Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
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Web ID: 15623426Themes and notable quotes
The themes of the novel include addiction, identity, entertainment and culture, and mortality. Notable quotes from the book: "The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you." "It’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world." "And the truth is that there is something terribly wrong with a culture in love with surfaces, and something deeply beautiful about a culture that speaks from the depths." "The only thing that can make you feel this lonely is human love. Because only human love can be this perfect and this complete, and only human love can be this wounded, and only human love can be this angry, and only human love can be this much of a joke." "We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness."
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
To be read at least once.
This is a novel you should read once. Schedule a couple of weeks to do so because, holy hannah, is this thing long (pause to allow a favored double entendre), War and Peace long, and with about as many characters and subplots willy and nilly all over the place. And footnotes. Footnotes? Yes, footnotes, unnecessary, pretentious, and annoying footnotes that you’ve got to read because there’s a lot of good novel in them, especially the telephone conversation between brothers Hal and Orin Incadenza in footnote 110, which is pages 1004- 1022 in my edition; a footnote that, itself, has footnotes. There are 388 footnotes and 1079 pages. I guess infinite is a good word for the title. So what is this about? Well … there is a videotape, which is called a cartridge in the novel, that puts the viewer into a paralytic state when viewed. No, no long-haired ghost girl emerges from your TV and eats you, it’s just the paralytic state. Which you can never, ever emerge from, a cartridge so powerful that even when someone attempts to pull you away from the viewing, they also become ensnared. A Quebec terrorist group consisting of people who have lost their legs, therefore earning the name of the Wheelchair Assassins, want to find the master copy of the cartridge so they can unleash it on the Organization of North American Nations (ONAN, get it?) in revenge for taking part of Quebec and all of northern New York and turning it into a brownfield waste disposal site for everything thrown away in what was once the US. Yep, that’s about as silly a story as someone could write and you have to check the cover to make sure this isn’t Vonnegut. Which it isn’t. Vonnegut knew when to end his novels. Wallace didn’t. In fact, it ends with my favorite character in the whole book, Don Gately, lying in a hospital bed trying to recover from a gunshot wound while fending off doctors’ attempts to give him Dilaudid because he is a Dilaudid addict and doesn't want to fall off the wagon. Then, curtain. Interspersed is a boatload of characters and situations which do not seem to have any relationship with each other but, hang on, they do, and try to remember every single person you run across, however briefly, because they will definitely show up later. Maybe for just an instant, but all the same. Got to give Wallace credit for having kept track of all this. Underneath the main story of mesmerizing cartridges are three other main stories: Hal Incandenza and the Enfield Tennis Academy (ETA, get it?); Don Gately and the Ennet House recovery and rehabilitation center; and Orin Incandenza and the NFL. Sub-stories of those include a Wheelchair Assassin double agent, Marathe, whose leaders know he is a double agent and his ONAN Office of Unspecified Services handler, Hugh Steepley, an undercover agent dressed in the most outlandish of women’s clothing, who knows that they know that Marathe is doubling and Marathe knows that he knows that they know and that they know that he knows. Got it? There is an apocalyptic game called Eschaton, held by ETA each year, which involves the simulation of nuclear attack through tennis strokes, that goes very awry in the subsidized Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment. See, years are now sponsored by the highest bidding corporations. One of the most beautiful women in the world goes about veiled because she is part of a disfigurement movement and was heavily involved in the cartridge’s production, or, wait, isn’t that Madam Psychosis, the much adored midnight college DJ who did nothing but read obscure texts for six straight hours over the air who becomes Orin’s girlfriend, or, wait, she becomes Don’s girlfriend, or fellow attendant at Ennet House … dunno. Hard to keep track. Wallace displayed an astonishing knowledge of drug abuse, at the downright pharmaceutical level. And he also displayed an astonishing knowledge of how addict and alcoholic recovery works, from AA to NA and rehabilitation halfway houses. Not that I’m implying anything from that. Frankly, I think Wallace did a great service because, once you get through everything he writes about the drug world, you will never want to abuse any drug or alcohol ever again. Please don’t presume by my tone that I disliked this book. I liked it very much. It is incredibly well written, with some of the best prose usage I have seen in a very long time, to the point you suspect Wallace was showing off. And he was. But that’s okay because it comes off well. I personally like paragraph-long sentences that cram about 4-8 subjects enmeshed in about 5-15 related activities. After all, I cut my reading teeth on Ray Bradbury. Difference is, Bradbury’s free-wheeling paragraphs were elegant, while Wallace’s are a sledgehammer that will make you reel with their brilliance. It is brilliant. And that’s the problem. There is brilliance in the service of humanity and then there’s brilliance in service of yourself. Not hard to figure out which one this is, although effetes will protest that the brilliant satire of this novel is well served and important and an unprecedented examination of the human folly. And I merely glance over at my Vonnegut novels and go, “Been there, done that.” Unlike Vonnegut, you get a sense from Wallace that he knew he was smarter than you and somewhat pitied your lack, keeping his condescension hidden by a look of understanding and openness. You know those types. They’re usually your brother-in-law. So does that mean this is not worth your time? No, quite the opposite, this is a novel I think everyone should read. Once. If you want to read it again, okay. But you don’t have to.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Worth the investment
Like so many others, I waited a long time to finally dive in -- but it was worth it. Sure, it's probably overly long, and the endnotes -- while a great idea -- could get frustrating. But it's a true classic. Every serious reader should give it a whirl.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com