Rating: 
Summary: Wallace as a modern James Joyce
Review: Many reviewers here have accused Wallace of being all technique and no substance. Since this same accusation has been levelled against James Joyce (author of Ulysses and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), it seems appropriate to use a quote by Paul Smith explaining Joyce to give a little insight into Wallace's novel: "We have come to see that Joyce (or Wallace) is no mere trifler with Gertrudesteinwayed words; no Greenwich-Village- Montmartre sensationalist, striving to astound the bourgeoisie; no manufacturer of privy-poetry for smart young intellectuals; but a sensitive, scholarly craftsman, a-search for a new way to record the secrets of the human soul." Infinite Jest tackles the job of recording the soul's secrets, whether beautiful or ghastly, more effectively than any work of art I've ever come across. And isn't that the point of art in the first place?
Rating:
Summary: it's not just a book, it's an adventure
Review: i'm sending this book to a friend who's going through a really tough time. The card to him will read:"This book is about everything. But it's not the content that counts: the experience of reading it is what you need most right now. Escape." I wish that I could invite all the folks (the haters and the lovers)who've commented here over to my place to talk about this book. First of all, I've only MET two other people who've read it (and I think one of them lied); of those two, only one loved and treasured the experience as I did (the one who definately read it). I gave copies to both of my two favorite book-buddies; neither got past page 250 and are still mad at me for wasting that much of their time. Why, why, why do so few of you GET IT????
Rating: 
Summary: All literary parlor tricks, no heart
Review: (I don't know if I can say it better than the very brief "tyranny of the English department" review below, but after choking down 1000+ pages I feel entitled to my two bits, dammit.) I bought this book when it first came out and just now got around to reading it. Well, I can't believe I ate the whole thing. After just three years it seems pretty dated with all the self-referential hijinks and loving/sarcastic pop culture references and all. It's not that the book was too tough. I have no problem with nonlinearity or meta-meta-meta-metaphysics, and the footnotes annoyed me but I was willing to give them a chance. And I like heavy-handed social commentary in sci-fi form as much as the next gal. Yes and but then a lot of sentences begin with two or three conjunctions. Nice, very nice. If you like these things, you will like Infinite Jest. If, on the other hand, you care about characters or beauty or any of those stupid corny things, you should stay away from this book. The postindustrial, posturban landscape is SO bleak. And the characters, especially the Incandenza family - I mean, Harold Incandenza and his mom Avril?! Please! - and the rest of the gang at the tennis academy were so howlingly vacant, I wasn't sure I could stand to finish reading about them without breaking into demented, nostril-flaring hysterical giggles and ending up in a padded cell. I looked forward to the junkies-in-and-out-of-rehab bits for desperately needed warm fuzzies. And for what it's worth, if this book is any indication Mr. Wallace doesn't know jack about women, or like them much. No amount of po-mo cleverness can make up for pain like this. Maybe it's art, maybe it's a big hoax. I don't care -- I just want to put it behind me. Let's call it A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.
Rating:
Summary: You guys need a *ZERO STAR* Option here.
Review: What can I say? This literary monstrosity is like Shakespearian dialog for Mensa members. I pride myself on being an intelegent well read person and I will happily agree David Foster Wallace is a genius, however, the man should write techniclal books for NASA or books on quantum physics. That way, all of us "stupid people" who only scored in the top 4 percent in english on our SAT's insted of the top 2 wouldnt even pick his work up (mabie I tested on a slow year). I see the positive reviews speak of thier joy in "enduring" the novel to its anti-climactic extent, where I think a novel is to be enjoyed. A novel should captivate, make you hang on every word, not bore you into submission all the while jovialy making you cross referance. I Broke the spine on my dictionary. The characters (SOME) where ok, the way he adapted to "slang" when it wasn't from the point of view of one of his honor students was interesting, yet you can tell the man has nothing but second hand experience with the dredges of society and youth subculture. I can't help feeling like a failure for reading a book hammered out by such an intelegent person and not being able to identify with it in any way shape or form. Oh well. Recap for you "slow people". Boring. Long. Seemingly Pointless. I think this must have been some sort of joke, The only point I could derive from his "What will people do for entertainment in modern society" motif is that, they will read his book, did you learn anything? I'm positive David is laughing all the way to the bank. You will have more moving, profound and soul stiring dental work.
Rating:
Summary: I read every damned word. I was robbed.
Review: I will readily admit that Wallace has done something no other author has done for me: he has made me care less about his characters at the end of the book than I did before I even began. Other authors have provided dull, dreadful stories where I cared less by the end than at the beginning - but Wallace goes deeper. Imagine an "interest index" with boredom as zero: only Wallace has taken me into negative numbers. Unfortunately, the book has its bright moments. There are perhaps a hundred good pages buried in layers of pasty muck - just enough to string you along and make you think that maybe, by the end, there WILL be a payoff. Let me save you the trouble. There isn't.
Rating: 
Summary: Writing - good; Footnotes - unnecessary; Ending - where?
Review: I gave this book two stars because I was so annoyed by the absence of an ending. True, the reader can imagine one, but that's not why we read other people's books. I was gripped by the book, and it is very well written. The characters are interesting, and well drawn. But, and this is a big but, you have these annoying footnotes which are not necessary. They seem to exist only to annoy the reader, as most of the footnotes should be in the main text. They are particularly annoying if you read them in the bath. The main problem is the fact that the author takes you right up to the climax, and just stops. It's as though he didn't have time to finish it before the publishers' deadline. The reviewer below who said that it needed 100 more pages got it spot on. I would have really enjoyed those 100 pages, too.
Rating:
Summary: The Tyranny of the English Deparment!
Review: Oh Lord! I can't imagine a contraption this longwinded and show-offy. It's the tyranny of the English Deparment, footnotes and all! The author needs to be aired out. After reading this, I wanted to read a Zane Grey novel.
Rating:
Summary: Sorry, but it had to be said.
Review: After reading all 91 reviews below, I just have to add mine. First a comment to everyone whe gave IJ one star: maybe you *are* not smart enough to "get it." You all talk of Wallace's pretentiousness, but that sounds to me like the words of someone with an inferiority complex who has to attack a person that they percieve to be smarter than themselves. If you are one of those people who says "I've got to read a book a week to maintain my illusion of self-intelligence" don't even bother reading the book, it won't work. Believe me, it took me four months of daily reading to get through it. I don't like to be so elitist, but to see a true work of art so belittled by people who admitted to not even getting through 20% of it can be understandably frustrating. As for the novel, sure it may take more effort to read and truely understand the form, plot and themes of Infinite Jest than just about any other book I've ever read, but what I got out of it so overshadows the effect that any other work of art has had on me that I shudder to think of what it would have been like to put down the book after 100 pages like I first wanted to. That effect was nothing less then the complete re-thinking of my whole frame of reference. This novel has crept into every part of my life, my writing, my syntax, my personal philosophy, my relations with others... Do yourself a favor and read it, think about it, pay attention to the subtleties and if you don't like it, have a good reason why before posting it on this page.
Rating: 
Summary: Love it or hate it, Wallace is incredible.
Review: Well I just finished the exhausting yet entertaining novel Infinite Jest. (1000+pages!?) I found the book was like a really long jog. Fun and almost exhilerrating at first, but after a while you start to get that pain in your side. Wallace's epic starts out strong but is consistent only in its inconsistency. Although I have nothing but respect and admiration for his talent, I think maybe Wallace was just a little too ambitious this time around. He attempts to tackle so many subjects, with so many characters in so many places, that it makes for a very trying read. I'm normally a very fast reader but with Infinite Jest I had a hell of a time getting anywhere. Especially those chapters where he decides to add no punctuation whatsoever, challenging you to decipher a six-page-long run-on sentence. Infinite Jest is the most ambitious work I have ever read. And although it has its disorientating moments, it is for the most part a display of just how far Wallace's talents go. He is insightful and writes with a style all his own. Maybe if I get a month off work I'll read it again.
Rating:
Summary: If only he'd written the last 100 pages....
Review: Reading this novel, I constantly felt I was engaging a powerful, phenomenally imaginative mind. This guy has like 300 footnotes. The footnotes have footnotes. One footnote to a footnote consists of a 17-page small-print filmography of a (deceased) character. Phew. About 200 pages in, the disparate themes and plot threads started to coalesce, and around page 800 I could feel that it would come to a remarkable, cohesive conclusion around page 1100. Unfortunately, the book is only 1000 pages long. It just plain STOPS. All the main characters are on the brink of major resolutions, all are coming together for the final conflagration (or whatever). And it literally stops, seemingly at a completely random point. Now maybe this is an infinite jest, dragging you through 1000 difficult pages then dropping you, but I didn't get it. I just felt like the author got tired and quit, or the editor said, "it's time to print this baby," or the printer forgot to print the last 100 pages. Damn shame, this.
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