Rating: 
Summary: Been there done that.
Review: As an Ironworker I have come in contact with many of the people portrayed in this book. As an artist I have met many of the people portrayed in this book. As someone who has had his share of screwing up big time...it's in the book. The only book that says more about America is John Dos Passos' "U.S.A.", and that one's kinda got footnotes in it too...coincidence or conspiracy? Thanks for the story Dave.
Rating: 
Summary: more taxing than smart
Review: I just threw the 1000+ page mega copy of Infinite Jest in the trash. I got past 120 pages, tried to scan numerous section farther ahead in the novel, and realized it's basically just all a jumble on uncentered narrative, with no central target or entertaining story at the center..Maranthe, and a female impersonator and a bunch of french quebec conspiracy banter? who cares? tired boys at a tennis academy? over and over. some repeated, over detailed nonsense clouding some Saudi Prince Q ______, and a medical attache which makes no sense. it's outta here. I'm going to return to a Martin Amis novel now that actually makes prose sense, without being engrossed with over detailing descriptions which add nothing to the story, other than to provide distractions from a possibly decent concept. this book is so full of itself it becomes a interdeveloping burden. possibly the cornerstone of what the dust jacket says the novel is "poking fun" at, it's caught in it's own joke. I'd give this book zero stars if I could.
Rating: 
Summary: Why all the hostility?
Review: Hey, I'm no genius (well, actually I am, but a lot of good it does me) but I can't see what all the fuss is about w/r/t (heh heh) the complexity of Infinite Jest. Navigating this book wasn't all that hard as far as I am concerned. As a surface reader, which I am unless I try really hard, I was completely comfortable with this book. I was almost always aware of who the narrator was at any given time. I can see where complaints about the ending might be justified -- although I have only recently finished it and haven't yet tried the Finnigan's Wake trick, so that might explain some things. What I find interesting is the hostility and suspicion expressed by those readers who did not share the majority opinion about this book. Why accuse people of admiring the emperor's clothes or taking drugs because they claimed to enjoy Infinite Jest? I feel like I should trust people who write that this is the best book they ever read, even if I don't feel the same way. I will say that I was disappointed with this book, as I was with Broom of the System, but I freely admit that it is becasue I am a surface reader. I can see that there is more to Infinite Jest than meets the eye. And unlike Ulysees (which, to the best of my recollection, is the only other book I have ever read that contained the word ineluctable)I sense that what is beneath the surface of Infinite Jest is both more accessible to me and more relevant. The literary allusions alone -- Shakespeare (obviously), Joyce (because of the many Hamlet references, the Finnigan's Wake trick and the aforementioned ineluctable, and plus, the footnotes that don't really explain anything seemed to me a blatant parody of Ulysees and all that goes with reading it) and Burgess are three of the literary all-stars that I thought of while reading this book -- are enough to make me want to read this again just to try to figure out the secret. I give this book three stars, but after only one reading. My estimation of this book may increase after a second reading, but I am pretty sure it won't diminish.
Rating: 
Summary: a great book
Review: I loved reading this book, I hated finishing it, after it being my companion for months, I feel that it left me with no sense of closure. I would read it again, and again....
Rating:
Summary: great themes & ideas but lacking in great writing style
Review: I read "A Supposedly Fun Thing...," Wallace's collection of essays and loved it. He is a very bright man who wrote with great wit, humor, and introspection. So I decided to tackle his 1000+ page novel. Once again, I found myself deeply in-touch with Wallace's themes, ideas, and fears about life; unfortunately, I am not in-synch with the style he uses to express them. His writing is inconsistant. He'll write a very emotional and passionate section and then the very next paragraph he'll launch into an incredibly (and tediously) detailed section on something else, devoid of emotion and heart. (To me at least), the book is filled with dorky tangents such as 30+ page explanations of ficticious games and needless technical data, and has endless footnotes that were an interesting novelty for the first 50 or so, then just became annoying to have to keep flipping back. I wanted so badly to love this book, because I feel a kinship with Wallace and his ideas but I finally gave up at page 350 when I realized I didn't care what was going to happen to anyone in the book. When you can read 350 pages and not give a sh*t about what happens, there is a problem. Ultimately, your themes become irrelevant if you can't draw the reader into your story. Great writing is the combination of substance and style. Unfortunately, Wallace has full command of the former but not the latter.
Rating:
Summary: open heart surgery sans an anesthetic is preferable
Review: want to experience a pre-frontal lobotomy;or what it would be like to count all the grains of sand at the beach? Then read' infinite jest'by D.F.W.I suppose selling 5 or 6 copies of a novel now constitutes a best seller.Everyone who purchased this book and read every word,please raise your hands.I thought so.I'm sure the ivy covered quasi-pseudo semi-intellectual set just loved chatting this one up over double de-caf expresso's at Starbucks.A great novel to have written if your intent is to impress freshman eng.lit.majors.I'll bet Dave had to beat off the nubile young co-eds after they read this one-or maybe just the back photo was enough to do the job.
Rating: 
Summary: Infinitessimal macrocosm (sic)
Review: "Post-modernism" is a reference to literature which has been produced after the discovery and artistic representation of strands of DNA (pertinent). Thymonucleic acid tends towards the form of a helix in construction. (There's a peculiar concept beneath "helix" in your dictionary, coincidentally). Mr. Wallace would construct a genetic novel, as it were. Splicing and replacing your information, that he does. He says, "Take up your cross and follow me, and thou shalt inherit infinite jest."
Rating:
Summary: Infinite Jest is its own subject.
Review: Take the metafiction of Pynchon and mix it with a dissertation on entertainment and addiction and you come up with Wallace's "Infinite Jest." The titular subject film in the book is a represntation of the book itself, so expansive and roaming as to be the ultimate for of entertainment, except the entertainment in the book is passive while "Infinite Jest" remains accesible only to active minds.
Rating:
Summary: Wallace raises the mark on 100 years of the"American Novel."
Review: In a century that has seen classical American novels from authors ranging from Samuel Clemens to Thomas Pynchon, David Fostor Wallace has set the high mark with "Infinite Jest." The story focuses on two basic aspects of human nature: attraction to addiction, and withdrawal from addiction. Add to this a family so profoundly odd, and you get a story that makes Naked Lunch and Catch-22 look like a guidebook for Victorian Ettiquette. This is the type of story that grabs your attention in a similar way as a highway accident does, then for the next thousand pages desensitizes you to the "victimization of America" syndrome; and puts all the philosophical pieces back togather, but leaves the conclusion for the reader to determine. I've given 18 copies of this book as gifts, and seen at least one person quit drugs (he's been off for a year now,) all on the power and profound dual simplicity/complexity of the book. A breathtaking read at many metaphorical level. At least buy it for the neat-o latin phrases, the statue of liberty holding a giant diaper, and the profane calculus...
Rating:
Summary: A really "great" book, in all senses of the word.
Review: I liked this book because it is one of those books that seem to touch on, well, everything. David foster wallace manages to put a whole generation under his extremely able microscope. He makes you retrieve mental conotations and luggage you didn't even know you carried around with you. English is my second language, which means I also could not help marvelling at the this great book's language. The mixture of semi-futuristic and generation-x slang with the verbal abilities of the book's lexical prodigy hero, made me read a lot of sentences out loud, to extract every bit of pleasure I could. This is a great book because it brings to life a whole world and, with it, a universe of mental states. I found myself anticipating characters' thoughts and actions, as their mental processes progressed from being merely identifiable with, to actually being my own. This book reminds me of all the expected literary luminaries who have dissected our world for the past half-century, but it is an achievement which stands on its own; Here, finally, is a writer who speaks with a distinct voice, a voice for the current age. The fact that he reminds me of other authors, seems only to suggest that greatness will always be among us, not that plagiarism is rampant among an uncreative, minimalist literary generation (an accusation mentioned only too frequently).
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