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Infinite Jest
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Infinite Jest Paperback - 2006

by David Foster Wallace


About this book

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is a complex and sprawling novel that explores a dystopian future where entertainment has reached extreme levels of addiction and obsession. Set in a near-future North America that is comprised of Mexico, the US and Canada, the story revolves around the Enfield Tennis Academy and a halfway house located in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, and divided by a hillside. A mysterious film titled Infinite Jest is rumored to be so entertaining that it drives viewers insane. The narrative weaves together various storylines, delving into themes of addiction, depression, loneliness, and the search for meaning in a fragmented and chaotic world. Wallace's intricate prose, extensive footnotes, and dark humor challenge readers while offering a profound exploration of contemporary society's struggles and desires. Infinite Jest was considered by Time Magazine as one of the TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

From the publisher

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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From the rear cover

Infinite Jest is the name of a movie said to be so entertaining that anyone who watches it loses all desire to do anything but watch it. People die happily, viewing it in endless repetition. The novel Infinite Jest is the story of this addictive entertainment, and in particular how it affects a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts and a nearby tennis academy, whose students have many budding addictions of their own. As the novel unfolds, various individuals, organizations, and governments vie to obtain the master copy of Infinite Jest for their own ends, and the denizens of the tennis school and the halfway house are caught up in increasingly desperate efforts to control the movie - as is a cast including burglars, transvestite muggers, scam artists, medical professionals, pro football stars, bookies, drug addicts both active and recovering, film students, political assassins, and one of the most endearingly messed-up families ever captured in a novel. On this outrageous frame hangs an exploration of essential questions about what entertainment is, and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment interacts with our need to connect with other humans; 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. The huge cast and multilevel narrative serve a story that accelerates to a breathtaking, heartbreaking, unforgettable conclusion. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human - and one of those rare books that renew the very idea of what a novelcan do.

First Edition Identification

The first edition of Infinite Jest was published by Little, Brown in 1996. The original price was $29.95 and it was 1079 pages long. The blue paper boards were stamped in silver on the spine, and the original dust jacket had eight reviews with William Vollmann's name misspelled as Vollman rather than Vollmann. First Edition is stated on the copyright page along with the full number line 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. Signed copies of Infinite Jest's first edition can be sold for up to several thousand USD.

Details

  • Title Infinite Jest
  • Author David Foster Wallace
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition 10 Anv
  • Pages 1104
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Back Bay Books, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
  • Date 2006-11-13
  • ISBN 9780316066525 / 0316066524
  • Weight 2.42 lbs (1.10 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.2 x 6 x 1.9 in (23.37 x 15.24 x 4.83 cm)
  • Library of Congress subjects Humorous stories, Compulsive behavior
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2006934927
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Media reviews

Citations

  • Entertainment Weekly, 03/04/2016, Page 66
  • New York Review of Books, 05/12/2011, Page 8
  • New York Times Book Review, 02/07/2016, Page 16
  • Newsweek, 11/29/2010, Page 50
  • Time, 06/22/2009, Page 107

About the author

David Foster Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1962 and raised in Illinois, where he was a regionally ranked junior tennis player. He received bachelor of arts degrees in philosophy and English from Amherst College and wrote what would become his first novel, The Broom of the System, as his senior English thesis. He received a masters of fine arts from University of Arizona in 1987 and briefly pursued graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University. His second novel, Infinite Jest, was published in 1996. Wallace taught creative writing at Emerson College, Illinois State University, and Pomona College, and published the story collections Girl with Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Oblivion, the essay collections A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and Consider the Lobster. He was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Whiting Writers' Award, and was appointed to the Usage Panel for The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. He died in 2008. His last novel, The Pale King, was published in 2011.
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