (view all comments by popsb)
I first tried to read Infinite Jest in 1997. After perhaps 150 pages, I gave up, dismissing it as post-modern claptrap. Since then, it sat on one of my bookshelves, silently mocking me. I decided to read it this spring and was rewarded with some of the most beautiful, dense, allusive and painful writing that I have ever encountered. If to write a novel is to construct a world, then Wallace succeeded admirably. Read this patiently and you will be rewarded.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780316066525
Author:
Wallace, David Foster
Publisher:
Back Bay Books
Foreword by:
Eggers, Dave
Foreword:
Eggers, Dave
Subject:
General
Subject:
Compulsive behavior
Subject:
Addicts.
Subject:
Humorous Stories
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Copyright:
2006
Edition Number:
Reprint ed.
Edition Description:
Tenth Anniversa
Publication Date:
November 13, 2006
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Language:
English
Pages:
1079
Dimensions:
9.19x6.02x1.91 in. 2.57 lbs.
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Related Subjects

Featured Titles » Fall Reading
Featured Titles » General
Featured Titles » Literature
Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z
Fiction and Poetry » Science Fiction and Fantasy » A to Z

Infinite Jest: A Novel New Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$17.99 In Stock
Product details 1079 pages Back Bay Books - English 9780316066525 Reviews:
"Review A Day" by , "Infinite Jest is a sprawling tour de force, which is often melancholy, funny and essayistic within the space of a few pages, and almost every page is rich with the local pleasures of Wallace's ability to render the ordinary in unusual and imaginative ways....Back Bay Books...should...be congratulated on having priced their edition at $10, a policy that will perhaps help to bring this rich, funny and ambitious novel to a wider audience." (read the entire TLS review)
"Review" by , "A virtuoso display of style....There is generous intelligence and authentic passion on every page."
"Review" by , "There's no doubt that Wallace's talent is immense and his imagination limitless. When he backs off and gives his narrative some breathing room, he emerges as a consistently innovative, sensitive, and intelligent writer."
"Review" by , "[T]his skeleton of satire is fleshed out with several domestically scaled narratives and masses of hyperrealistic quotidian detail. The overall effect is something like a sleek Vonnegut chassis wrapped in layers of post-millennial Zola."
"Review" by , "Wallace's brilliant but somewhat bloated dirigible of a second novel will appeal to steadfast readers of Pynchon and Gaddis. But few others will have the stamina for it....[I]ngenious and often outrageously funny..."
"Review" by , "A work of genius...grandly ambitious, wickedly comic, a wild, surprisingly readable tour de force."
"Review" by , "If you can stand the extreme length, ignore the footnotes, and have a bed-desk to rest this tome on, this book can be fun....Distinct, idiomatic, wild, and crazy, this book is destined to have a cult following."
"Review" by , "Well, there is nothing epic or infinite about this, although much that's repetitious or long....[T]his is not so much a novel of ideas as a novel of brand names and acronyms. They sweep past one's eye in a flutter that leaves only one thing to hope for, and that is style."
"Review" by , "[S]o few American writers show anything resembling Wallace's critical engagement with the popular culture that disowns them. At minimum, he's the funniest writer of his generation. I can't decide if I want his next book to be shorter or not."
"Review" by , "Wallace has not so much written a novel as created a system, an intricately engineered internally consistent system that is fueled by his endless imagination, his pure verbal prowess and a language that looks familiar but feels utterly invented."
"Synopsis" by , "Infinite Jest" is the name of a movie said to be so entertaining that anyone who watches it loses all desire to do anything but watch it. People die happily, viewing it in endless repetition. 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. As the novel unfolds, various individuals, organizations, and governments vie to obtain the master copy of "Infinite Jest" for their own ends, and the denizens of the tennis school and the halfway house are caught up in increasingly desperate efforts to control the movie — as is a cast including burglars, transvestite muggers, scam artists, medical professionals, pro football stars, bookies, drug addicts both active and recovering, film students, political assassins, and one of the most endearingly messed-up families ever captured in a novel.

On this outrageous frame hangs an exploration of essential questions about what entertainment is, and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment interacts with our need to connect with other humans; 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. The huge cast and multilevel narrative serve a story that accelerates to a breathtaking, heartbreaking, unforgettable conclusion. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human — and one of those rare books that renew the very idea of what a novel can do.
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