Infinite Jest: A Reader's Guide 

just finished the book, as in minutes ago, and the first thought I had after the weird feeling of closing a freshly finished book passed was : I can finally watch this book chemist reader's guide.

My absolute favorite part in the novel is around the 750 page mark when Hal and Mario are talking and Hal spills his heart out and finally asks for help. I'll never forget the end of the chapter when Hal asks Mario, "What should I do?" and Mario answers, "You just did it." I have such a hard time putting into words the gravity of that scene in the context of the entire book but I loved loved loved Hal finally recognizing that he can't put on a show anymore and he cant keep being the only person in his life. That was the moment when I started to recognize how real this novel was.

you wld be a great literature professor

After recently reading Gravity's Rainbow (a book which has sat on my shelf with a bookmark in it for 30 years), I decided to read Infinite Jest. Before reading it, I discovered your wonderfully informative series of book reviews and discussions. Thanks so much for all of your efforts. I'm sure that they have helped me to appreciate this book more than I would have done approaching it cold. Cheers from Canada!

Thanks for making this video. I’m trying to become a better reader so guides like this help me to better understand how to think about what I’m reading. I just finished infinite jest and it’s the most complex thing I’ve ever read. When I reread it I think I’m going to pick up on a lot more.

Suggestion - Reader's Guide to Gravity's Rainbow.

For me, Infinite Jest was a book about everything, but using your concepts, I think the book was trying to mimic not only himself but for a lot of people at the time and even now. The structure of using the Sierpinski Triangle is related to Chaos Theory which suggests that life is not about cause and effect which Plato and Newton believed. if one looks at the Sierpinski Triangle, one can argue that both Chaos theory and this boom suggests that life is neither a linear or non linear line. it's these points of a triangle that are scattered and maybe can be correlated but due to a gap, it looks, and feels random. Chaos Theory also created the Butterfly Effect which suggests a butterfly wings in the southern hemisphere will become a a hurricane in the northern. This concept, one can can argue, is similar to tennis with how force and velocity is used. For the realist and postmodern arguements, David Foster Wallace was subconsciously battling the fight to be ironic yet genuine. The realistic parts of the book are painstakingly real to the point of uncomfortable, and the surrealist parts including the footnotes do feel like one big joke and I think this is the point. the point that for a lot of people, Wallace included, the only way to get through life is to joke about it like a stand up comedian. There are laugh out loud funny even in the Rehab sections. Also as someone who has experienced "paranormal evenys" anything is on the table. we can look up interviews with killers and criminals like they are celebrities. if we can do that, we can deal with wheel chair terrorists.

I loved the parallel between JOI's aversion to figurants and DFW's decision not to have any in IJ. Re: the Hamlet connection, it seemed to me like DFW was playing with the idea of Hamlet's madness through Hal, which made me pay much more attention to Avril and Tavis' relationship than I may have otherwise. I was one of the readers who went immediately back to the beginning. I was a huge fan of that circular structure, I thought it was so clever. I think, based on Marathe's condemnation of how addicted americans are to entertainment, that the "problem" is not really with the film Infinite Jest (and therefore not with the structure of the book), but with the people who watch it, with society. So yes, the end is a joke, we thought we were only observers of people who are crippled by addiction and realize that we too are the addicts. I also think that because JOI created it to help Hal communicate, and the fact that Hal seeks the film as a cure, shows that addictive entertainment can be a salve for the anhedonia that culture tells us to value because it gives us the thing that we've been denied, the "naive" sentimentality that we all long for. Which goes back to that idea of writing literature that is enjoyable again rather than just a linguistic exercise. Have you read Lit by Mary Karr? There are some familiar characters for readers of IJ.

It's been a few years but what I remember from that book is that it mostly consisted of seemingly unrelated scenes that actually were related; the order of things were like mixed up jigsaw puzzle pieces. The real joy from reading Infinite Jest is to read it the same way a student would read a research paper. Keep asking yourself questions, and keep as many mental tabs open as possible. As the book goes on, and as you (the reader) get acquainted to the lore of Infinite Jest, the dots begin to connect. What you see is a story that is both parts tragic and beautiful. How exactly Infinite Jest does this, well, you'd have to read it to know. However, in retrospect, Infinite Jest is definitely not without its flaws. One interesting criticism that has surrounded this book as of recently is that some readers cannot separate Infinite Jest from the suicide of David Foster Wallace in 2008. I don't happen to agree with this particular sentiment but I can see where that opinion comes from. In many ways Infinite Jest is a journey into the mind of DFW, which, by some definitions of the word, was damaged. For some readers who may have experienced a suicide of someone close or have even experienced suicidal thoughts/acts themselves, Infinite Jest could be miserable and meandering rather than thought-provoking or interesting. I didn't think DFW's personal turmoils made the book any less enjoyable. If anything, it probably made Infinite Jest's darker moments more authentic. I guess it is one of the things that makes the book not for everyone (and believe me, there are PLENTY).

Excellent analysis! My own thoughts : I remember thinking about the film JOI made called “The Joke” which was a “variable length” film that ended when the theatre goers left, and projected the audience right back to them. It reminded my of the way this book is often only read but just a bit, known for people to give up on it. In that way, it’s kind of like “The Joke”, seeing themselves reflected in it, amused at their own likeness on screen (and their own thoughts in book). Those who keep re-reading it are kind of like staying in the theatre, until the book goes from “The Joke” to “Infinite Jest”. Cheers!

I felt the ending, and having to go back to the opening chapter to continue on the infinite reading of the book made it feel like one big joke, but in context the opening chapter then reads much sadder. That seems to be a major intention of Wallace - to create this oscillation between sadness and strange humour since life is basically one big distraction from the inevitability of death, which could support the idea that the book is post-modern since it knows it's a distraction from the banalities of life. The whole novel practically feels like Wallace scooped out his brain and wrote everything he was thinking verbatim, so that incongruous yet natural oscillation between surreality/fart jokes/absurdity and more blunt chapters about suicide and addiction gives more weight to it being a realist novel, imo. It's one of the those books where it's weight only really hits you after you've finished it (not literally, haha). I loved how I could compare my original reaction to reading the first chapter - sort of a mix of nerves (will it be THAT good?), intrigue and confusion - to my second reading immediately after finishing it, which was far different; I felt depressed, exhausted, yet that intrigue still remained since I knew I'd likely be reading the thing on a constant loop until I succumb to the same fate as J.O.I

This was great! I love IJ, parts of it were the most spot on writing I have ever read in my life. I have thought about many of the things you discussed, but I did not know DFW wanted to have all characters equal - no main character - it completely makes sense now you said it! You have probably already heard of him, but if you have not yet tried reading him, you should definitely check out Mark Z Danielewski! The way you describe IJ and why you love it makes me think you would really enjoy MZD! :)

You might say that the "infinite loop" you speak of, the desire to return and start the book again, is Wallace critiquing the reader for wanting the wrong things. The people who watched the Entertainment and wanted nothing more than to keep watching it were corrupted by addiction to entertainment, when really they should have been seeking happiness through connection and relationships. So Wallace is saying to the reader, Stop trying to decipher the plot or understand the chronology - it's the people that matter!

I finished this today and I absolutely don't want to go back to the beginning. This was a tough read 😅

Thank you for this video. Very informative. I’d love to read it but I don’t know if I have the courage to read a book that long.

Whenever you feel like it: A Reader's Guide to Gravity's Rainbow (or Mason & Dixon/Against the Day), A Readers Guide to Underworld, & A Readers Guide to Ulysses. When you get around to having more free time to read new novels you should check out 2666 by Bolano, J R or The Recognitions by Gaddis, or any number of William T. Vollmann's novels and eventually review whichever you get to, would love to hear your thoughts on any of them.

So I just completed the book earlier today and I would like to share my thoughts here as I have repeatedly watched and re-watched your IJ review during my journey with this behemoth. Disclaimer: I will not be repeating the excellent points summarized in your video, I just want to share my general thoughts with the wider world. I started reading IJ as part of a book club which was initiated by myself and the handful of literary minded people that I know. I went into it having ingested every audio/video recording of DFWs and read all of his essay/short story books. Needless to say, I am a fan yet I felt prepared. I've read a lot and I worked my way up the greasy pole of literature to earn this book. What I didn't realize is how paralyzing all of this thinking was for me as quite quickly I found myself feeling extremely anxious under the deadlines set by the book club and general aura of the book itself. I fell prey to reading constantly for authorial intent and questioning everything by referencing soundbites in interviews,online guides etc (avoiding any and all spoilers). At page ~700 I had to stop attending the book club and I only was able to pick the book up about a month later, sans the dictatorial deadlines. I stopped taking copious notes and using sticky pads and just read... Until that point, I did not understand what you meant by the "addictive" nature of the book. I had no idea to be honest. After ditching the note taking, I was hooked, and I felt like any time I wasn't reading it, it was on my mind all the time. I had to know how it all ended. After completing it, I felt that the last scene gave me a similar feeling to that which I felt at the end of Requiem for a Dream back in 2000 - lonely ,dirty, uncomfortable and hollow on the inside. The book is absolutely mindblowing, if for nothing else, with its ambition - with everything it tries to achieve using printed ink on pieces of paper. I read Saul Bellows Humboldt's Gift during my aforementioned downtime and I felt that IJ had worked my literary muscles to such a point that I felt that Bellows book (which I really enjoyed btw) to be light weight and easily toyed with in my mind. IJ was so relatable at times, its almost as if I felt that the author had plagiarized my thoughts. At other times, it feels hauntingly unfamiliar and perplexing .I can see why people give up. Yet, it is one of the few books that I have read in my adult life that have felt so rewarding and mind expanding, only if you let it creep in and take control. My suggestion to first time readers is to do just that, let in creep in and take over for 1079 pages.. Sew your eyelids open if you have to, it is worth it.

great video

Hi Bookchemist. I really enjoy your videos and always learn a thing or two in the process of watching them. IJ was one of my first forays into the world of post-modern fiction (debatable) and what an introduction it was. Breathtaking in scope, mesmerizing in content, the dark, sad and often disturbing underbelly of the narrative is allayed by piquant humor so resonant it brought tears to my eyes. My question is actually more of a request. Your videos tend to focus on the post-modern novel and I understand that this is your area of expertise however I would dearly love to see you post a few reviews on some of my favorite writers, contemporary and otherwise, who don't fit neatly into this category. My suggestions are as follows; Franz Kafka, Milan Kundera, Mikhail Bulgakov, Italo Calvino, Orhan Pamuk, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and, as an Irishman, Jimmy Joyce. This request (as if your some two bit DJ spinning records for the delectation of drunken revellers) is entirely selfish on my part so I kept the list short(ish). Thanks for all your good work. A Farron.

I can't really agree with your point about the endnotes mirroring a game of tennis since Wallace has stated (I believe it was in his interview with Charlie Rose?) that originally the endnotes were written as footnotes to be referenced at the bottom of the page (which is something commonly found in his other works). Instead, it was the editor's decision to put them at the end of the book in order to solve the text formatting problems the footnotes were causing. But I guess that comes back to the problem of judging a book based on authorial intent, which you brought up in the beginning of this video. However, this is the first time that I've heard that the endnotes are, in part, comprised of what he was forced to eliminate from the original manuscript. That makes things interesting. I think I do agree with you, in that perhaps there is something there about the effort it takes to engage with another person and the structure of both the story and the book-as-object reflects this in many ways. I absolutely agree that the book is about, among other things, active intentional engagement with something other than yourself or your own pleasure (i.e. "KEEP COMING BACK!"). I appreciate what you brought up about Lyle levitating and the problem of interpreting the surrealism peppered throughout this (as I see it) very realist novel. But now that I'm thinking back on it, didn't the levitation almost seem like the LEAST surreal part about Lyle? I mean we're talking about a man who subsists exclusively off the sweat of young athletic boys. Young boys who consent to being licked by a strange spiritual sage who lives in their locker room. When the levitation was mentioned, as it is, offhand and never really returned to as far as I can tell, I didn't feel like it was a distraction from the realism or a joke on the reader (not that I don't think the book contains such distractions and jokes elsewhere!). For me it was one of many moments in the book that had a real "cinematic" feel, where it felt perfect in terms of the rhythm of the narrative, capping off one part of the story and building momentum for the next. I can't really explain why this is but that's just kind of how it felt when I was reading it. Anyway, thanks for making this video, I really enjoyed it!

Can you link me the link of your Infinite Jest videos? I have searched up and there’s no results.

I'm so so glad you made this video. IJ is my favorite book, and you could make a thousand videos talking about it and I wouldn't get bored (but I think that's mainly because I'm the only person I know that has read the book or would ever read read such a beast and I'm just craving for sharing insights about the book with other people). A few thoughts: Wallace thought that the puropse of reading books was to stop you from feeling alone (I'm quoting the end of the tour here) and that literature is where solitude can be confronted and transfigured. I believe in that very strongly, and that's why it is my favourite novel, because it is the only one in wich after reading it I ended up thinking "now I'm less alone than when I started it". I don't know if any other book I read will ever top that. The style, the humour, the themes and the characters (specially Hal and JOI -when seen as a wraith) resonated with me. About the ending and the inmediate impulse of re-reading it again, I think it is because it plays a dirty trick: it ends out of nowhere. It doesn't so much "ends" as just "finishes". Unlike the majority of well-structured plot-driven books, in IJ, as you read the las pages, you don't get a chance to prepare yourself mentally and think "Okey, this is it, this is coming to an end". In my case, since after the end of the main narrative you have all the endnote pages, I didn't realise that I was about to finish the book until I turned a page and I saw it was the last one. I had already come to terms with the fact that I was probably not going to get a resolution to the plot, but I expected at least some sort of conclusive chapter after Gately's flashback. And since the first chapter is actually the one that comes next chronologically and ends with that "then yo what's your story", it is just basically yelling at you "HEY, READ ME AGAIN". I read somewhere an interesting theory about why there is a one year gap between the ending and the beggining. At some point in the book an AA memeber says that when you have a serious adiction there are chunks of your life that you just disappear from your memory and you can even wake up somewhere you don't know and having lost whole years of your life. Based on that, the theory claimed that Gately was finally given that sedative and relapsed into addiction and we don't get to see what happend between YDAU and YG because he doesn't remember either -and that's why he is desperately eating in Hals premonitory dream. Just a theory, but quite interesting. About weather it is a realist novel. This is probably just my experience, but IJ is, of all the books I've read, the one that felt the most "real" to me and came alive in my mind the most. I think it's a blend of a few aspects: The fact that is divided in segments that are written in a collection of different styles (first person, third person, dialogue, formal and informal style, bostonian slang, etc) plus the endnotes, it all gave the book a sort of "enciclopedic" or "documentary" vibe, like it was a collection of diferent sources put together to construct the whole story. Also, Wallace's style, including the informal talk and the extremely long sentences really sound, while reading it, as a mental dicourse, like a real stream of consciousness, to me even more realistic than Ulysses ending one, to give an example. That's why it all seemed very real in my head, despite the the absurdist elements like terrorists on wheelchairs, feral animals, mutant babies, ATHSCME, and the fact that there's a fucking ghost in the novel.

I just finished IJ, went back to the beginning and felt tricked. Awsome video, gave me a lot of insight on some ideas I had during the read. I waa thinking on reading D. T. Max biography on DFW, do you think I should read more of DFW books before reading it? Have you read it yourself? Excellent channel btw.

Please make more Infinite Jest videos

Have you ever considered making a video like this (or a review or something else) about The Pale King?

You should do a video commemorating Umberto Eco, as a reader's guide for one of his books. Foucault's Pendulum, The Name of the Rose (the only one I have read), or the most recent one (Numero Zero)

I read it on my Kindle, the end notes were too awkward on that so I skipped them. I feel ashamed! ..but not too ashamed - I still read the rest of the thing which is more than Bob down the street managed (probably). I didn't feel like I missed out but I will re-read with the end notes (I think a combo of iphone for end notes and Kindle for body (or is that still cheating?)). Anyway what I just realised watching your excellent video is that I never really tried too hard to analyse IJ. I find this odd as I do enjoy analysing a good book. Was it because I was just swept up in it so much. I loved reading it, found it an incredibly enjoyable and exhilarating read. Was it because by the end of the book I had only just realised that the start of the book was the end of the book and I spent the entire book wanting to find out what happened after the start of the book. Or was it because it just seemed beyond me to understand his genius. What I know is is that I must read it again because I don't think I understood it. Perhaps that is the point. Perhaps you are not meant to understand it (but just keep reading it).

Oh boy! Loved the video! IJ is also my favourite book -- and for the same reasons Eyes Wide Shut is my favourite movie: I don't know. DFW wrote IJ really well, each chapter surprising you. Many styles, many themes. So you can continue reading without getting bored! Somehow I got the feeling of seeing archetypal genres throughout the book. Adventure (tunnel club), Lovecraftian Horror* (Geoffrey Day and Gompert talking about It), Love Story (Orin and Joelle), Criticism (anhedonia), "and c". And of course, the humanity of it... About the realism: I don't think it's a realist novel at all. Just because it relates to real human struggle, it doesn't mean that it is realist (in my opinion). Actually, one key concept I had to keep in mind through the whole reading was that IJ is Postmodern, and may be trolling you at every page. Many things are kind of "prejudice" or phoney stereotypes -- I mean, some parts are acceptable only if you find irony in it. E.g.: in a youtube interview with a German journalist, DFW, when she said that Schtit is not a German name at all, answers laughing that of course not, it's a name Americans feel like it's German. I prefer that: books that are labeled Postmodern somehow have the credentials to do anything they want, and controversy/falsity are regarded as having ulterior motif. And of course: the NON LINEARITY. How the fuck is that realist? And of course2: the ENDING. That was the most fucked up ending I have ever read. At the moment, for me it was like "Okay, this bastard wanted so much to write a book that was a critique of entertainment that he went UNCOURTEOUS to the reader. To prove his point he went overhead". For me it looks like a Duchamp 'work of art': while the CONCEPT is interesting/original, the actual thing is nowadays outdated, boring, meaningless. So: for me, the ending is as highbrow as it gets, artsy, Postmodern in the sense of trying to reach beyond our culture by means of deconstruction. Today I'm okay with it, I'm not angry anymore LOL. But it's smarty-pants shit. About what I want to see: this is very good! It's nice to post questions like that to the viewers. Though I don't know anyother book that will be as engaging as IJ... Gravity's Rainbow? I haven't read it yet, but when I do I'd love to watch a video like this one. Maybe House of Leaves will bring good discussion also =) (what you said about minor characters getting in the way, and how we react to them, is kind of the message of This is Water! That we tend to dehumanize others, to see them as stones our road; to see us as the Center of the Universe! DFW's short story "The Depressed Person" is also about this -- a person who feels really bad, but lacks the ability to see the troubles of others. Solipsism?) *I wrote blog post about it: brunolaze.blogspot.com.br/2015/01/infinite-jests-reference-to-hp-lovecraft.html PS: recently wrote a paper (in Portuguese) about IJ and HoL, here's further references: ERCOLINO, Stefano. “The maximalist novel”. In: Comparative Literature 64(3) FREUDENTHAL, Elizabeth. “Anti-interiority: compulsiveness, objectification, and identity in Infinite Jest”. In: New Literary History 41(1): 2010. GILES, Paul. “Sentimental posthumanism: David Foster Wallace”. In: Twentieth-Century Literature 53(3): 2007. Et Unibus Pluram, by DFW, also is good the understand IJ.

How many times have you read IJ and did you get much more out of it on subsequent readings? I didn't really get it much as a whole but really felt strongly connected to so many individual moments in it. I'm not really sure what to think of it but I'm also kind of new to these kinds of books.

I'm not sure the book aims to be either a complete joke that becomes this sort of vicious circle or a complete study of realism and the human condition. I think that the combination of both is what makes up our existence. We try to make sense of a world that makes no sense. We try to find pleasures and strive for success when within the grand scheme of things out efforts really don't amount to much. Trying to make sense of a world like ours is a joke in itself. I guess this "grand scheme" can be the entire book. This, however, doesn't mean that within ourselves there aren't real struggles like addiction and obsession and loneliness. These can be the individual character studies within the novel itself. Combine both and I think we have an odd yet accurate representation of the lives we live and their place in the world's history, present, and future. To us our issues cause depression, anxiety, loneliness, but when we look at existence as a whole does any of it really matter? Are our efforts humorous to this thought? But maybe that's just me. 😒

Dehydration is the proper term for something such as this. I'll put it as it gives you majestic momentum where you flow through a moment pulls the breaks (tennis theory from other people holy hell) and has you trudge through a bit then as soon as you find the new flow the breaks pull full stop again. This book was a joke from Wallace. Majestic and beautiful yes but ambiguous and frustrating was the intention especially the end where that tide is way way out

_Infinite Jest: A Reader's Guide_ _It's meant for people who've read Infinite Jest_

I didn't really think of the cyclical nature to be a joke or trick. To me it felt like a way to make the narrative feel more fragmentary and dreamlike. DFW said in an interview that the endnotes were a way of presenting reality in a more fragmentary way to better convey how reality feels. And the cyclical nature is there to sort of emphasize that and I think all the surreal aspects are there to represent feeling first, which makes some of it feel even more real than a pure realist take.

You should do a read along with Kavalier and Clay. I want to read it soon. What are your thoughts on DFW now? I notice you haven't been promulgating his writing so much any more. I've still only read Oblivion. I liked it. I like watching his interviews. I lived in the same house he lived in in Allston. There was a plaque over the fire place for him.

In my opinion, Wallace managed to cram the paradox of the nature of life into about 1100 pages. It's a practically a modern Finnegan's Wake in that regard. I describe this book to people who ask as a "meta-modern psychedelic mystery", and that's about as compressed as I can get with it as far as a synopsis. There truly is a little bit of everything in this nove and no 2 people will glean the exact same information or insights from it, but I concur that because of how "terminally" compelling it is like the fictional film- it's also largely a cautionary tale.

I would say IJ is postmodern literature, because it doesn't have a coherent POV. There is 1st person narration, omnicient narration and I would say 3rd person limited narration going on. It's mosaic thing and that is a quite a PoMo move to do

Boy, this video was fantastic! I agree with most of what you said. The structure of the book is what makes it so good--wasn't it modeled on something called a Sierpinski's gasket? I didn't think about how the circular structure could be a joke till now. I never thought of it in such stark terms. Hmmm. And people get annoyed by the end notes--and so did I--but they serve a function. They do mimic a game of tennis. But some of the end notes reveal very crucial plot points. And also aren't the end notes like another voice? Sort of like a commentary? But then that would be reminding you that you are reading a book, and I'm not sure whether the book doesn't remind you that you are reading the book--it does and it doesn't, I guess. As for whether it's postmodern, I don't know. It sure "feels" postmodern a bit at times, no? The goofy humor a la Pynchon does exist in the book, regardless of whether Wallace was trying to rebel that. Do you think those gags are parodying or just disguised as a parody? About themes: the one theme I don't get is that Avril-Orin incest theme. I just didn't get that. Maybe that's the tragedy theme you are talking about. And the characters sometimes feel realistic and sometimes don't. Every character has parts where they're just being too surreal. But then again the beginning, the ending, the CHEERS part, Kate Gompert's passage, the marijuana scene do seem very realistic. The others don't--they don't seem Franzen-realistic at least (:P). Other books: do Suttree, do Gravity's Rainbow and Lot 49, do White Noise and Libra, do Staggering Genius, do them all. Okay, I'll stop now. :P

As soon I finished the book, I turned to the start to read the start again and instantly started laughing at the title. I felt like it was DFW's final joke, at the readers expense, the book is an Infinite Jest.

Im 40 pages away from finishing, wish I had this when I started ha

I'm not an academic, so I might be totally wrong here, but you mention IJ being a response to "minimalism and post-modernism" - aren't you misconstruing these terms? I thought "minimalism" since the 80s refers to the sparse, nihilistic works of authors like Bret Easton Ellis - pretty much the total opposite of the maximalist works of a classic postmodernist like Pynchon. To me, IJ feels like a rejection of the first and a sort of loving nod to the second. I'd definitely put the book firmly into the postmodern category, though arguably for surface reasons. Totally disagree that the novel never foregrounds itself as a novel. There's a play with the physical object of the book (the massive size; the constant flipping of pages) and with the fragmentation of the narrative (both in the timeline of events and in the number of characters). Also, the thing you mentioned about the addictiveness of a book largely about addiction, particularly to entertainment. To me, those elements make it feel like a self-conscoiusly Big Important Novel that makes the reader very aware every step of the way that they are reading a Big Important Novel. A book about the reading of said book is a very blunt form of being postmodern, sure, but it certainly falls into that tradition better than any other one to me. Plus, themes like mass media and life in post-industrial society are like postmodernism 101, right? And to me, IJ has more interesting things to say about those subjects than, for example, White Noise (really disliked that book - should give Delillo another go). I've never quite understood the whole thing about post-modernism being heartless and unenjoyable. Maybe it's only linguistic experiments and theory when you get to stuff like Barthes, Gass, etc. (I have no idea, have not read them; not very well read in general), but certainly the works of a guy like Pynchon are full of beauty and heart-on-the-sleeve emotion - in his case, comraderie and nostalgia in particular. Chapter 2 of Lot 49 is perhaps my favourite piece of literature ever, for its incredible sweetness, humour and atmosphere. And I'm currently reading Gravity's Rainbow, which is a lot less tongue-in-cheek and a lot more muted and tragic than I expected. So I don't understand why "being postmodern" and displaying real emotion are an either/or proposition when DFW's biggest inspiration (so it seems) has been successfully walking that tightrope since the 60s. To sum up, once again, I don't see how IJ is not a part of the postmodern tradition. I know it's just semantics at the end of the day, but, honestly, I'm sometimes slightly annoyed by IJ being considered a groundbreaking paradigm shift when it really, really does not seem that way to me. And I absolutely love the book regardless, don't get me wrong. Gosh, what a long, meandering comment to get to that point. As I said before, I'm not well-read and I haven't studied literature, so hopefully this whole post wasn't totally dumb. All in all, great video! Made me write my first YT comment ever, I think. Love the channel - you radiate enthusiasm for literature; it's a pleasure to see.

You are awesome, I love your reviews, I buy books that you recommend, so could you please find it in your heart to improve your acoustics? You have an interesting voice with an even more interesting mind that is hamstrung by speaking into a mic that is too far away. I could have made this comment on a recent review but I did not want to detract from it.

I feel like 1000 pages in to IJ you have given up on trying to follow a plot.

Infinite Jest is a work of postmodernism. Be prepared.

Interesting book video. PS - I like your accent too. Go Italy!

304

***Spoilers*** I just finished Infinite Jest and I loved it but one thing is still annoying me... What was with the hilarious bricklayer scene???? Maybe I didn't pick up on something that was written there??

Looking like kojima

Spoilers? Don't worry dude. I read a whole chapter and nothing happens at all... repeat. It's just build up and time being wasted, with no conclusion.

So you're making a readers guide which shouldn't be watched by people who are planning on reading it?!