A review by trainisloud
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

5.0

Insanely entertaining, challenging, and engaging. This isn't a book to take on lightly, it isn't a book easily read over a weekend. It is packed with some many characters, words I have never heard descriptions of tennis, drug addiction, language and the meaning of living. Wallace gives us a super complex and long conversation about so many things; do we live for pleasure, achievement, distraction, protection of trauma, virtue, meaning, God, power. It is multi-thematic, what is entertainment? What is addiction? What is purpose? Now a couple of things here; don't read this journey thinking it is straightforward narrative we clearly follow a main character who we champion to a personal growth that coincides with saving the day. While there are character arcs (one of which is absolutely heart crushing in hindsight), I don't think it is really about that. It is about our engagement in entertainment, what virtuous and meaningful life is, a critique of commercialism, a spiritual, physical, and emotional study in addiction and recovery. I think this book is important.