Infinite Jest is not for the faint hearted. Because of both its lack of a unifying plot across its multiple storylines and the omission of significant facts (mainly pertaining to character relationships and background), the book requires a second reading to understand details presented before the reader has gained sufficient context to grasp their significance. Unfortunately, the book's length (nearly 1,000 pages, not including a plethora of often irrelevant footnotes) makes a second reading a tall ask, particularly when considering you still won't likely fully comprehend what happens because you also need to understand David Foster Wallace's intentions for writing the book.

At its core, Infinite Jest is the story of the Enfield Tennis Academy (ETA) in Massachusetts, a school for elite junior tennis players. The Academy is run by the widow of its founder, James Incandenza, and her purported half-brother, Charles Tavis. Its second-best player is Hal Incandenza, son of the late founder and current Administrator, Avril.

It is also the story of Don Gately, a recovering drug addict who works at a halfway house for alcoholics and drug addicts. Gately is a mountain of a man who has a violent conflict with several non-residents seeking revenge for the killing of their dog by another resident of Ennet House. Gately's story could be pulled out of the novel and made its own story; both novels would be stronger for this separation.

Most significantly, Infinite Jest is the story of the eponymous movie (frequently referred to as an entertainment), the watching of which results in a fatal comatose state for the viewer, and the efforts of several governments and terrorist organizations to obtain the original, duplicatable master copy, which can then be used against the U.S. population. Equally significant is the fact that this movie was created by the same James Incandenza who founded the ETA.

There are several good websites offering explanations of the symbolic meaning of characters and speculation on the occurrence of "offscreen" events and the nefarious roles of several major characters associated with the ETA. I would suggest spending time on these sites after finishing the novel, rather than rereading it. The insights they provide made me feel like Jennie Fields of The World According to Garp fame, who has to have her son explain the meaning of his story "The Magic Gloves" to her. Once he does, she says, "[i]f that's what it means, I like it." Similar to Jennie, I see and appreciate that Infinite Jest is a treatise on how readers should actively engage with novels rather than viewing them as mere entertainment and how the ETA can be viewed as an allegorical MFA program, but getting to my pseudo-understanding was a long and at times tedious slog through a book that in my mind could have been significantly shorter without losing its meaning. ( )

STAY AWAY FROM THIS BOOK!

I'm not sure how this book ended up in my To-Read list. I wouldn't have read it on holiday either, if I had known it was so long. In fact, I generally do not read extremely long books (> 600 pages) by authors until I've vetted a shorter work first. All this contributed to an extremely unpleasant read.

Infinite Jest is partly about a dangerous film of the same name: People that interact with this film cannot stop watching, until they die of corporeal neglect. Ironic that my experience of the book was the exact contrast, since I had to struggle against giving up on it at every turn. About 2 / 3 of the way into the book, probably around page 650, some of the story arcs appear to begin to approach one another. A few pages later, it was clear this was a feign and the book continues without direction or regard for the reader, ending with a random flashback.

Story: 2 / 10
Characters: 8
Setting: 7.5
Prose: 7.5

Tags: Sports secondary schools, training, addiction, revolutionary groups, politics, neuroticism, corruption, toxic waste, technology, family ( )

- This won't make much sense if you haven't read the book.

- Who doesn't love the Eschaton story, Hal's mistaken visit to the all-male encounter group, a well-played (three-) set piece? Not me, I mean I don't not love them. I love the Steeply/Marathe in the desert dialogue too, unfolding like some Pynchonian panorama, two weird souls united by one dark sagegrass-smelling night, double-talking their way to some kind of (d')accord. But the connective tissue of this novel isn't so appetising, the coagulated vein and gristle of the Ennet House and ETA day-to-day, the Bostonian meanderings. The geographical scope of IJ is surprisingly restricted, its retrotech near-future (now past) setting, while interesting at first, less lustrous by the 200th Y.D.A.U. If I was being harsh I'd call it the Great American Novel for its time, a time and a generation that didn't want, or deserve, a G.A.M. An inward-looking, U.H.I.D.-veiled G.A.M., circling the cage of its own inhibitions, chewing its own tail in muffled agony.

- The only character with more depth than a Pemulis lob is Gately, and that's only thanks to 100+ pages of biography that appear in the last quarter or so of the novel, like a hastily-knocked out homework assignment, or like the author's grudging response to a demand from his editor to "show your workings". The rest of the cast — even Prince Hal — are cartoons, defined by their eccentricities. That doesn't make them unentertaining — I loved the hyper-annoying Pemulis, the Canadian cyborg John Wayne, the brilliantly named Ortho "The Darkness" Stice. But there's a vaporizing void where the human heart of this novel ought to be (you might say a Great Concavity), a black hole whose event horizon shreds readerly sympathy, rebuffs attempts to probe it, to know it. It's palpable — the abyss staring back at you — even affecting — but it's freezing cold, dispassionate, lonely as hell.

- Look, I know I'd get more out of this on a reread. The same is true of anything long and complicated. But I'm judging this on the first read and whereas my first read of reputationally comparable novels has stuffed me to the gills AND tantalized me with more gen and more discoverable internal correspondences, IJ the first time around while equally tantalizing stuffed me only to about the pyloric caeca or ventral aorta. The sidestory of Pemulis's rentboy brother, say, or those embarrassing ebonic excurses, am I glad I read those? There's a story here, something about a wraith and an Oedipus complex and whether mom or dad is the creative essence and what it means to eliminate your own map, and there's a fair schwack of fucking incendiary writing, but there's a whole lot of extraneous guff as well.

- And but so I like, like like DFW's register. I've even unconsciously adopted it, footnoting my own sentences — my thoughts concatenated with rambling subclauses and hanging hyphens — it's addictive! which but that doesn't mean it's good for me, or that it doesn't drive me bats when taken in excess the same as any other mind-altering substance. Like everyone and everything in the book it does one obsessive thing, far too well. Did DFW intend for his footnotes and toenotes — what I call the footnotes to the footnotes — to drive us bats? I read a first edition with end-, not foot-, notes, and the physical back and forth was like a way-too-long baseline rally... my poor forearms... or like the itch-scratching of addiction. I'll credit the author for this though and place him at Gibbon's right hand on the Dais of the Unnecessary, Marginally-Material, Kind Of Pointless Footnote (D.U.M.M.K.O.P.F.)

- And if I never hear an English sentence rendered with French syntax again it will be trop putain de fils. ( )

It's long, disjointed, tedious, absurd, depressing, intentionally difficult, and anti-climactic. It's hilarious, thoughtful, realistic, challenging, and immersively detailed. It's changed how I approach and read books. I would recommend this to anyone who looking for a challenge. ( )

Hard as I tried, I just could not get into this book. All the great reviews led me to spend more time than I normally would have with it, but I gave up after a couple of hundred pages (and jumping around in the book a bit to see if it changed in character, which it didn't appear to do.). ( )