Infinite Jest

Just finished a David Foster Wallace kick. I listened to the new 30th anniversary audiobook of Infinite Jest (twice) and then The Pale King (twice). Then I listened to "Of course you end up becoming yourself" which is a long-form interview with Wallace by David Lipsky, traveling with him on the Infinite Jest book tour. I had to listen to the books twice because there are a lot of details that you won't get the first time through unless you're extremely intentional and detail oriented, but I found it was worth it to listen again. I'll probably listen to Infinite Jest again sometime soon, even though it's 64 hours long. IJ is actually really great sci-fi with some important questions for our time.

Infinite Jest. It haunts me mostly because of the sheer density of the information in the book, it's impossible, to me so far, to fully process everything in the book. Once I feel like I have a good sense of what was going on, I remember another detail that sends me on another year or two of random daydreams trying to figure it out. Parts of it also feel like it was written specifically for me. So that doesn't help.

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace: It includes so many sides of life: terrible misery and humor, both spicy and tender, sometimes simple, sometimes absurd, then politics, society, love, cynicism, - and poetry. And it predicted, by the way, shockingly many developments of today's (American) society. And the language, of course, is opulent and wild, it won't get boring any time soon.

Infinite Jest

Great thread. 2019 was the first time in about 7-8 years I made reading for pleasure a tertiary priority ((school+career)work/sleep/exercise+socializing+(NEW!)reading) and I got through about 20 books of varying length and difficulty, so here are the next 20 in my queue: - Infinite Jest (already started, will likely finish in early Jan. I love it so far.) - Quantum Computing Since Democritus (started in November as my nonfiction read, but took a break; I think I want to finish IJ first. Scott is an excellent writer and I was really enjoying this) - Building Microservices - The Code Book - How Cars Work (I want to turn the projection of a car in my brain from a black box to a gray box this year, and I don't mean by purchasing a Cybertruck) - To Kill a Mockingbird…

Infinite Jest. Re-opened my mind to the aesthetic beauty and raw technical skill of competitive sports, after years of repression following negative childhood experiences.

I recommend Infinite Jest. It's a deeply introspective and, at least for me, borders on being a philosophical text. I would even go so far as describing it as a philosophical text disguised as fiction. It will take effort to get through, but it's one of those things where you can immediately feel that the energy put into the book is worth it.

In a way, I'm sad that I'm reaching the end of Infinite Jest...it's been such an enriching experience for me. Thanks for letting me know, I'm anxiously awaiting it. :)

Oh my god Infinite Jest reassured me I wasn't crazy for hating the self-loathing I associate with weed. And in such a funny way. I swear re-reading a chapter or scene in that book is like a real-life dream sequence; I can't help but dissociating. I still didn't understand so much of it after I "finished" it, but that didn't stop me from pulling the same shit I do--jumping over chapters until it's interesting--with his other work, "The Pale King". You will not be disappointed by the candidness and "raw"-ness of the pale king, either. I almost wanted to applaud some parts of it--a familiar reflex for you, too, I'm sure.

"The Essence of Decision" - Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow The easy way to think decisions is with the rational actor model. "The United States didn't sign the TPP agreement because..." "Apple removed the headphone jack because..." When the reality of large organizations is that decisions are made in the interaction of many people suborganizations. Allison and Zelikow are political scientists who massively advanced academic understanding of organization decision making... to illustrate their theories, they did original research into the Cuban missile crisis using it as an example of various models. Very accessible. It changed the way I think about how companies, governments, and the world works. "Infinite Jest" - David Foster Wallace It changed my life. This book taught me empathy and the truth in ordinary things... It's brilliant and amazing and worth making your way through 1000+ pages. RIP DFW.

It was the second year of my "read books like an adult" effort and there were some great ones: Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace)* I was blown away by how completely delightful it was to read. I went in to it with a lot of trepidation about its length and esoteric fixation, but found myself completely immersed in the book in a way that I hadn't been since I was kid. I didn't pick up any hard and fast lessons from the book (indeed, its thesis is mostly that life is hard and the easy answers that are out there are toxic), but I definitely came away from it feeling like it was a bit more acceptable to share what I really thought and felt with others. Reading the book is like entering an intimate communion with DFW's mind and it reinforced in me the importance of inter-human connection in that way. Every Love Story is a Ghost Story (D.T. Max)…

"Infinite Jest," whose 20th anniversary of publication was celebrated this year.

Infinite Jest Ulysses The Selfish Gene The Histories of Herodotus Moby-Dick Gödel, Escher, Bach

Older Stuff: The Bible/Quran, The Republic (Plato), The Social Contract (Rousseau), Tao Te Ching (Laozi), Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky), History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides) Newer Stuff: Nine Stories (Salinger), The Razor's Edge (Maugham), Nausea (Sartre), Siddartha (Hesse), Road to Serfdom (Hayek), The Book (Watts), Design of Everyday Things (Norman), Atlas Shrugged (Rand), Invisible Man (Ellison), Debunking Economics (Keen), Blood Meridian (McCarthy), The Center Cannot Hold (Saks), This Time Is Different (Reinhart/Rogoff), Infinite Jest (Wallace), Calvin and Hobbes (Watterson) All of these books are well written and have given me some perspective on interesting people/situations/ways of thinking.

Just keep going. One page at a time (easier to do if you employ 2 bookmarks in a paper book). It will begin to gel. Just focus on how funny it is, rather than what's going on. It is very much worth the effort.

I love reading just about everything and I'm having the hardest time getting momentum on Infinite Jest. I think partly due to the fact that I personally only have some vague idea of what I'm getting myself into.

Superintelligence - Nick Bostrom Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace 100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace The Making of the Atomic Bomb - Richard Rhodes Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco

If you want "crazy-to-grasp", you want Ulysses, To the Lighthouse, Gravity's Rainbow, Infinite Jest, Moby Dick, House of Leaves, etc. Not that "crazy-to-grasp" approximates "good" in any way.

Childhoods end - Humanity takes the next step in evolution Anhilliation - Fish out of water like story of exploring a mysterious, horrific, environment (2 sequels drag on for too much after this one though) Many Ray Bradbury stories (Martian chronicles, and the Everyman collection contain the best ones) Infinite Jest (Alternate American future of a culture of addiction and depravity, partly mediated by technology) The Circle (haven't read, but like the author, life inside the biggest tech company of the future)

I really, really love David Foster Wallace and I've also never gotten through Infinite Jest. If anyone is interested in reading DWF I'd recommend checking out his shorter fiction (Brief Interviews with Hideous Men) or non-fiction (A Supposedly Fun Thing) if Infinite Jest (rightfully) seems intimidating :)

Currently engaged in: -The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell. Just a fun read. Fiction sucks me in pretty easily, and I enjoy the time-hopping. -Dirty, Sacred Rivers: Confronting South Asia's Water Crisis - Cheryl Colopy. Not enjoying this as much as I thought I would so far, possibly because I have too much academic experience in the topic area and the writer is a reporter. I'm a bit more pragmatic about large energy projects, not exactly bleeding heart, but I try to focus on the bigger picture. It was a free book on a table at work though from someone cleaning out their office, so not a big deal. -Operations Research - Hillier and Lieberman. Also a free book from work. Something I need a stronger foundation in for upcoming projects. Perpetual Backburner -Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace. I've gotten a couple hundred pages in a few times. If I get distracted at all it's so hard to go back to. -Capital in the 21st Century - Piketty. I blazed through the first couple hundred pages around when it came out, then I went on a long vacation. Now I sort of nibble at it when I'm in the mood. One of the most compelling economics books I've ever read. Recently finished…

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Took me about five months and I already want to reread it. Brilliant masterpiece. Read it right after my friend's suicide and help me think about my own addiction to success.

East of Eden is my favorite book I've read in the last several years. Beautiful end to end and very moral. If you've read it it's totally worth reading Journal of a Novel: a collection of letters Steinbeck wrote to his editor every day as he was writing East of Eden. It's a fascinating window into the mind of a master deliberately creating a masterpiece. Other favorites: Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, In Our Time by Hemingway, The Magus by John Fowles, 100 years of solitude, Moby Dick (perhaps a precursor to all modern fantasy?) Stranger in a Strange Land, and Infinite Jest. I've also loved both of DFW's big essay collections: Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll never Do Again.

Catch 22 One Hundred Years of Solitude The Infinite Jest Cryptonomicon

Some authors and a rec or two for each. DFW - Infinite Jest Pynchon - Really anything, but in particular Against the Day, V, and Gravity's Rainbow. Rushdie - Shame and Satanic Verses, a lot of good other ones. Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon Gaddis - JR, hence my name. Heller - Catch-22

Reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It's an incredible novel, but very dense and over 1000 pages. It's a trek, but has been so worth it so far.

"Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace, if you have 90 hours or so to kill "On Numbers & Games" is a fun maths book

Infinite Jest. It's hard to say anything about it that hasn't already been said a million times, so I'll abbreviate the standard one: If you trust the author for the first 100 pages and refuse to pass judgment, you will be rewarded with some of the most beautiful, human characters ever put to paper. (That being said, it's not easy reading.)

The Instructions by Adam Levin. Best book I've read since Infinite Jest (by David Foster Wallace, of course, also highly recommended). The characters, the story, the language, my god the language... It's all utterly fantastic. The last 300 pages had me so thoroughly gripped, I read them in one sitting.

Before trying to read Infinite Jest, try to read all his other essays (and short stories). This is really helpful. Be OK with the fact that you really aren't going to understand what happens the first time though, like at all. The book -must- be read twice, the first time in a bit of a haze, since even basic acronyms aren't expanded till 200 pages after they are first used. Its enjoyable the second time because there are hundreds of references you'll get from events that are expanded upon much later. It really is a fantastic book, and its not nearly as confusing as most people think when read twice. :)

While witty enough as a throwaway comment, I disagree and recommend IJ to anyone who likes nested (recursive!), variable scope humor. The experimental portions of it do not thrill me except insofar as they are amusing. The novel is a sort of intersection of so funny it hurts and it hurts so much it's funny. The eponym of the title is apt for one of the viewpoint characters, who is unable to communicate by the end of the story (beginning of the book), and much more so his father, who is a very type of Yorick: mute by being dead, of excellent fancy, etc.

I just finished Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It's a 1000-page kind of experimental fiction about entertainment/addiction. It took me a while to read, but is something I'd recommend, anyway.

this is possibly my all-time favorite book. i just thought "oblivion" itself was more appropriate this thread.

If you're willing to put in at least a month of hard labor, DFW's Infinite Jest is worth the read.

The Evolution of Cooperation - Robert Axelrod Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clark Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace The Informant - Kurt Eichenwald The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Edward Tufte Liar's Poker - Michael Lewis