Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace · 1996
A tennis academy, a halfway house, and a lethally entertaining film. Wallace published it in 1996: 1,079 pages including 388 endnotes. The novel of addiction, entertainment, and loneliness that defined a generation of American readers. Whether it rewards the commitment is still debated. The commitment itself became the point.
The case against
Two bookmarks, a dictionary, and fifty hours: that is the entry fee. Wallace's endnotes train you to tolerate interruption, the Quebecois separatist plot creaks, and after a thousand pages the novel declines to stage its own climax; you assemble the ending yourself from buried clues, or you walk away cheated.
Literary Fiction · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
