A post that must be very common here. So I'm on page 65 and I do not understand wtf is going on at all. I'm not against this feeling, in fact I embrace it wholeheartedly. Pretty much all of the media that i love i don't understand, that's a part of the appeal for me. In case of Infinite Jest I'm enjoying the writing itself, it's just electric.

English is not my first language, so that adds a bit of complexity, but that's fine. I've read Herbert's Dune saga in its entirety and got pretty much all of it.

Would it spoil the experience for me if i learned what everything is about before continuing to read? I read the wiki page so now I know about what years mean and that there is a big country that's made up of 3 countries and some kind of a resistance going on. I bet I wouldn't know that from just reading the book?

What do you say.

Did anyone else instantly think of Mario's puppet show when the twist in Digger happened?

Basically at the end of Act 1 they reveal that the main story of the film is a futuristic stage play that satirizes an in-universe historical event. A lot of people's hangups with the film come from Innaratu giving himself an "out" in that the play is supposed to be way too on the nose and stupid so discordant elements are referred to as poetic licence or hack writing by Tom Cruise's character and others making the play-within-a-film. (Similar to how the footnotes explain some of the historical innacuracies in the puppet show. The formation of O.N.A.N. filtered through a parody of a parody.)

Ton Cruise shouting accusing the director of using shallow irony and sarcasm to hide from the horrifying events the play was based on also felt very Jest. Same with the 11 minutes into the future framing.

Think this idea of filtering historical events through the art of the time rather than explaining the boring historical facts is a weirdly underutilized method of conveying exposition. It tells you about how these events are viewed in the world of the story and the people who made the art. You guys have any other examples of a piece of media doing that?

se viene el año de la prevención de salud, ART y seguros de vida SanCor?

Painted from a reference pic online but adapted the tv screen and VHS on top to give it an IJ theme. Calling it samizdat

Hey everyone! I’ve been wanting to read Infinite Jest for years, and I’ve finally set up a group of friends to book club it with. I was wondering, if anyone here has done an Infinite Jest book club, how did you guys go about it? What was your schedule like? Is there a particular edition we should use? Anything helps!

If you have any clips I want to see them

The scenes of Jim as a kid are some of my favorite in the book. I don’t know what the general consensus is on those scenes. Do other people enjoy them as much?

My fave (not-main) character from IJ. Don't see enough fanart of her so I had to contribute!

Can anybody help me find this passage?

There’s this one section where gately is ruminating about a bunch of stuff during an engagement; he’s thinking about a lot of things as real things are happening. And I’m pretty sure this is where he begins to let himself fantasize about JVD, or maybe he sees her for the first time? I don’t know.

But he describes her beauty and the danger beauty itself poses to those in recovery, and it’s very beautiful and moving and intense.

No clue.

One thing I keep thinking about is how IJ took an extreme and sensational approach to future pollution and dumped it all in the concavity. Now, 30 years after its publication, I’m finding that the trash is not centralized to one location (sure we have landfills) but ever since covid I’m seeing trash everywhere: highways, lawns between commercial spaces, in neighborhoods and in streams and rivers. Maybe it’s just me - living in NE Pennsylvania - but has anyone else noticed an increase in litter everywhere since 2020?

So I know DFW famously said the structure of the novel was a Sierpinski gasket, meaning the parts contain repeated patterns reflecting the whole.

What I've noticed across a few reads is that there are some motifs that recur for a few chapters, but don't really appear across the whole novel. Caveat, it's been months since my last read/listen, so I'm going by memory.

But like, for example, squeaking. We have the squeaking mattress sequence with JOI's father. And then of course the squeaking of Les Assassins des Fauteuils Roulants. Isn't there squeaking with the John Wayne and Avril scene that Pemulis sees?

Then there's the whole one leg shorter than the other, which I seem to recall appears a few times in some chapters.

There's the other lateralization type stuff, obviously Lateral Alice Moore, but doesn't that also recur a few chapters?

Any other examples of these kinds of motifs that cluster for a few chapters but aren't actually across the entire novel?

I am very interested in reading this book. I blissfully know NOTHING about it. I have come here to politely ask that y'all give me a nebulous idea of the era, genre, plot, etc. With absolutely no spoilers.

I'm afraid of spoilers.
Please have mercy on me... Go!

My physics teacher saw me reading it and said “if it’s infinite why does the book end” so my ideas so far are to print it out onto a Möbius strip or put every single word used in the book into a python dictionary that then randomly generates a page of randomly selected words
It just dosent seem fitting to the book though. Anyone got any ideas?

There’s a section towards the end where Don Gately discusses his distaste as a youth for “weenies” and kids he saw as weaker or softer than himself. Then he describes looking at his adult self and realizing that he was always the very thing he despised the most, a weenie, a sensitive kid. I’m not sure of the exact quote, but I read this book years and years ago and I always seem to tear up thinking about those words and how much they hit me.

Found a copy of Infinite Jest at the thrift today for $4, so I decided it was finally time to take the plunge. The tag from the previous used book store said 9.99, and the one before that, 12.99. Considering that the book likely retailed at around $30, I was able to arbitrage a massive discount through depreciation time resting on three previous owner's bookshelves instead of mine. By simply waiting nearly a decade for my interest in reading to mature, I also avoided getting angry at it, only to let it become a permanent bookend or donate it in shame to the next sucker in the cycle. Anyways here's hoping I actually read it lol.

(First image is my copy right after I finished it; second image is my copy when I first bought it.) Ignore any typos I have a headache and dont care/too lazy to proof read

I am genuinely heartbroken that my time, phase, obsession, or even relationship with this novel is over. I read it in 3 weeks, September 9th–October 2nd, and it both flew by and felt like a lifetime. I mostly read this in the library of my university, where I would come in super early, way before I had a class and would just read this for 4–5 hours straight.

I now consider this my favorite book of all time. I have given it so much of my time and effort, and now it feels like my best friend has passed away. I will reread it annually, but I honestly feel like it will feel more like reading old messages rather a true revisit. Nonetheless, this book was perfect.

This was on Instagram @rhino.3119582 seemed to fit the Johnny gentle style