Infinite jest page by page david foster wallace wiki. Find all the books, read about the author, and more. This book teems with so much life and death, so much hilarity and pain, so much gusto in the. Infinite jest in the age of addiction the millions. The truth is it might be the worst novel ever written, or at least published, but given the fact that wallace has stiff competition from the burgeoning spawn of pc elitist writers, not to mention his own pomo kith, such as rick moody, dave eggers, and that. Infinite jest, by david foster wallace, is the worst science fiction novel ever written. Its explained in the book via a film made by mario. I finished the book early one morning, before the kids were awake. Unquestionably, infinite jest required great ambition and focus to write, and requires a bit of ambition and focus to read as well. Apr 09, 2009 i began reading infinite jest by david foster wallace around october 2008. Signin to download and listen to this audiobook today. Elegant complexity is the first critical work to provide detailed and thorough commentary on each of the 192 sections of david foster wallaces masterful infinite jest.
Ten anxietyfilled pages of waiting for the woman to show up with enough marijuana to have one last binge weekend. But the most addictive force in infinite jest is a seemingly innocuous videotape referred to simply as the entertainment. Not too many people write thousandpagers, much less read them. If its important to you not to read such a post, please do not read this post. Well, from what i recall of the novel there are some parallel narrative lines. Dec 05, 2012 then, to seal the deal, a few years ago i read for the first time the ken erdedy section at the beginning of infinite jest chapter 2. Infinite jest is both sad, depressed and funny and even 25 years after it was published in 1994 remains relevant to the modern age. Infinite jest is notoriously known for being a long book its just shy of 1100 pages. It is fashionable in some quarters to wave aside the small and obscure, the bugs and weeds, forgetting that an obscure moth from latin america saved australias pastureland from overgrowth by cactus, that the rosy periwinkle provided the cure for hodgkins disease and childhood lymphocytic leukemia, that the bark of the pacific yew offers hope. Mar 10, 20 its explained in the book via a film made by mario. Infinite jest by david foster wallace little, brown and company. While i cant read the book not even the end notes for you, i. I bought the audiobook but i also bought the kindle version to help with the notes. The book is 524 pages long and i cant see the page number in the kindle edition, but the quote is near the end of book, in the last few pages.
A couple of weeks or so later, however, gately mailed the da a photograph of he and his partner bent over, each with the handle of a toothbrush sticking out of their assholes. Lyle is the exhead trainer who died horribly in the sauna and now haunts the eta grounds, helping anyone who is willing to give him a taste of their sweat envision a parched man at. That was the project embarked upon back in april by american english professor kevin griffith and his 11yearold son sebastian. I was in france at the time, and when i got back to the u.
I felt compelled throughout to read it aloud, such was the almost poetic quality of it. Infinite jest first edition signed david foster wallace. Whats the deal with the names of years in infinite jest. Not even the masters of the highlow rhetorical register go higher more panoramically or lower more exuberantly than. I just finished infinite jest, and i have questions. Infinite jest is a genuinely groundbreaking novel of language. From the final form of infinite jest, it is clear that wallace did not heed pietschs.
What its like to record the audiobook version of infinite jest 2015. If one of your reading resolutions is to finally finish infinite jest, david foster wallaces mammoth novel, im here to help. Written by david foster wallace, audiobook narrated by sean pratt. I became curious because i wondered whether i could identify. Infinite jest has been hailed as one the great modern american novels and its author, david foster wallace, who committed suicide in 2008, as one of the most influential and innovative authors of the past 20 years.
Infinite jest, a friend of wallaces commented to me when i was researching every love story is a ghost story, the biography of wallace that i wrote, reads like a valentine to a. One of the novels primary characters, gately is physically enormous and a reluctant but dedicated alcoholics anonymous member. Infinite jest by david foster wallace turns 20 today, and im still confused by it all these years later. Rather, each reading is a meal the whole tome is practically a steady diet. Max wrote what seemed like the definitive posthumous profile of the tormented and brilliant writer. Ill try my best to give you an answer, but i must warn you. You start the book having no clue when it is happening and who the various characters are. Apr 19, 2012 infinite jest has been hailed as one the great modern american novels and its author, david foster wallace, who committed suicide in 2008, as one of the most influential and innovative authors of the past 20 years. The new york times best book of the year, 1997 time magazine best book of the year 1997 charles mason 17281786 and jeremiah dixon 17331779 were the british surveyors best remembered for running. Infinite jest chapter 1, year of glad, and chapter 2.
Wallace wrote to a friend that the fuckers cut by 600 pages from the first version. A gargantuan, mindaltering comedy about the pursuit of happiness in america set in an addicts halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwedup family to come along in recent fiction, infinite jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives. I decided to read through to the end of infinite jest this morning, which means 1 this is post is off the spoilerline and consequently deals with the text as a whole and 2. A readers guide was the first book to be published on the novel and is a key reference for those who wish to explore further. I first became interested in infinite jest after learning that david foster wallace was a fallen philosopher like myself. In fact, its take on the very nature of entertainment itself perhaps foresaw the age of vanity and social media, as seen through the prisms of tinder, facebook, twitter and instagram. Infinite jest by david foster wallace, paperback barnes. Sep 11, 2012 there are many surprises, delights, and painful moments in the forty or so boxes of david foster wallaces literary material at the ransom center at the university of texas, but the heart of the. That was the project embarked upon back in april by american english professor kevin griffith and his 11. Some of the main protagonists include hal incandenza, orin incandenza, remy marathe, helen steeply, joelle van dyne, and don gately. Ive seldom been more engrossed in a novel, and more willing to put in the time of. Then, to seal the deal, a few years ago i read for the first time the ken erdedy section at the beginning of infinite jest chapter 2.
Gately used to hang around with fackelman and his crew. Infinite jest ist ein 1996 veroffentlichter roman des. I will just say that i hesitated about getting it but i am really glad that i did it is a great book. Dec 19, 2016 infinite jest is notoriously known for being a long book its just shy of 1100 pages. Heres how i finally read infinite jest and how you can, too.
Here, as in all of his work, wallaces achievement was to make thinking about the effects of postmodern life, and thinking about thinking about them, one of. The foundation for the the wikipedia infinite jest characters section and infinite jest character profiles author unknown. Incandenza himself died when he killed himself by putting his head in a microwave oven. David foster wallace writing styles in infinite jest. I did find it a bit of a slog for the first 100 pages, but once i learned to trust that the author would fill in the blanks for me over time, everything became awesome. Infinite jest 12\02 throughout this portion of infinite. Whether you are a word gourmet or gourmand, infinite. Aug 27, 2014 crack out your copy of infinite jest, and recreate it in lego. Stephen kings the stand uncut edition and george r. However, a major ingredient of the infinite jest experience is that you dont know anything about what is going on in advance vide infrayes, get used to little. Set in an addicts halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwedup family to come along in recent fiction, infinite jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our. View test prep infinite jest 1202 from psci 1005 at university of colorado, boulder. The buzzing, claustrophobic energy of infinite jest, wallaces mammoth 1,079page satire of america, immediately placed him in the company of pynchon and delillo wall street journal.
Neil gaiman on terry pratchett and writing, in conversation with michael chabon. Mar 20, 2009 the slate audio book club on infinite jest. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that i see it as something faulty, broken, dysfunctional. David foster wallace was born in ithaca, new york, in 1962 and raised in illinois, where he was a regionally ranked junior tennis player. Wayne, who would have won this years whataburger, standing watch in a mask as donald gately and i dig up my fathers head. Infinite winter read infinite jest with a few hundred of your closest. I began reading infinite jest by david foster wallace around october 2008. Dec 29, 2012 i just finished infinite jest, and i have questions. Throughout this portion of infinite jest, we, the readers, are given additional information regarding don. Academy and out to the freezing sand of gatelys beach. Feb 01, 1996 admittedly, infinite jest is a tough book. Infinite jest is a 1996 novel by american writer david foster wallace.
The novel infinite jest contains a multitude of characters and therefore the novel is told from many different points of view. Im referring to the cop that waits outside gatleys hospital room, whos wife. Infinite jest by david foster wallace the new canon. The nonlink content of this page has not been updated in a long time as such, a lot of the speculations below have been fleshed out in a variety of publications and by the online community at wallacel. At the macro level, infinite jest consists of numerous anticonfluential wallaces word episodes set a dozen years or so in the future as was the broom, at a time when numerical designations for years have been sold to corporate sponsors. This post ditches the official spoilerline and talks about the ending of infinite jest. I had ordered the book from after hearing of david foster wallaces death. Infinite jest has become an exemplar for difficulty in contemporary fictionits 1,079 pages full of verbal invention, oblique narration, and a scattered, nonlinear, chronology.
Since its publication, the world has moved past the events and years of the novels shaky mid2000s dystopian world. Gately, having relived his bottom, begins to recover from his infection. The novel is widely noted for its unconventional narrative structure and its experimental use of endnotes there are 388 endnotes, some with footnotes of their own. Wallaces death brought for me a fresh version of the dread i was already experiencing after ricks suicide, this knowledge that life will never be like it was, it will be weirder and darker and happy at times and always always always more sad. Favourite joke in infinite jest im reading infinite jest for the first time and ive come across a joke thats made me laugh out loud for about 5 minutes. The government needed money to cover its ludicrous new spending projects and drew inspiration from the corporate sponsorship of the bowl championship series. Customary systems of measurement are finally abandoned, at some point perhaps during reconfiguration, for the global standard of the metric system ed optimism on wallaces part, one might say the weights the m. Dec 22, 2015 ill try my best to give you an answer, but i must warn you.
Gatelys struggle being accepting the no nonsense truths that are buried within cliche. Crack out your copy of infinite jest, and recreate it in lego. Infinite jest ebook by david foster wallace rakuten kobo. Infinite jest has been listed as one of the top 100 all time greatest novels of 19232006. Martins storm of swords are longer this, but i was able to clear those books much quicker than david foster wallaces second novel. There are many surprises, delights, and painful moments in the forty or so boxes of david foster wallaces literary material at the ransom center at the university of texas, but the heart of the. Set in an addicts halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwedup family to come along in recent fiction, infinite jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives. Protagonist in david foster wallaces infinite jest. And to be honest, i did not expect it to be like this. I did not read infinite jest this summer by john moe at infinite summer via df. There is stuff that happens in the opening pages that explains events at the end of the book, albeit over pages and hundreds of footnotes away.
Beyond the ease with which one can lookup footnotes, consider the following. This book teems with so much life and death, so much hilarity and pain. Gately was based on a man wallace met in recovery called big craig, who also did the elevatordoor thing. Page 407 of the 20th anniversary edition, its in the news headlines that are apart of marios puppet film for interdependence day at the tennis academy. Not even the masters of the highlow rhetorical register go higher more. A writer of virtuostic talents who can seemingly do anything the new york times somewhere in the notsodistant future the residents of ennet house, a boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the nearby enfield tennis academy are ensnared in the search for the master copy of infinite jest, a movie said to be so dangerously entertaining its viewers become entranced and. Steven asin infinite jest is the perfect book for the kindle paperwhite. Something that didnt quite work for me was reading characters like the. These are the endnotes to david foster wallaces infinite jest, a gargantuan, mindaltering comedy about the pursuit of happiness in america. But if you are seeking something other, then this book will not disappoint.
But even kakutani was forced to admit that wallace was a. But even kakutani was forced to admit that wallace was a writer of virtuosic skills who can seemingly do anything. So thanks, dave wallace, not laird, for this gift of infinite jest. Choose from 500 different sets of infinite jest english flashcards on quizlet. It has been categorized as an encyclopedic novel and made time magazines list of the 100 best englishlanguage novels published between 1923 and 2005. This book teems with so much life and death, so much hilarity and pain, so much gusto in the face of despair that one cheers for the future of our literature. He received bachelor of arts degrees in philosophy and english from amherst college and wrote what would become his first novel, the broom of the system, as his senior english thesis. He received a masters of fine arts from university of arizona in 1987 and. Sep 06, 2012 shortly after david foster wallace committed suicide in 2008, the new yorker staff writer d.
Infinite jest has a reputation for being one of those books that everyone starts and no one finishes. Learn infinite jest english with free interactive flashcards. Around halfway through endnote 90 which itself is 4 pages long don gately. Shortly after david foster wallace committed suicide in 2008, the new yorker staff writer d. After twenty years, david foster wallaces grand overture on humans and addiction, infinite jest, has only become more powerful.