Is here anyone who has fully understood Infinite Jest from David Foster Wallace?

[noname223]

I have not fully read it. I read 3/4. But I want to fully read it after my next psychosis. Before I commit suicide. It would not stop me but I did it the last time during extreme depression and suicidality...

I currently read the German wikipedia article about the book and it is extremely complicated. I loved some parts of it. Some were really excellent. Really unique. But I had big problems to follow the main story. To be honest I barely understood it. But I also was a complete wreck to that time...still it comforted me a bit. Especially the parts about depression and suicide. Moreover I was to that time in the psychiatry and it resembles a place in this book.

 

[All Done]

I've read many of his short stories and nonfiction but Infinite Jest is just too difficult for me. Footnotes within footnotes within footnotes. I'm not knocking DFW. I truly admire his work but that massive book is too much for my tiny brain.

 

[noname223]

I started to read this book again. Honestly, I don't know why IJ is his most popular book. I loved The Pale King. I love so many of his stories. But I simply don't get Infinite Jest. I think it might be a point that actually it symbolized a huge junk of opaque information. There are so many technical terms. And then in contrast there are very clear structured passages that symbolize truth. And this is a critique of postmodernism and the time when it was published. And also a critique which was head of its time. The internet era where everything is exceptionally fast. I read the first 50 pages and there even way more technical terms than in other stories of him. But in other stories I at least understood the context more. I even read summaries of this book. But damn I might give up. I already read some of the thrilling passages that symbolize the truth. I feel like a fraud. Lol. But in my kindle app they were highlighted. Let's be real DFW would have hated me for it.

 

[andreamysk]

I loved Infinite Jest infinitely (unfortunately I don't know/didn't know enough English to read it in the original and had to read it in translation in my mother tongue) and like all masterpieces worthy of the name, it cannot (and should not) be understood in its entirety, but it can (and should) continue to propose infinite stratified levels of interpretation, as a living, protean, surprising organism. There are various plots and subplots that develop for a good part of the novel (but the plots are only part of the story: the variety of writing styles and registers also make this novel so rich) and if you are only 3/4 of the way through it is normal that you are a bit lost in the labyrinth: in the end the stories begin to intertwine (even if not everything will be revealed: as in life).

PS: when DFW hanged himself, on the evening of September 12, 2008 (it was a Friday), in the patio of his house using his black belt, previously nailed to a wooden beam, to prevent the survival instinct from ruining the operation, before climbing on the deck chair that he will then kick away, he ties his hands with duct tape.

PPS: the current version of The Pale King unfortunately is certainly not the one that DFW would have published if he had remained with us at least a few more years...

 

[A Dream of a Dream]

I have not fully read it. I read 3/4. But I want to fully read it after my next psychosis. Before I commit suicide. It would not stop me but I did it the last time during extreme depression and suicidality...

I currently read the German wikipedia article about the book and it is extremely complicated. I loved some parts of it. Some were really excellent. Really unique. But I had big problems to follow the main story. To be honest I barely understood it. But I also was a complete wreck to that time...still it comforted me a bit. Especially the parts about depression and suicide. Moreover I was to that time in the psychiatry and it resembles a place in this book.

I think you're in the minority of readers since you read more than 1/2 of the book.