Rating: 
Summary: You're in bizarro world now...
Review: With "Infinite Jest," David Foster Wallace has created an exhaustive, and exhausting, look at modern life. Set in a twisted but strangely recognizable near-future North American semi-dystopia, the book sets forth Wallace's own post-apocalyptic vision. Wallace's future hasn't been ravaged by nuclear war, but rather by Americans' increasing dependence on material possessions, controlled substances, and above all, entertainment. Although you have to navigate through Wallace's myriad (and often entertaining) rhetorical excesses to find them, this book is filled with profound statements on the nature of choice and the pull of addiction.The radically non-linear plot is centered on a likably dysfunctional family named the Incandenzas. James Incandenza (aka Himself), a tennis-academy founder and wannabe film artiste, has killed himself by sticking his head in a microwave before the book's action, leaving his promiscuous wife and three sons: the emotionless tennis/lexicographal prodigy Hal, professional football punter Orin, and the deformed but endearing Mario. Their everyday problems may be removed from what most readers experience, but Wallace still manages to make the Incandenzas, including the late and eccentric Himself, into relatable characters in one way or another. Himself has also left another legacy in the form of "Infinite Jest," an entertainment cartridge (the book takes place after conventional TV has given way to all-cartridge viewing) so addictive that it turns the viewer into a mindless zombie with no desire whatsoever to do anything but watch the film again. A group of murderous and legless Quebecois separists (the Wheelchair Assassins, who provided the inspiration for my reviewer name) are trying to get a hold of a master copy of this tape to distribute throughout the newly created Organization Of North American Nations. If this cartridge sounds like a metaphor, it's because it is. It isn't hard to guess that Wallace probably feels modern-day notions of entertainment are rotting our brains and free will even as we speak, albeit a lot more slowly and insidiously. The plot isn't the main attraction here, though. It merely serves a springboard for some inspired weirdness. Not even Chuck Palahniuk displays such a gift for alternating between the profound and oddball as Wallace. In one scene, two characters are having a philosophical debate about the nature of choice in modern-day society. In another, Wallace is expounding on Orin Incandenza's gift for punting a football (as a raging football fan, I found this passage especially enthralling). In another, we get to see how the United States ceded its toxic waste-infested Northeast corner to Canada to form O.N.A.N. What do these three passages have to do with each other? Little to nothing, but they're all gripping just the same. Wallace devotes long passages to the state of America life in his near future and how it got that way. His descriptions of the evolution of entertainment from TV to viewing cartridges displays a remarkable perception of how entertainment works and what people want from it. Wallace occasionally delves into winding, wordy descriptions of Himself's film work, which apparently straddled a fine line between profound and pretentious. Himself's films, with names like "Blood Sister: One Tough Nun," "Baby Pictures Of Famous Dictators" and "Good Looking Men In Small Clever Rooms That Utilize Every Centimeter Of Available Space With Mind-Boggling Efficiency," serve as catalysts for speculations on what people like Himself hope to achieve through film, how others view it, and what our views of entertainment say about us as individuals. The book, as this site's editorial review mentions, contains an enormous cast befitting a work of such magnitude, and Wallace has a knack for creating flawed, but likeable, characters. Much of the action takes place at a tennis academy and drug addicts' halfway house in the fictional Massachusetts town of Enfield, and Wallace paints vivid portraits of the residents of both of these institutions. Everyone is this book seemingly has some sort of issue, whether in their past or present, and there are few if any characters here who could be described as completely "normal." But that's part of what makes reading this book fun. Of course, the most attention-grabbing aspect of the book is Wallace's stunning verbal dexterity. This guy can seemingly make words do whatever he wants them to do, and I often found myself enthralled by passages that had little if anything to do with any conventional plot mechanism. Wallace's description of an amazingly abstract and complex tennis-academy game called Eschaton may not serve any real purpose in the narrative, but it had me glued to the pages just the same. He even manages to make tennis, a sport in which I have no interest whatsoever, seem fascinating because he writes with such a wide-ranging scope and grasp of detail. Of course, with a book this long (about a thousand pages), what I've written is just an overview. Everyone can get something different out of this book, and if some of the less enthusiastic reviews on this site are any indication, some people will get nothing out of it. But you still owe it to yourself to read it and find out for yourself what it holds for you. So if you have an extra three months or so on your hands, "Infinite Jest" is definitely worth your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Perhaps you've missed the point...
Review: I'll admit that the sheer size of this thing can take you aback, but don't be fooled by the pyrotechnics: Infinite Jest is 100% heart. I notice that most people's beef with this book is that they have mistaken it for a Choose Your Own Adventure or paperback mystery and that they like their answers clear, their heroes and villains clearly defined and with logical comeuppance at the end. If you prefer this sort of simpleminded fiction, then by all means, don't waste the time and tendonitis-risk. I think a related novel might be Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy. Again, this is one big, big book that doesn't give you the moral satisfaction that, say, Die Hard might. There are no easy outs for any of these characters; the answers here are small, quiet, undramatic answers that perhaps we are unwilling to face for ourselves. IJ is definitely sad and you can't chart its progress very easily, but it plumbs [or "palpates", as the author might say] the depths of the nature of addiction, for which there are no simple answers either. It is by far my favourite book, and I buy up other copies to pass out to people like really big pamphlets, and they have all loved it too. The fact that so many other reviewers WANTED conclusions to these characters' stories says more about DFW's abilities as a story-teller than his failings.
Rating: 
Summary: Sigh...poor trees
Review: Having slogged through much worse books of equal length, I can't completely deride Infinite Jest. The language is interesting and the breadth of it is ambitious. The problem really comes from the characters and the 'plot,' if it can be called such a thing. The book seems to me to be a big wet kiss to the literati of the world, but it fails to tell a good story. It is of course quite unfashionable to think that good writing need be coupled with good storytelling, but this book left me cold. That's the heart of it. Wallace proves he's an accomplished and patient mechanic of the human language, but there's no real story in the 900+ pages of the book. In a college creative writing course, naturally, it's a work of pure genius. It's just not that fun to read.
Rating:
Summary: can't... stop... looking...
Review: This novel is something else. I think part of why everyone who finishes it loves it is just simple pride at having gotten through it all. There are footnotes with multiple chapters! In the end the book just overwhelms you by sheer force. True, it raises many questions that it never even attempts to answer; but I'm willing to call that 'negative capability' and declre it a good thing.
Rating: 
Summary: Literary Excrement
Review: The title of my review says it all...Don't even bother with this wannabe Pynchon.
Rating: 
Summary: Unforgettably forgettable
Review: Let me say off the bat that before I even checked Wallace's shaggy dog story out of the library I had read many of the Amazon reviews, so I knew there was no hope for an ending, that none of the Ennnet House people ever run into the Enfield Tennis Academy people, and that the real protagonist is dead before the novel starts. Despite those problems, the novel reminded me of Thomas Mann's "Der Zauberberg" (The Magic Mountain) in that they are both "descriptive" novels of damaged people and their surroundings that barely move at all until their respective finales. However, "Infinite Jest" layers so many characters and subplots that the already sluggish book sputters to a stop, even though some of them are truly hilarious in a dark way (Lenz the addict, the child tennis player who threatens to blow his head off with a pistol unless he wins, the history of ONAN) and worse yet, none of them truly add to the story (except to increase the book's bulk.) Not until the 400th page did I figure out that this novel really wants to be an Internet hypertext document, on top of being a satire of sports novels and cyberpunk stories (the latter being really hip when this novel was written.) Early on I did like the "Royal Tenenbaums"-like vibe the book gave off as it described the environs of ETA and the bizarre, dysfunctional relationship the Incandenza family had toward each other and the charges of the academy, a vibe that wore off when I realized that - unlike the Tenenbaums - the Incandenzas play for keeps. I don't know if novels about train wrecks have to be train wrecks, but this novel of depression and addiction both sent me into deep funks and forced me to read it until the last page.
Rating:
Summary: BEST BOOK EVER!
Review: Absolutely fantastic read! I recommend iot to everyone!
Rating:
Summary: My current favorite book!
Review: I can sypathize with the people who didn't enjoy this book - it is probably not for everybody. However, I loved it. DFW's prodigal command of the english language is astounding, the story is clever and captivating, and the characters are human and engrossing. The book can get a little self-indulgent at times, but, all in all, for a 1000+ page book I think he strikes a good balance. There is also a very interesting message behind the story - this book does reward critical thinking. What I loved about this book is probably what many people hated: DFW begins the book by sucking you into a seemingly realistic, normal piece of contemporary fiction, and then slowly, as you progress through the book, you realize the world your reading about is surreal and fantastic, strange beyond anything you expected. If you are the type of person that only enjoys strict realist fiction, don't read this book. You won't like it. If you are tolerant of a little imagination, give it a try. I thought it was hilarious, meaningful, insightful, amazing, and captivating. The best book I've read in a long time. I especially felt that, in Infinite Jest, DFW uses post-modern literary techniques in such a way that they complimented the story/book as a whole, without sacrificing entertainment or interest; he struck a good balance between meta-humor / contextual awareness, and telling a funny story that the reader wants to read. Too much art today is so self-indulgently post-modern and pretentios that they fail to ever connect with the audience (or at least with me). I'll stop now before I begin ranting. Infinite Jest - check it out, it seems you'll either love it or hate it, but on the chance you might love it, give it a shot.
Rating:
Summary: The joke's on us.
Review: Yeah, you're right, Wallace, that was actually pretty funny. Could have been a lot better with an editor though, and maybe a liberal and entirely random pruning of eight-hundred or so pages. Troglodyte.
Rating:
Summary: well
Review: if you are addicted to reading and essentially finishing books of a slightly skewed bent then welcome, the book is thick and painful (to carry around at least), but a joy to read, the vocabulary is turned on itself as is every character of the book and the reader, just finishing the book itself makes you wonder if you're addicted to reading feeding your own disease as the book might say, or trying to finish the book to continue to be entertained despite the time you'll lose from your life just to finish it...but if none of the above phase you much...read and enjoy, i highly recommend reading hamlet or rereading and considering infinite jest in context of hamlet...it makes for fun thoughts...
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