Have you read David Foster Wallace's INFINITE JEST?

A waste of time and paper.

I read it in The Year of the Perdue Wonder Chicken.

Tried and failed—many a time.

Me too, R3. My brain just resists the work of these contemporary authors. Too opaque and depressing.

I tried to read it once and made the mistake of paying attention. Couldn't get through it.

Years later I picked it up and read it in the most casual way. I'd read whole sections and realize I'd been thinking of something else, but wouldn't go back and re-read it. I didn't try to remember characters names or situations, I just kept going and didn't care. Reading it in this way allowed me to get to the end (yay!), about a year. I agree it's an ingeniously unique book and there's nothing like it. A glorious mind-fuck, if you'll just spread your legs, care less, and let it have its way.

I like some of his essays and novellas, but, if I haven't made it through The Brothers Karamazov or Proust, I'm not going to waste the time I could use to get through those on IJ.

I am Madame Psychosis

I found Brothers Karamazov engrossing, a page-turner.

A friend died in the late 90s and afterwards I received a boxful of his belongings which included his hardcover copy of Infinite Jest. It's still on my bookshelf along with the few other books of his that I received. I can't bring myself to either read it or give it away. So there it sits. Probably for at least another 20 years.

I read it and it took the whole Year of the Whopper to do it. R5 perfectly put how I ended up approaching it. There's an endless, thirty plus page description of a homemade tennis game that's torture to read, long descriptions of the mechanics of Alcoholics Anonymous and competitive sports, vivid and insightful descriptions of depression and addiction, bizarre characters and technology, all taking place in an alternate universe of a reshaped North America, where years are named after commercial products and terrorists roll differently. At the end I basically had no idea what I just read, that would take a second reading and no thanks, not in this universe. But damn he could write. Absolutely brilliant prose. DFW said: [quote] There is an ending as far as I’m concerned. Certain kind of parallel lines are supposed to start converging in such a way that an “end” can be projected by the reader somewhere beyond the right frame. If no such convergence or projection occurred to you, then the book’s failed for you[/quote].

I got an F on that. This is one of the major plot points: [quote] Imagine if you had “the neural distillate of, say, orgasm, religious enlightenment, ecstatic drugs, shiatsu, a crackling fire on a winter night — the sum of all possible pleasures refined into pure current and deliverable at the flip of a hand-held lever. Thousands of times an hour, at will [/quote].

And did I mention tennis?

R9 What was he describing, can you say?

Yes. I enjoyed it though I thought it could have been 300 pages shorter. Loved the boarding school and tennis threads, and the whole notion of entertaining ourselves to death and the corporatization of modern life. Was a bit bored by the halfway-house/addiction thread. While I enjoyed it, I don't really have a desire to re-read it. I think DFW was a great essayist but only a good novelist. Infinite Jest lacks passages of jaw-dropping genius such as you find in The Brothers K.

I'll wait for the movie, thanks (and then never see it, lol).

R12 You could never make this book into a film. I hope no one ever tries.

There's a really funny and quite prescient passage in the book about the invention of "Videophony" (the ability to talk to people on the phone and see them at the same time... still a kind of retro-futuristic idea in 1996) and how the makers of the technology mis-judge what consumers want, and the whole idea gets popular but hilariously complicated and eventually falls apart.

HERE:

R10 He's describing a device, similar to virtual reality, that delivers pure pleasure.

Think of a video loop of Judy and Barbra singing "Happy Days Are Here Again".

I did and I enjoyed it, mainly because you can so quickly tell that he was a literal genius with amazingly special writing abilities.

I like his prose, and have read a lot of his work (i'm also a huge tennis fan which he often writes about). But the novel is a bit too indulgent and sprawling - yet not in a good day. If he had just controlled a few of his impulses, and reigned in the structure a bit, it would have been better.

I don't mind the length, and I don't even mind a book having 'no' structure. But I do mind it having *bad* structure.

Tried and failed. But R5 has given me hope. I may try agin with that attitude. Modern post-plot novels drive me crazy. But I love his writing and he has incredible insightful thoughts.

Infinite bump

Wordy right up to the end. He left a two-page suicide note

I dust my copy twice a month, having tried hundreds of times to keep interest.. When I tire of dusting it I will put it in a box, then dust the box.

No and I'm not interested. Call me a Philistine but I just can't get into those long rambling types of books. I really wish his pinched face talentless bitch friend Jonathan Franzen would take a page out of Wallaces' book (no pun intended ) and hang himself. Suicide is painless Jonathan, unlike attempting to slog through your overrated, suburban ennui garbage books.

I think 90 percent of people who own this book have just pretended to read it.

Books are so decorative, don't you think?

DFW knows how to make lists. Beyond that, he’s a problematic metoo rapist.

I could only get through a few pages. Is this book something that people only pretend to like? I can't imagine that anyone could actually enjoy it.

I don't like reading the works of suicidals; Woolf being the only exception.

DFW was a violent stalker and rapist.

CANCELLED.

I gave up when I realized I was about 300 pages in and still didn't have any idea where things were going.