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Infinite Jest

by David Foster Wallace
Infinite Jest

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  • Synopses & Reviews
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ISBN13: 9780316066525
ISBN10: 0316066524
Condition: Standard


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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

Review

"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)

Synopsis

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.

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.

4.9 18

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating 4.9 (18 comments)

`
greengills , January 01, 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 01, 2013
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 01, 2013
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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Mark Durst , January 20, 2012 (view all comments by Mark Durst)
This book is a beautiful meditation on addition, obsession, and suicide. Set around a tennis academy and the recovery center below it, a rambling narrative gradually centers in on an entertainment so absorbing that its viewers lose all interest in the rest of life. It's not a perfect book; it drops off abruptly (in the middle of a flashback!) with several characters' stories unresolved. But it's plenty good; if you enjoy the virtuoso 14-page setpiece that opens the book, you're good for the whole 978 pages.

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Zane Taylor , January 19, 2012
The work of a truly rare and inscrutable mind and an enormous heart. This novel is what you make it, and for me, it was immensely beautiful.

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barnj082 , January 19, 2012
Weaving between a tennis academy and a half-way house, David Foster Wallace knits a story frought with violence and drug addiction that will have the most somber reader caught between a grimace and grin.

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Jennifer Hensley , March 09, 2011 (view all comments by Jennifer Hensley)
DFW has created a wonder of a novel. So many intertwining stories and themes that it's impossible to speak to them all. He does so many things beautifully in this novel: he casts our foibles into the light, while simultaneously writing with precision and accuracy about addiction and depression. The first chapter, "Year of Glad", is the best and most complete chapter in the entire novel. There is a strong contrast in what the characters are experiencing vs. what the narrator, Hal, and the reader are experiencing. It's nothing short of beautiful. DFW was a true literary genius. Reading his work makes it all the more clear just what the literary world lost when he died.

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cara_gordon14 , January 12, 2011
Twisted and deep, this book had so many overlying plots I dreaded receiving the question "what is it about?" and could only answer, "a tennis academy and a drug rehab house". But truthfully, it's about a deceased genius scientist turned mediocre cinema auteur; an 18 year boy carrying the weight of being a tennis prodigy; several recovering drug addicts ranging from redeemable to out-right despicable to simply pathetic; a veiled woman who is either tragically beautiful or tragically hideous; a futuristic USA set in 2010 that is politically tied into a single organization with Canada and Mexico and has subsidized the naming of years to companies...and oh yeah a group of Quebecian wheelchair assassins trying to terrorize said political power to gain it's province back from the North American dumpster it has become under the new administration. It cannot be explained. It can only be read. And enjoyed.

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besynes , January 07, 2011
In addition to the grand satiric wit displayed, this book creates a beautiful and humane empathy for those in all manner of recovery.

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fwhilhelm , January 05, 2011
This late 20th century satirical and experimental novel defines "brilliant". It combines tennis, addiction, recovery and the metaphysical with a Cecil B. DeMille epic-ness in terms of scope. There is a huge population inhabiting the author's imagined re-aligned North America, turning politics and the map on its collective heads. The focus, for the most part, is on the Incnadanza family as a whole, and specifically on Hal, the young tennis phenom and his life at a ridiculously academically advanced tennis academy, but it's impossible to say who the main character is, if any, as later the book tends to shift its attention to a recovering thug named Gately. I won't go into much detail, because if I start I won't stop. I just want to rave how this book is laugh out loud funny throughout, yet maintains a level of introspection and pathos that keeps you thinking and feeling. To me, this is one of the best English language books of the 20th century, if not ever.

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Sheryl Butterfield , January 02, 2011
Pure DFW = Pure Genius

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Peter Young , January 02, 2011 (view all comments by Peter Young)
Wallace was clearly a tortured artist, a great talent. A huge complex of interwoven stories told by myriad voices in sentences that sometimes span whole pages, but that make easy sense. It was great fun to read. Beware that you will need to set aside a month or two. It's worth it.

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fournity2 , January 01, 2011 (view all comments by fournity2)
Wallace uses descriptive language that is uniquely wonderful. One paragraph has me laughing out loud then holding my breath in deep anxiety. This book reads like nonfiction, as the reader steps inside the minds of each character and it all becomes real.

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Luther , January 01, 2010 (view all comments by Luther)
I have never read a book like this. I can't imagine I ever will (until I read this book again). Mr. Wallace's book is infinitely entertaining. Be prepared to give some time and effort and you will be rewarded.

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Jacob Walls , January 01, 2010
Infinite Jest is more than just a tale of the drug addicts with perfect teeth and the drug addicts without teeth: it's the most sophisticated and honest treatment I've seen of the pleasure drive. The zany political situation and the caustic wit of the precocious young athletes provides for great humor (and often very dark humor), but there is enormous brutality and sadness to provide a balanced picture. It's also a philosophical romp through the nature of motivation, satisfaction, irony, and what it means to be boring or dead inside. Unforgettable characters.

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lagonaboba , January 01, 2010
dazzling

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Peter Wung , January 01, 2010
Possibly the most intellectually courageous and complex book ever. The writing is superb, the philosophy was rigorous, and the range of subjects was so broad it boggles the mind. Definitely a challenge, but definitely worthy.

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Denise Barnett , November 24, 2008 (view all comments by Denise Barnett)
Always buy 2 copies of David's books. One will be ready to read for your next generation. One you will carry with you, flip open in line at the bank, read something you have read before and find new meaning. This is the one you will underline in, write notes in, laugh at, cry with and completely consume as your own.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780316066525
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
11/13/2006
Publisher:
HACHETTE BOOK GROUP
Pages:
1104
Height:
1.90IN
Width:
6.00IN
Thickness:
1.75
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
2006
UPC Code:
2800316066527
Author:
David Foster Wallace
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Subject:
Compulsive behavior
Subject:
Addicts.

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