And this novel has a plot

A totally self-indulgent waste of time which uses sophomoric humor to get over the issue that it doesn't have a plot and pretends it doesn't need one. Felt like a pretentious teenager who uses big words you know already and then tells you what they mean in hopes of impressing you.

No, seriously. David Foster Wallace's ego is responsible for most of this story: the parts about Hal Incandenza and the Tennis academy are totally useless to the plot, and should have been edited out in favor of Greenly's story of redemption. The footnotes are not only useless, they are only there to give the impression of importance. You could skip every other page of the book without missing anything.

Greenly's story is good. AA is good. The story about addiction is good. But the terrorists, the Infinite Jest movie (a lame ripoff of Monty Python's "fatal joke") itself, and the mystery of what happens to Hal and Ms. Psychosis are boring, useless and left my mouth tasting of the ashes of futility. If you really want to read a book which can fuck with your  View Other  
   expectations of plot and reality, read Gene Wolfe, especially Peace.

I just finished reading IJ tonight, and I feel some combination of rage and disapointment over it. To say that the book lacks plot is an oversimplification, JOI's theories on film (particularly anticonfluentialism) help rationalize the end of the book.

In a way, the book actually parallels my own experience with addiction. For the last 100 pages, I knew how the book would end and how it would affect me, yet I kept plowing along, turning page after page, and then being cut off at the height of my interest.

Of course, pouring coffee down my gullet while reading the last 150 pages didn't help much. By the time I finally slammed the book down on the table in disgust at the end, I had definately had too much coffee, the dawn had broken and mild paranoia had set in. The strange man in my all night diner, who looked suspiciously like DFW, who was looking at me strangely as I paid my bill was another bonus. The car who was annoyingly trying to sit in my blind spot as I drove down the deserted 6a Saturday mainstreet with a license plate reading "JOKE" was another nice gesture.

The only positive thing I can say about this tome at the moment is that it will force you to think by the time you finish. Perhaps it sounds trite and cliche, but your experience of the book can't help but be shaped by all of your previous life experiences.

I've realized how difficult being a book critic must be; trying to talk about the work without giving anything away. Of all the reviews on the cover, the only one that really comes close to how I feel is the comparison to Naked Lunch, which in a way throws the whole book itself into a different light.

I must have read the preceeding write-ups many a time, and must have assumed that I   Pandora Charms    had nothing more to add on the subject of infinite jest. But, reading the above descriptions, and for that matter, most other descriptions and discussions of the book elsewhere, I notice that one thing is not commonly mentioned: the plot.

Much like some other famously complex 20th century novels, such as Finnegan's Wake and Gravity's Rainbow, plot is not the first thing that is usually discussed about infinite jest. The first things mentioned are usually the endnotes, David Foster Wallace's vocabulary, and perhaps a comment about what a smart ass David Foster Wallace is. If the content of the book is mentioned, it usually centers around one character, often peripheral, or else it features on an artifact or incident in the book, which is also often quite peripheral. Sometimes, the serious themes of the book, such as addiction, are discussed. All of which is very well and good, but we are still reading a novel, no matter how different of one.

And this novel has a plot. The plot begins in media res, or perhaps post media res, if such a thing exists. One of the two protagonists of the story, Hal Incandenza is attending a college interview. Because he was an athletic protege in an institution ran by his mother, the college is curious if his academic record has not been somehow biased. They don't want to acquire a tennis star who is hiding his illiteracy behind a doctored academic record. So Hal stands up and makes an articulate, heartfelt statement that shows his academic ability and interest. That is what we hear: what the people   http://www.pandorajewelleryaustralia.net/   in the room hear is Hal going into an animalistic seizure of some sort. After the chapter ends, the book begins in the past. The entire plot of the book is based around how the seemingly intelligent, if troubled Hal, turns into what is seemingly (at least to others) a monster. The many disparate elements of the book, which seem to include enigmas, mystery and probably many Red Herrings, are not just the curiosities and in-jokes that many have accused Wallace of heaping on the reader. They all, in some way or another, point to the basic plot of the book, of how, why (and perhaps whether) Hal Incandenza lost his sanity. This is not to say that any, or even most people, would say that the plot is especially well-handled. The plot is never resolved cleanly, and it is possible that the book is a gigantic shaggy dog story. However, for the most part, no matter what stylistic elements or weird objects David Foster Wallace is throwing into his story, it is somewhat safe to assume that they are actually meant to be relevant to the book's central plot.