David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest: A Novel

Pros: Oodles of smarts, comic genius
Cons: Ultimately unsatisfying

There's a lot in David Foster Wallace's head. Whether it's the algebraic formula comparing a military arsenal to the number of combatants or the chemical formula of hallucinogens, Wallace comes across as one smart guy. Every page of his mammoth novel...

Pros: A transcendent novel that soars above much of the drivel being published today.
Cons: It's work, lots of work to get through it...

ºIntroduction¹
For your information,² I have taken a stab at reviewing David Foster Wallace’s³ Infinite Jest once already. The book was one of my initial attempts here at Epinions, and what resulted was shameful. I think my...

Pros: entertaining, thoughtful, reflective of time 1990s, structure
Cons: pretentious, disappointing ending, post-modernism, could’ve been shorter

David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996) is a massive novel roughly about the American quest for happiness versus its possible repercussions and implications in terms of self-control. Of course, with the book clocking in at 1,079 pages (981...

Pros: A GREAT novel that must be read SLOWLY.
Cons: A LONG novel that must be read SLOWLY.

Infinite Jest is a great novel, but you should know what you're getting into.

If you've read anything else by David Foster Wallace, you know that he's a brilliant humorist who revels in bringing out the absurd in everyday life. His...

Pros: mostly funny and poignant and well-written
Cons: Often super violent; long; sometimes confusing and pretentious

It would figure that the first book I actually have some time to sit down and read in a great while would be the longest, most convoluted, most confusing thing ever written in the English language.

I knew it was long when I took it off the...

Pros: lots of very interesting plots
Cons: LOTS of.. well EVERYTHING

It will be hard to add to anything on Grouch's excellent review of this WHOPPER of a book, but I feel I should put in my 2 cents. I mean I deserve SOMETHING for getting through this monstrosity, right?

It is 1079 pages...it has 400,000 plots.....

Pros: Brilliant, mind-bending, long
Cons: long

There is an obvious question that pops into anyone's head when confronted with book that weighs in just under ten pounds: Why should I spend my valuable free time struggling through a novel that long (especially if it is, remarkably, both...

Pros: Deeply engaging, wickedly funny, some of contemporary literature's best characters
Cons: A little on the long side,

First off the book is long, really long, and it takes a long time to read. But that's obvious just from looking at the imposing book. Whoever said that a great book should be quick to read though? Second, DFW's writing is not for everyone. The Onion...

Pros: Best Book of the Decade, Crushingly Funny, Brilliant
Cons: Pushes Other Plans by the Wayside

David Foster Wallace's maximalist opus is as fun to read as it is daunting to start. Every chapter, footnote, and sub-footnote is grandly, weirdly, and wildly funny - they are cornucopiae filled with the energy and deliberate, second-order prescience of...

Pros: Brilliant, life-altering
Cons: A complete time suck

Apologies, I just had to open a David Foster Wallace review with a Pere Ubu quote. I have a feeling that DFW and David Thomas both know who they see in Caligari's mirror, but they ain't tellin'.

Infinite Jest is an astonishing work....

Pros: Best book of the '90s
Cons: Daunting length

David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" is in my opinion the most important book written in the nineteen-nineties. It's everything you've heard: massive, encyclopedic, copiously-footnoted -- and much more. Wallace is one of the few writers...

Pros: The important stuff stays with you.
Cons: Well, yeah, it is very long.

I want to read "Infinite Jest" all over again. Maybe the year it's been since I finished it has warped my opinion, but I still think that a desire to re-read the whole heft of it is pretty solid proof of how great a novel it is.

But...

Pros: humorous parts, rewarding for nerds
Cons: pointless, annoying, rewarding for nerds

David Foster Wallace is unquestionably an intelligent individual. He could be a good writer too, but it's as though he needs to constantly prove his intelligence within his writing. Way too much of this overwrought book is consumed with items which are...

Pros: Brilliant and Fascinating
Cons: Long and Self-Indulgent

Yes, it's a long book. A really long book. A book so heavy I hated to have it in my backpack. But there's a bit somewhere in the middle about videophones that made the 1000+ pages entirely worth it. I promise.

The plot is convoluted. I think I...

Pros: Fantastic sweeping story, brilliant writing
Cons: Disappointing ending

If you've got a month to spend reading a novel, you can hardly do better than Infinite Jest. I took it with me biking across France and read a hundred pages a day or so and it still took me a month.

This is the first novel I've read with...