Viewer's Reviews: Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace
ISBN-13: 978-0349121086

There are books one reads that make you aware that you have in your hands a work that has affected you. A book may stay with you for some days even weeks until as you get engrossed in another wonderful book the memory fades. Not so with this unique work by the late David Foster Wallace. This book stands on the shelf begging to be read a second time, but at almost 1100 pages tailended by 100 pages more of footnotes in  smaller type...that is indeed a challenge.

The book is about many varied subjects and some unforgettable characters, but the central theme is addiction. Whether we are in the Boston tennis academy with the young proteges and their ambitions or the halfway house just over the hill where the recovering addicts face their demons, Wallace made us take these people to our hearts and care. Despite the sometimes hysterically funny incidents and narrative this is a book about isolation of the individual and the sadness of their lives. The book will be classed as 'too difficult' by many and will be discarded within maybe 100 pages by even more. It drags in places, but you persist knowing that a flash of brilliance by the writer is not far away. Eventually the work itself becomes quite addictive, and when you finish you realise how much you are going to miss it. The only solution is to read it again and extract so much that you didn't catch first time round or even had forgotten simply because of the book's length.

David Foster was fated never to produce another novel, he died tragically in 2008. He leaves behind many books, mostly short stories and essays. As good as these are, they remain in the shadow of Infinite Jest a work truly meriting the description... 'a masterpiece'.

by Sam Sinclair

Sam recently also read and recommends Alone In Berlin by Hans Fallada and Blindness by Jose Saramago.