
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is a vast and sprawling novel that delves into themes of addiction, recovery, popular entertainment, and tennis. The book's 981 pages, along with extensive endnotes, present a labyrinthine mass of plot lines that intersect in intricate ways, revealing linguistic complexities and stylistic experimentation for which Wallace is renowned. The narrative threads, though disjointed at times, come together towards the end, offering a fictional DSM IV of American malaise and serving as a deep reflection on communication and human nature.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings include themes of addiction, substance abuse, mental illness, suicide, violence, and detailed depictions of drug withdrawal and abuse.
From The Publisher:
A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up 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; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are. Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human - and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.
Ratings (52)
Incredible (21) | |
Loved It (11) | |
Liked It (6) | |
It Was OK (5) | |
Did Not Like (5) | |
Hated It (4) |
Reader Stats (223):
Read It (51) | |
Currently Reading (2) | |
Want To Read (105) | |
Did Not Finish (13) | |
Not Interested (52) |
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