I see characters as figures on a spreadsheet, like a, b, c, and so on. Infinite jest by david foster wallace overdrive rakuten. Not even the masters of the highlow rhetorical register go higher more panoramically or lower more exuberantly than. 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. Infinite jest by david foster wallace, first edition. These are the endnotes to david foster wallaces infinite jest, a gargantuan, mindaltering comedy about the pursuit of happiness in america. The book is drumtight and relentlessly smart and, though it does not wear its heart on its sleeve, its deeply felt and incredibly moving. On march 27, hachette audio released david foster wallaces magnum opus infinite jest most of it, at least as a 56hourlong audiobook. Why i cannot recommend the infinite jest audio book. Steven asin infinite jest is the perfect book for the kindle paperwhite. A big thank you to the men and women in the publishing industry who were kind andor lazy enough to keep things consistent. These are the endnotes to david foster wallaces infinite jest, a gargantuan, mindaltering. It has been categorized as an encyclopedic novel and made time magazines list of the 100 best englishlanguage novels published between.
Beyond the ease with which one can lookup footnotes, consider the following. Whether you are a word gourmet or gourmand, infinite. Find all the books, read about the author, and more. If youve never read it, starting infinite jest can be a little intimidating. 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. I am somewhat tempted to immediately start again, since the end is the beginning and you really cant pick it all up in a single read, but if anyone has a good followup or comedown read suggestion id be glad to hear. The novel is a interconnected sequence of events, told out of timeline order, that focuses on addiction in all its forms. Its 56 hours long, but its so well performed that it never drags at any moment in the book. I cant recommend the purchase of the what at first appears to be the amazing ive heard good things about the audio, excellent vocal performance audio book of infinite jest.
Buy infinite jest book online at low prices in india. On reading the first chapter of infinite jest sally allen. How to read infinite jest chronologically infinite jest. The mindbending novel, celebrated for its gargantuan length and mentally demanding, nonlinear narrative, is particularly famous for wallaces exhaustive endnotes, which routinely interrupt the author. Infinite jest is both sad, depressed and funny and even 25 years after it was published in 1994 remains relevant to the modern age. With regard to the basic 14 plot line, the setting for the majority of the action is enfield, a fictional suburbia town outside of boston. 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. He received a masters of fine arts from university of. Set in an addicts halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwedup family to c. Having only read the first extremely exhausting chapter, i cant tell you whether i would feel this way after two or more. As the novel unfolds, various individuals, organizations, and governments vie to obtain the master copy of infinite jest for their own ends, and the denizens of the tennis school and the halfway house are caught up in increasingly desperate efforts to control the movie as is a cast including burglars, transvestite muggers, scam artists. He received numerous awards, including the whiting award, the. Our website also provides download infinite jest pdf in many format, so dont worry if readers want to download infinite jest pdf online that cant be open through their device. At more than 1,000 pages with copious footnotes infinite jest is a famously difficult read.
Definitely worth a try for anyone attempting a second read. David foster wallaces infinite jest is an audiobook. Infinite jest audiobook david foster wallace audible. David foster wallace was born in ithaca, new york, in 1962 and raised in illinois, where he was a regionally ranked junior tennis player. Infinite jest audiobook endnotes on the way infinite. For reference while working on the project drew used the ij scene by scene guide, and stephen burns david foster wallaces infinite jest. Does anyone know the difference between the two versions other than the endnotes. If you have not read infinite jest there are major spoilers to be found. In infinite jest, the characters actions are so bizarre that you cant forget where you left off. Hal incandenza, a tennis prodigy and drug user as a result of. I guess this is a first for me and ill get straight to the point. Infinite jest is a clear example of how humans add to the confusion of the world.
A few weeks ago, i wrote the foreword for infinite summer, a summerlong collective read of infinite jest, david foster wallaces bigass novel and one of my favorite books. Infinite jest kindle edition by wallace, david foster. Infinite jest is a novel written by david foster wallace. The audiobook has a different voice that interjects endnote numbers at the appropriate points and i have a pdf of all the endnotes that i refer to. Wallace wrote to a friend that the fuckers cut by 600 pages from the first version. Infinite jest audiobook by david foster wallace, read by. Events mentioned or described in infinite jest 1996 are listed below in chronological order based on textual evidence. At the top of a hill is the enfield tennis academy, and at the base of the hill is the ennet house. 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. Infinite jest infinite jest audiobook, by david foster wallace.
In 2006, little brown published a 10th anniversary edition of david foster wallaces infinite jest that featured a foreword by dave eggers. The lengthy and complex work takes place in a semiparodic future version of north america, and touches on substance addiction recovery programs, depression, child abuse, family relationships, advertising, popular entertainment, film theory, quebec separatism, and tennis, among other topics. The first chapter of infinite jest is one of the best examples ive read in recent years. I was thinking of getting infinite jest, since i could not make any headway with my paperback version. Whether its drugs, sex, or fame, the novels primary goal is to examine the need for these addictions and show that it is possible to addicted to addiction itself. 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. 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. Infinite jest audiobook endnotes on the way infinite jest readers might recall some of the concerns and criticisms last month about the release of the lack of recorded end notes in the infinite jest audio book not forgetting pdf end notes are include. David foster wallace what to read after infinite jest. Infinite jest is a 1996 novel by american writer david foster wallace. Written by david foster wallace, audiobook narrated by sean pratt. As it turns out, all physical edition of infinite jest have 981 pages. Eggerss introduction observed that infinite jest was 1,067 pages long and there is not one lazy sentence. Im currently listening to the audiobook of infinite jest, which is brilliantly narrated, from audible.
David foster wallace 19622008 was the new york times bestselling author of infinite jest, the broom of the system, and girl with curious hair. 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. Infinite jest by david foster wallace free download. Infinite jest is a 1996 novel by david foster wallace. The good news is that it is not a thousandpage paragraph or even a thousandpage story. My first attempt was a list of advice on reading the novelthe submission of which prompted infsums dungeon master, matthew baldwin, to write back with. Infinite jest has a reputation for being one of those books that everyone starts and no one finishes.
A multilayered postmodern saga of damnation and salvation. It is the genx ulysses that even those like me, who consider themselves dfw superfans, are. Page 407 of the 20th anniversary edition, its in the news headlines that are apart of marios puppet film for interdependence day at. Endnote 110 hal and orin discuss quebecois politics. 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.
Infinite jest is a genuinely groundbreaking novel of language. Infinite jest has been listed as one of the top 100 all time greatest novels of 19232006. Pamphile, quebec avril mondragons grandfather decides to invest in delawarebrand punch instead of cocacola. Since pratt narrates both the notes and the text, this is one easy way to distinguish the endnote narrator from my narrative narrator pratt is. There are 28 unnumbered chapter breaks signified by a little circle, similar to 28 days in a lunar continue reading matt bucher. 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.