David foster wallace february 21, 1962 september 12, 2008 was an american novelist, short story writer, essayist, and professor of english and creative writing. David foster wallaces infinite jest is an audiobook, minus. So its rather fitting that today i finished reading his magnum opus. The first chapter of infinite jest is one of the best examples ive read in recent years. Set in an addicts halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwedup family to c. Infinite jest is difficult to summarize, not only because of its length but also because fundamental questions about narrative theory must be addressed in order to do so.
If youre putting in the effort to read infinite jest then. Infinite jest is a 1996 novel by american writer david foster wallace. Also, i wonder how theyll deal with the footnotes in other dfw audiobooks, e. Partly since it makes the book more accessible and partly because it lets you enjoy the flow of wallaces prose. A previous release of infinite jest for ereaders solved the footnote challenge by embedding them as hyperlinks, but that option is not available on an audio. Why i cannot recommend the infinite jest audio book infinite jest. Infinite jest audiobook endnotes on the way infinite jest readers might recall some of the concerns and criticisms last month about the release of the lack of recorded end notes in the infinite jest audio book not forgetting pdf end notes are include. Certainly, there would be issues with inserting footnotes. As a college english major, ive read my fair share of great literature, and very few authors even approach wallaces ability to entertain, enlighten, mystify or infuriate. Today is february 21st, david foster wallaces birthday. Later, the audiobook publishing company hired the narrator back to just read the footnotes, which you need to buy as a separate title.
Infinite jest by david foster wallace, paperback barnes. To fully understand what wallace was up to, the book bears being read, and reread, with talmudic focus and devotion. David foster wallace project gutenberg selfpublishing. The length of infinite jest should not be an obstacle to.
The shear size of the book commanded attention the kind of attention t. Infinite jest has a reputation for being one of those books that everyone starts and no one finishes. I normally dont enjoy overly complicated, tedious listens, and infinite jest seems overly complicated and tedious in the beginning, but once you get into the audiobook, its not. Endnotes david foster wallace bbc documentary youtube. We welcome any discussions of audible including discussion of. Infinite jest audiobook endnotes on the way infinite. Infinite jest is one of the biggest books ever written, and it certainly is the biggest book i have.
There is one footnote in that book that is essentially a short story, he recalls. These are the endnotes to david foster wallaces infinite jest, a gargantuan, mindaltering comedy about the pursuit of happiness in america. Ive always wondered what an audiobook of that would sound like. In fact, its take on the very nature of entertainment itself perhaps foresaw the age of vanity and social media, as seen through the prisms of tinder, facebook, twitter and instagram. The way the footnotes were handled in infinite jest was that they werent. In terms of pages spanned, there are two main plots that are on the whole fairly disjoint. The notoriously long and difficult book from 1996 with visionary insights on modern life. David foster wallaces infinite jest, is, without question, the best book ive ever read. Infinite jest is both sad, depressed and funny and even 25 years after it was published in 1994 remains relevant to the modern age. David foster wallaces second novel is s et in an absurd but agonizingly believable nearfuture, and. The footnotes were not incorporated into the main text at all. How is the experience of reading infinite jest on a kindle.
I did find it a bit of a slog for the first 100 pages, but once i learned to trust that the author would fill in the blanks for me over time, everything became awesome. Because of his schedule, pratt had to record it in sections. Some of the notes have footnotes themselves, and one of them is a lengthy filmography. Infinite jest by david foster wallace turns 20 today, and im still confused by it all these years later. When you buy the audio edition of ij, you get the novel sans footnotes. Find all the books, read about the author, and more. Infinite jest audiobook david foster wallace audible.
A gargantuan, mindaltering comedy about the pursuit of happiness in america set in an addicts halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwedup family to come along in recent fiction, infinite jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it. This got me wondering if infinite jest was in audiobook form. Infinite jest, in other words, can be exceedingly frustrating. David foster wallace, the reigning champion of footnotes, decided to use endnotes for infinite jest for practical as well as aesthetic reasons. The novel is widely noted for its unconventional narrative structure and its experimental use of endnotes there are 388 endnotes, some with footnotes of their own. It has been categorized as an encyclopedic novel and made time magazines list of the 100 best englishlanguage novels published between 1923 and 2005. A gargantuan, mindaltering comedy about the pursuit of happiness in america. One thing about ij is that there really isnt one coherent plot. But infinite jest regarded by many as wallaces masterpiece is just awful. Infinite jest yale university library downloadable media. Listen to infinite jest audiobook by david foster wallace, narrated by sean pratt. Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, infinite jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. So, if you dont actually enjoy the ride, youll wonder why you paid the price of admission. When the book is written by a celebrated author known for his expansive, experimental.
Having only read the first extremely exhausting chapter, i cant tell you whether i would feel this way after two or more. Footnotes were also excluded from hachettes audiobook release of wallaces pulitzerprize finalist novel the pale king, which, like infinite jest, was directed by john mcelroy. Page 93 states that rome, nny new new york, glens falls, nny, and beverly, ma are all. Mcelroy adds that the audio version of infinite jest slated for release this fall reveals. I was pretty sure greg carlisle had something like this somewhere in his excellent guide to infinite jest, elegant complexity i cant recommend carlisles book enough but sans index and after lots of flipping, i guess not. Some of the footnotes just seem to evade a sensical audio reading e. David foster wallaces infinite jest is an audiobook.
The problem is even worse with wallaces infinite jest in which about 10% of the nearly pages are nsely informative footnotes at that. I guess this is a first for me and ill get straight to the point. Infinite jest infinite jest audiobook, by david foster wallace. This subreddit is for fans of audible, the online audiobook service. I remember harish venkatesan lugging around the paperback copy in college and hearing that this effort was part of the experience. Ive seldom been more engrossed in a novel, and more willing to put in the time of. David foster wallace was a crowning genius when he wrote the endnotes footnotes for infinite jest. Infinite jest is one of those books that a lot of people know of but have never read.
Each of the characters occupies a distinct place in the fictional world. It is an exuberant, uniquely american exploration of the passions that make us human and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do. I cant recommend the purchase of the what at first appears to be the amazing ive heard good things about the audio, excellent vocal performance audio book of infinite jest. A gargantuan, mindaltering comedy about the pursuit of happiness in america set in an addicts halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwedup family to come along in recent fiction, infinite jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives. On march 27, hachette audio released david foster wallaces magnum opus infinite jest most of it, at least as a 56hourlong audiobook. Stream and download audiobooks to your computer, tablet or mobile phone. Converting any book to audio is an exacting endeavor. Set in an addicts halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwedup family to come along in recent fiction, infinite jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives. Why i cannot recommend the infinite jest audio book. Infinite jest audiobook by david foster wallace, read by. And then you will pick it up and start over, because that is the point. What its like to record the audiobook version of infinite.
I was just going to start listening to infinite jest today, i have an audiobook of it and the first thing it has is a publishers note which says that the audiobook skips all footnotes, but does have another narrator mention the numbers of the footnotes when they appear. Because infinite jest will end suddenly, and you will wonder what hit you. We lost a great giant when he stepped down from the throne. What its like to record the audiobook version of infinite jest. I kind of strongly disagree with alexs post about the endnotes. Without endnotes, the audiobook version of infinite jest ends up being around 56 hours. On reading the first chapter of infinite jest sally allen.
The programme also contains some rare archive reflections by a young david foster wallace, recorded a year before the publication of infinite jest, on the role of the writer in an age of media. Set in an addicts halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwedup family to come along in recent fiction, infinite jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our. Signin to download and listen to this audiobook today. Anyway, i drew the lines with info from infinite jest on pages 93, 403 and 438. Wallace began writing infinite jest in earnest in much of it is single spaced, and what footnotes existed at this stage appear at the. Its not a stretch or very original to call infinite jest the defining work of the 1990s.
I received an email earlier today from a reader who had excitedly received their unabridged audio book of. Specifically the oversized shelf, adjusted to accommodate textbooks, magazines, and tomes of infinite dimensions, a realm from whence literature rarely returns. I love infinite jest, but im not sure if i want to listen to it. Then again, they managed to turn the thursday next series into audiobooks, and there are much weirder format issues there a footnoterphone, and.
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