Infinite Jest is a 1996 novel by David Foster Wallace.
The lengthy and complex work takes place in a semi-parodic future version of
North America, and touches on tennis, substance addiction recovery programs,
depression, child abuse, family relationships, advertising, popular
entertainment, film theory, and Quebec separatism, among other topics. Wallace
was 33 when the novel was published.
The
novel includes 388 numbered endnotes (some of which have footnotes of their
own) that explain or expound on points in the story. In an interview with
Charlie Rose, Wallace characterized their use as a method of disrupting the linearity
of the text while maintaining some sense of narrative cohesion. In 2005, Time
magazine included the novel in its list of the 100 best English-language novels
from 1923 to the present.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment