Infinite Jest review -- katieinseattle

My review of Infinite Jest is one I'd really like comments on because I'm so hopelessly in love with this book right now, so here goes. Review is here. Ten million bonus points to me if my review can actually get anyone to read it (fair warning, it's a million pages long.)

Your enthusiasm for the book certainly comes through, and I think you've done well at drawing out broad themes in a book that is, on the face of it, disjointed and rambling.

If I were reviewing the book I think I'd try and convey to the reader more of a sense of what the experience of reading Infinite Jest (and other books by DFW) is like and how it differs so markedly from most reading experiences. It may not be easy to do so, but I think an uninitiated reader would be reassured to have some idea what they were letting themselves in for.

And your review hasn't made me read it, but might just make me read it again.

I suspect I'm too much in love with it to see how it might seem disjointed and rambling :-/ I mean, it is disjointed a great deal, for the first ... uh, thousand pages or so ... but I am just so infatuated with his voice that I never had any trouble continuing to read it (the 1st time) and by the end it just seems so damned rich and everything seems to come together so beautifully (at least thematically...I guess not at all plot-wise, as this is an aspect of fiction writing that he seems to totally disregard, and I probably care less than a lot of other people would) that I pretty much started reading it again as soon as I'd finished the first time. I'm going to have to think more about what someone uninitiated is getting themselves in for. The whole damn thing was so irresistible to me that I never really felt uninitiated.

And, I'm beginning to be alarmed by how hard I love this book. And I hope you do read it again. It's better the second time :)

It's certainly a glowing review. Doesn't sound liek the sort of book I'd enjoy, but thanks for sharing.