Rating: 
Summary: Necessary Preparation
Review: This is a great book, and im not going to go into the many reasons for which it is, in fact, a great book, because there are plenty of other reviews here to do that. However, in order to tackle this behemoth effectively, you are going to need a few things:
A Dictionary. Yes, i know you are smart and well read but trust me here. I didnt even OWN a dictionary... i went out and bought one.
Two Bookmarks. Thats right, 2! One to mark your "active" page and one for the footnotes section. That way, you can jump right to the corresponding footnote page, without losing your active page, because some of those notes are quite involved.
After I finished this book i came across the companion to it, which i thouroughly enjoyed. However i prefer to enjoy the book on its own, then peruse the companion, but suit yourself.
Rating: 
Summary: Overhyped logorrhea
Review: Infinite Jest? Interminable Jest, more like. This annoying novel is grossly overwritten, 1079 pages of 8-point type, including 98 pages of footnotes in 6-point type. Large sections of it are superfluous logorrhea and should have been cut; the thing reads like the world's most awesome speed rant, though this may be deliberate. The plot is rudimentary, all telegraphed in advance, and moves at a glacial pace. When I finally finished the thing, I wanted my time back.
Hated one of the protagonists, Don Gately, for reasons requiring some self-examination to discover. (1) He's the sort of large ugly ignorant self-satisfied anti-intellectual homophobic cretin I've always disliked in real life. (2) His presentation is hypocritical, one of the most intellectual anti-intellectual statements I've ever read. The more apparent it became Wallace intended to reward him, the more I hated him.
Other unlikable things: (3) The polemical treatment of marijuana as virulently addictive, which most experienced people know to be nonsense; sure, some vanishingly microscopic percentage of users get into trouble with it, particularly since the introduction of the high-resin kind in response to pot's illegality (it being easier to transport and store in smaller quantities), but still a far smaller number than with booze, let alone cocaine, speed or narcotics. (4) The smug closet god stuff. (Sample paraphrase: "...the religion only morons believe in, but that works anyway.") At least this cannot be said to pander to Jesus freaks. No moron possibly could get through this book.
Probably the most annoying thing of all is that, after 1079 pages, it doesn't end! The story is left hanging up in the air, as if there were another 50 or 60 pages yet to come (or, considering Wallace's prolixity, 200-300). Evidently, Wallace simply got bored of writing it and decided we could make up the rest for ourselves, or maybe his editor finally put his/er foot down and said, "Enough."
True, the very first chapter gives us a skeletal outline of the principal events to come. This section reads as if it were written last, after the work had been abandoned, to prevent it from being a total cheat. But far more is left unresolved. Characters are abandoned in mid sub-plot. Painstakingly built-up mysteries are shrugged off
In short, virtually the entire denouement is missing. After 1079 pages, just as the excitement is finally building toward the events we've been promised, the thing ends. It's the book's final jest, and it's on us.
At least the language is inventive and original, and a bit harder to pastiche than one might think, considering that its principal device is merely to string clauses together without limit or punctuation. There are some truly comic bits too-conceptual comedy mostly, the kind you chuckle over only when you think back on them. Only wish there'd been more of them.
Altogether, I believe I have now had a lifetime dose of David Foster Wallace.
Rating:
Summary: Yes You Are Ready
Review: Buy or borrow this book, don't read any reviews and ignore whatever I might say in this one (except, natch, the part about ignoring whatever I have said in this one). Read it and find out for yourself if you enjoy it or not. Sometimes expectations ruin an experience.It's always been in the back of my mind, but lately I've been thinking a lot about my whole role in whole book/film/art sheme of consumer-publicityb17ch-artistkreator. I'm pretty much certain anyone reading this review has faced the same ordeal... I read a book, I see a movie, I write a review, I get depressed because I'm always the consumer, never the creator, no matter how hard I try to break from the cycle, my disappointment in my abilities throws me into another round. Eventually I become so disaffected I completely lose faith and interest in all but the most banal of things (this is where we watch American Pie 2, Along Came Polly, and Mr. Deeds three times each, becoming more downtrodden at each viewing), my drawings are scribbles, my writings mere excremental traces of having read too much Burroughs. When I'm on the verge of the nervousbreakdownsuicide stage I somehow always manage to venture upon something that invigorates my hope and removes me a couple steps from utter isolation and depression. Clearly I'm trying to make the point that Infinite Jest is one of these things. In my endless repitition of this most vicious cycle, I have somehow stumbled upon the realization that sometimes it's just better to not know anything about whatever it is you're about to do than to begin forming expectations anticipating something greater than what could possibly be. The things that most touch me seem to be those that blindside me, turn me into a deer caught in headlights, flatten my heart, inflate my brain, blend them to one. Not two months ago I recieved the pleasant sensation of a sledgehammer to the heart after attending Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in complete ignorance, having seen nary a review or advertisment (except a series of quarter-page ads in SF Guardian). Except for some mild expectations created by the blurbs on the cover (I imagine a great habit would be to black these out with a sharpie the moment you get a book (or post-its if you're borrowing)) and having heard some about IJ's reputation , I had no clue what I was getting into... and I think it works best this way. The BS out of the way, I can say that, yes, Infinite Jest runs a bit too long (and, aparently, an additional 600 pages were edited out) and sometimes a bit too dry quirkish, but it really sings when it hits the right notes. Reading the Salon interview I was a bit shocked to find out that Wallace is more of a mannered acadamian than the hard-science-major-kesey-loving-hippy-prodigy, which makes it a lot harder to maintain my image of him churning his guts to push this writing out of his heart... but, sometimes you can never tell...
Rating:
Summary: Quite Good
Review: "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy..."
-from Hamlet, by William Shakespeare In this gargantuan novel, Infinite Jest is the title of a movie so enthralling it leaves viewers mesmerized, unwilling to wrest their gaze from the screen. Audiences don't care about anything else, and literally die of pleasure (the descendant of Monty Python's Killing Joke, perhaps?). Infinite Jest (the novel) is set approximately two decades in the future, and deals with a society obsessed with entertainment and amusement. The former NAFTA states have been reorganized as the Organization of North American Nations, or ONAN. The President of the United States, the titular leader of ONAN, is a somnambulant ex-crooner named Johnny Gentle, who's most original idea is to offer large corporations sponsorship opportunities-thus, each year is now named for a commercial product, resulting in the Year of the Whopper, the Year of the Trial Size Dove Bar, and the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, during which most of the novel is set. ONAN is under siege from wheelchair bound Quebecois terrorists, who are pissed that their province is now used as a toxic waste dump (the waste is hurled there from Massachusetts by giant catapults). Their master plan: obtain a copy of the lethal movie (code named "the Entertainment"), and make it available for the mass consumption of the largely lethargic American populace. Searching for the master copy of the film, the terrorists focus on the sons of the film's deceased autuer, J. O. Incandenza, Jr. (who committed suicide by sticking his head in a specially rigged microwave oven shortly after completing the film). Icandenza's progeny are Orin, a skirt chasing professional football player, Mario, mentally deficient and physically deformed, and Hal, a brainy tennis star at the Enfield Tennis Academy, an institution his father founded before embarking on his film career. The majority of the action in the novel takes place at the Enfield Academy and at Ennet House, a rehab center located just down the block from the tennis school. These institutions yield dozens of humorous asides and a plethora of quirky, memorable characters. Enfield provides opportunities to comment on celebrity and obsession, while Ennet House gives Wallace a chance to hold forth on addiction, self control, and Alcoholics Anonymous. Wallace's primary theme is that America is slowly amusing itself to death. Obsessed with entertainment and self gratification, America is sliding into the abyss. Are there answers to this dilemma? Wallace seems to think so, constantly emphasizing the need to balance freedom with authority (his admiration for AA is obvious). Yet, he demonstrates that no answer is perfect: witness Lenz, in rehab to kick a drug habit, responding to the rigid structure of AA by killing domestic animals (you'll never hear the word "There" again without thinking of him). Reading Infinite Jest is an ambitious undertaking. Don't be intimidated by its size (the hardcover weighed in at 3.3 pounds)-just be sure to set aside a few weeks to get through the thing. An unabridged dictionary and Physician's Desk Reference will also come in handy, as five dollar vocabulary words and pharmacological references abound. (And I haven't even mentioned the footnotes.) The original manuscript was reportedly some 300-500 pages longer and in need of severe editing, which may explain why the narrative just seems to end. The abrupt ending need not discourage you, however, as obsessive readers have reported that the novel is recursive, appropriate in light of its title. Witty and deep, Infinite Jest is science fiction in the vein of John Barth's Giles Goat Boy or Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, a massive showcase for Wallace's writing talent, intelligence, and oddball sense of humor. Is it the great American Novel? Beats me. Some critics compare it to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, but they say that about any book over 600 pages that you actually have to think about (I find it ironic that critics cite a book few have read to explain a book that even fewer will have the patience to read). Is it funny, erudite? Yes. Is it worthy of your attention? Most definitely. But be warned, Wallace's writing is as addictive as the movie Infinite Jest-- you may experience withdrawal pains upon finishing.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant Book Falls about 1600 Pages Short--Book Flap a Lie
Review: It is no secret or should be no secret that the book has no resolution. This is misleading because it certainly aims toward a conclusion, hints and foreshadows one that the author has in mind but stops short of it as though Wallace had to hurry up and publish what he'd written so far to pay the rent. The book becomes wildly addictive as the reader gets 500+ pages into it and--as the book is about addiction--that is the point (and the big joke or infinite jest) that the reader becomes addicted and then can't continue on, has to stop suddenly, should join a 12-step IJ group, presumably. As long as it is, a lot of the questions the reader has at the beginning are, in fact, answered and you do get an idea of what is on the addictive movie cartridge but it stops as it hurls toward a conclusion that could probably fill another 1000 page book. Almost every subplot is left unresolved and hanging as though the author forgot about them completely. As it turns out, the comment on the hardcover flap about "a breathtaking, heartbraking, unforgettable conclusion" is a complete falsehood and purposely written as part of the later joke on the reader that there is no conclusion, which feels almost as clever as it is sour.
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