Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

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.

Man this book...it was a journey. First the end-notes..good god the end notes! As annoying as they were they really helped shape a lot of the anecdotes and characters. Although we didn't really “connect” with the characters, I think they were meant to be a reflection of ourselves in all their myriad faults.

A great novel, and for it's time absolutely legendary. A great reflection on America and the West at the turn of the millennium and oddly prescient about how the world was shaping up for the new one. The most intense introduction to DFW, after years of procrastinating but highly recommended for any true lover of literature. The prose can be a bit much at times, thank god for dictionaries but in the end it probably expanded my own. At the end we're left wondering... what the fuck just happened here! Much like while reading the book, I think I need a little while to gather my thoughts after the long slog (although enjoyable).

I'm still comprehending what I just read.

This book is so epic, so well-written, and so thought-provoking that it may be the Odyssey of the millennial generation. The rich satire, creatively manufactured vocabulary, and exceptionally obscure but exceptionally human character development is enough to make any English major (or word-lover, book-lover, David Foster Wallace lover) drool. While not for the faint of heart (the book is over 1,000 pages including footnotes, has sentences that stretch over several pages, and a lexicon that would have even the most erudite Harvard professor scratching her head), it is more than a worthy read. It provides a lens straight into the darkest parts of the human psyche and exposes the addict that lives in all of us.

A fascinating commentary on our media-driven society, this book is so strange and fantastic and deeply sad and hilarious and so poignant that I would recommend it to anyone who might consider taking it on. This is definitely a text that will only continue to unveil itself with each reading, so I plan to keep it with me for a lifetime.

I'm both sad and relieved to be done, but already looking forward to the next time in my life I decide to pick this up to re-read, for all else I will uncover.

Note - especially pleasurable if you've ever lived in Boston. The Beantown satire is SPOT ON.