Infinite Jest

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.

With a foreword by Tom Bisell.

"The next step in fiction...Edgy, accurate, and darkly witty...Think Beckett, think Pynchon, think Gaddis. Think." --Sven Birkerts, The Atlantic

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Published Nov 13, 2006

1079 pages

Average rating: 6.48

21 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

LiziB
Feb 23, 2023
Ok, technically this doesn't count as "read" because I only made it 300 pages in (out of about a thousand)... I do love his writing -- each chapter is like a separate neat little piece -- but it makes me tired. And that far along I felt no confidence that the story would ever take shape.

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