And Lo, for the Earth was empty of form, and void.And Darkness was all over the Face of the Deep.And We said:Look at that fucker Dance Real life is a pain. Real life is a bitch. Real life slumps you together from a squiggly mess and shoots you out to a cold and unfeeling world, empty in mind and soul. So you scrounge around for meaning, whatever fulfills your personal definition of said meaning, eyes gaping for that next slice of indomitable thrills and chills, mouth pincering over a statue i

USHER: Goodreads court is now in session, the Honourable Judge Chandler presiding. All rise.JUDGE: Mr Wise, you appear before the court today on the charge of failing to adore Infinite Jest, an act in gross and flagrant violation of basic Goodreads standards of decency. How do you plead?WARWICK: Well...I mean presumably this kind of thing is all subjective opinion, so—PROSECUTOR: Let the record show that the defendant utterly fails to deny his foul sin.WARWICK: Hang on—JUDGE: So noted. If found

It's my habit to write on the inside sleeve of a book the words from the text that I can't define or don't understand. Here is the resulting list from the back inside sleeve of Infinite Jest:apocopesbolectionsregletsdipsomaniaquincunxvaricocelessimpaticoaleatoryexperialistagnatepedalferrousfulvouslouveredsangfroidgibbonsapercueideticmuratedtumescentrecidivismerumpentrutilanthalepurlednacellesulcusimprecatedtumbrelcomportmentscopophobicasperityrapaciousafflatusbatheticbrachiformstrabismicascapart...

While I don't actually have A Favorite Book (or Song, or Album, or Band, or Film, or Painting, or Sexual Position, or any other category of things that contain more than one equally great contender) Infinite Jest is the first book that immediately comes to mind when the idea of My Favorite Book arises.As I've already alluded to and partially instantiated in a few scattered places around GoodReads, I feel that I read this book at the right time. The contingent particulars which culminated as the

Anybody who completes THE "Infinite Jest" automatically receives a medal! Really. Just read every single (fuh-cking!) word from beginning til the end, you get an award. & that's what THIS IS, basically. A badge of honor. Bragging rights. A Privilege. The experience which is so much like ogling the Mona Lisa live at the Louvre for the first time: you can already envision her in your mind. & you know what it is, even before you get to stand before it. The literary equivalent of chasing the magic d...

I've been waiting, panther-like, for the right combination of caffeine and personal gumption to strike, to attack writing about this, since it really is one of my favorite books ever-ever, and one of the most fascinating things I've ever read. I've read this book twice and I could care less what people say about it, because when I *do* care, I tend to grit my teeth over the ridiculous comments & reviews that tend to come up in discussing David Foster Wallace's work. People like to levy the criti...

Know what they say about novels such as Infinite Jest: Don’t seek Perfection or Pleasure but rather seek the Infinite Possibilities.I have a lot to say about this book but before that there’s a little I don’t want to say about it. Here it is:☽This book is never ending.☽It bored me at times too.☽Some of the end notes were annoying.☽I read many other books when I was supposed to read this book.☽Whenever somebody asked me what IJ was all about, I was unable to come up with a clear-cut answer.☽I ski...

Three things in my life that have been my greatest achievements that have required the most energy and dedication:1. Getting my MBA2. Raising two kids3. Reading Infinite JestThe writing is amazing and well researched. The story is complex and troubling. So complex, in fact, I am still not quite sure what happened!I am going to be doing a lot of talking to my friends who finished it and lots of searching around on the internet to figure this one out!But, I didn't dislike it - but, if I were to re...

this book...i think it is time to write a proper review for this book, as it is one of my all-time favorites and deserves way more than two words. back when i was a junior in college, i was at the nyu bookstore, trying to sell back some textbooks before going away for winter break. the person in line in front of me was trying to sell back infinite jest (where was i when this class was being offered?? ) and of course, they weren't taking it back because nyu is a stingy fucking school. she turned

DJ Ian's Sunday Evening "Tell Me What You Really Think"You're listening to Radio KCRCR, "Tell Me What You Really Think", where we listen to the critics and you talk back. That's if there's any time left after I finish my rant. Hehe.A lot of listeners ask me about my namesake. What about that other Ian Graye, you say. The one on GoodReads. What do you think of him? And what did you think of his recent review of David Foster Wallace's magnum opus?Well, let me reassure you: that other Ian Graye is

Reading Infinite Jest feels a bit like when you’ve had some friends over for dinner, you’ve all had a jolly good time, it’s getting a bit late though, the guests are leaving one after the other, and but there is this one guy, a brilliant guy, a bit of a show-off, to be honest, a kind of beefy guy you wouldn’t want to mess up with too much, and, above all, a horrifyingly garrulous guy. And he is lying there on your couch, slowly but steadily draining your liquor cabinet, and droning on and on, an...

That's it, I'm demoting this one back to the TO-READ shelf - my pal Nick recently said he's changed the status of some intended time-consuming jobs from "when I retire" to "when I'm reincarnated" - maybe I'll read IJ in the next life, although as I intend to be a mighty elm tree in my next life that may prove difficult, but maybe you don't get to choose what you are, you just line up like at the bank or the post office and you go to a middle aged woman behind a wire mesh and she says "Okay honey...

I've finally reached the end of this amazing book. It's not an easy read, but after a while you discover that there are good reasons why it has to be the way it is. The review is the mini-blog I kept while I was reading it. It sort of contains spoilers: I don't give away very much about the plot, but I do spend a lot of time speculating about what the overall point of the book is. So if that kind of thing bothers you, you probably shouldn't read on. Read Infinite Jest instead, then come back and...

5/17/17 edit: I'm upgrading this one to 5 stars, because I still cannot stop thinking about it a year after finishing it. There are 2 kinds of difficult novels: those that you don't enjoy while reading, but you genuinely enjoying having read, and those that you only enjoy while reading because the small picture stuff is infinitely better than the novel as a whole. Infinite Jest is one of the latter, and I think that's why people never really stop reading it; it's only good while you're reading i...

In 1863 Abraham Lincoln decided that the fourth Thursday of each November would be recognized nationally as Thanksgiving. Today happens to be the fourth Thursday in November. Happy Thanksgiving.I would like to give thanks to the fact that I finished this mother-effing book today.It's now 9:40 EST as I start to write this review. I finished reading approximately five hours ago. Since then I have polished off almost an entire bottle of Chardonnay. It's taken me this long to a) get a nice enough bu...

It's now been more than two years since I began Infinite Jest and about 10 months since I finished it. In all that time, the scene that has stuck with me the most is one where a character, attempting to go to a 12-step meeting for a drug addiction, goes astray and ends up at what is actually a "men's movement" meeting. A relic of the 1990s, the men's movement was a chance for men to get together and show their sensitive sides to one another, or allow their inner warriors or their inner children