Publication Date:November 13, 2006 Shipping:Eligible for Super Saver Shipping Promotion:Save $10.00 when you spend $50.00 or more on Qualifying Items offered by Amazon.com. Enter code BMLSAVES at checkout.Terms and Conditions Availability:Usually ships in 24 hours
Amazon.com Review In a sprawling, wild, super-hyped magnum opus, David Foster Wallace fulfills the promise of his precocious novel The Broom of the System. Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction, features a huge cast and multilevel narrative, and questions essential elements of American culture - our entertainments, our addictions, our relationships, our pleasures, our abilities to define ourselves.
Product Description In a sprawling, wild, super-hyped magnum opus, David Foster Wallace fulfills the promise of his precocious novelThe Broom of the System.Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction, features a huge cast and multilevel narrative, and questions essential elements of American culture - our entertainments, our addictions, our relationships, our pleasures, our abilities to define ourselves.
Too long, too self absorbedOctober 30, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
David Wallace may have been a genius, but even geniuses need good editors. This 1000 page book needed a TEAM of editors. It is way too long and self involved a novel to be given anything more than a couple of stars.
If you are interested in what all the fuss is about, be sure you know you will be reading it for a while, and may find it less frustrating to take it out of your local library.
Infinite JestOctober 27, 2008 I had read David Foster Wallce previously. He had authored pieces in Harper's for years. I was saddened by his taking his own life, but upon his death I decided to read as much of his that I could. I.J., as his fans call it, is the first actual example of post modernism that I can relate to another person and explain its basis. I have read all the post mod classics, "White Noise" "Underworld" et al, but until I.J. I was unable to relate it to anyone.
I.J. is an experience in reading. It is unlike any novel that I recall reading in the last 20 years. I describe it as reading on the internet. All the footnotes the author puts in are so many hyper links to other textual treasures. It's intense reading. I liken it to Pynchon in its rapidity and sentence structure. Foster Wallace doesn't have the gift of word choice like Pynchon, but I.J. is just as sad, funny, and exhausting as "Gravity's Rainbow". Buy this to read at different times of the day. Don't sit down at period of time and try to consume it. I don't believe that was his intent.
David Foster Wallace was a talented artist that will be greatly missed.
GREAT AUTHOR,GREAT BOOKOctober 24, 2008 WHAT AN INCREDIBLE BOOK..JUST STAY WITH IT & IT TAKES ONE ON A JOYRIDE RIGHT UNTIL THE VERY LAST WRITTEN WORD.
Tedious at BestOctober 23, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Couldn't hold my interest. Typical of a good wordsmith who is preoccupied with his own mind. He lived inside his own head where he played and suffered. I realize he committed suicide, someone should have helped him open the door to his own interior preoccupation so he could come out and play. Easier said than done, I know, but reading his mental wanderings is exhausting.
A True ClassicOctober 20, 2008 0 out of 1 found this review helpful
For all of my life I've been a voracious reader; yet very few books gave me as much pleasure as "Infinite Jest". A savage satire on our way of life, yet truly funny and immensely readable, with a character of its very own. I am certain that in a hundred years' time, it will rank as equal to Tom Jones, Tristram Shandy and Gulliver's Travels as a true classic. A rare pleasure I would recommend to all.
