‘A writer of virtuostic talents who can seemingly do anything’ New York Times
‘Wallace is a superb comedian of culture . . . his exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight’ James Wood, Guardian
‘He induces the kind of laughter which, when read in bed with a sleeping partner, wakes said sleeping partner up . . . He’s damn good’ Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
‘One of the best books about addiction and recovery to appear in recent memory’ Sunday Times
Somewhere in the not-so-distant future the residents of Ennet House, a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the nearby Enfield Tennis Academy are ensnared in the search for the master copy of Infinite Jest, a movie said to be so dangerously entertaining its viewers become entranced and expire in a state of catatonic bliss . . .
‘Wallace is a superb comedian of culture . . . his exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight’ James Wood, Guardian
‘He induces the kind of laughter which, when read in bed with a sleeping partner, wakes said sleeping partner up . . . He’s damn good’ Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
‘One of the best books about addiction and recovery to appear in recent memory’ Sunday Times
Somewhere in the not-so-distant future the residents of Ennet House, a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the nearby Enfield Tennis Academy are ensnared in the search for the master copy of Infinite Jest, a movie said to be so dangerously entertaining its viewers become entranced and expire in a state of catatonic bliss . . .
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Reviews
An insight into modern addictions and spiritual frustrations
Wallace's exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight, and he has deep things to say about the hollowness of contemporary American pleasure... sentences and whole pages are marvels of comic concentration... Wallace is a superb comedian of culture
A remarkable satire on American entertainment and addiction... the book's mixture of maniacal inventiveness and comic brio gradually becomes an addiction itself... Enormously readable and quite ridiculously entertaining... a book of our times
One of the best books about addiction and recovery to appear in recent memory... a dystopian fantasy of the near future, a meditation about avant-garde cinema, a burlesque of North American politics and a critique of sports culture... positively sings with lyrical insight and wry humour
Ambitious, accomplished, deeply humorous, brilliant and witty and moving. A literary sensation
Darkly comic
An exploding star of a novel... reading the book is itself a sort of addiction... Wallace writes with authority, deep feeling and caustic wit
Massive, unflagging, ingenious, an eccentric portrait of America in decline, a study in addiction, a raucous comedy of manners and mania
Scenes of gruesome hilarity and some of genuine tragedy... The most relevant portrayal of American culture to appear in recent years, Infinite Jest is fascinating, ridiculous and excruciating, and a stimulating injection into contemporary American culture
A writer of virtuostic talents who can seemingly do anything
Infinite Jest seems to fulfil every promise that David Foster Wallace displayed in his precocious and stunning The Broom of the System. If you want to know who's upholding the high comic tradition - passed down from Sterne to Swift to Pynchon - it's Wallace
Funny, smart and perceptively written
From the hilarious to the deliberately infuriating, Infinite Jest packs a considerable range of bawdy, satirical excursions... Wallace's central concerns are powerfully and disturbingly given form in the blurry hinterland where recreation meets slavery
Wallace's prose, ebullient and complex, transmits at once the vitality and absurd decadence of his culture... as an assessment of America, the novel is both powerful and troubling
Wallace's theme is addiction: to drugs, to death, to entertainment. His compulsive style mixes erudite and slacker jargon, pseudoscience and urban slang (often in the same sentence) and always in precise detail. Rousing prose breathes on to every page
Extraordinary... an astonishing and vast epic of contemporary American culture