“Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace – Entertainment and Us

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is a very ambitious (and might I say, successful) attempt at creating a comedy on a grand scale. It takes place in a not-so-distant future where entertainment is literally everything people strive towards… in other words, a successful life is one during which you have been entertained as much as humanly possible. 

Reflecting the absurdity of the world are the characters, and though Wallace glosses over many of them, the main ones we follow are in an addicts’ halfway house and a tennis academy.

To make this very long story short, the whole book is basically a reflection on entertainment through the empty and erratic lives of a bunch of misfits trying to make sense of the world and their lives. Now, that is not to say Infinite Jest is only a philosophical reflection on our need for entertainment and what can be classified as such... it is equal parts a screwball comedy stemming from the crazy adventures lived by a very diverse and colorful cast of characters.

The way I see it, the book served as a medium for Wallace to pour out all of his ideas and criticisms, with there being some passages that felt as if they were created for the sole purpose of a rant. Much of the juicy material in this novel lies in the narration, and I have to say that it was a good move considering that I got the impression every character was a different incarnation of the author himself. Though they are different from one another (some of the characters really are unique and interesting), a few just feel like empty shells designed to transport Wallace’s words.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (Book cover)
All in all, despite its few technical flaws, Infinite Jest remains, in my eyes, a masterpiece and a very pertinent criticism of modern society. It looks into a topic I have been interested in for quite some time now, that of our addiction to different kinds of entertainment, whether it be television, video gaming, sports, drugs, or anything else, depicting a picture of the world that isn’t too far off what could be in the coming years. It is filled to the brim with captivating ideas, reflections, and humor, and if you are the patient kind of reader you’ll get plenty out of Infinite Jest. 

David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 - September 12, 2008)

David Foster Wallace 

(February 21, 1962 - September 12, 2008)


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David Foster Wallace was an American professor of English and creative writing, an essayist and a novelist, whose highly-acclaimed 1996 work Infinite Jest was inducted into Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-Language novels from 1923 to 2005.

His last and unfortunately, unfinished novel, The Pale King, was posthumously published in 2011 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in the following year.



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