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Infinite Jest

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I finished David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" this past Friday, the 16th of May.  I started it on March 31st, 2008.  If you do a little rough math, you'll discover that it took me 1.5 months to read it.  My copy of the book, which looks just like the one above, is 1079 pages.  And its a big book, probably a foot tall and the words are very, very small.  What I'm getting at is that it takes a least 3 times as long to read a page as your normal books.  In fact, I have already one and a half books since finishing "Infinite Jest" on Friday.  Long book!

I would say that "Infinite Jest" is one of the most incredible books I've ever read.  Easily top 5 on the incredible list.  Wallace is far and away one of the mostly insanely talented writers I've come across.  Comparisons to Pynchon are well merited.  It will take some distancing, some time, for other books I read to jump out at me again.  I feel things are just going to come across as flat after Wallace's style.  It's impossible to describe unless you read it yourself.  Suffice it to say, the man can right sentences that go on for pages (yes, pages) and somehow you are able to follow.

Its not a easy read.  If i wasn't in such good reading shape, I would probably not have gotten through the book.  It is very difficult.  Its not easy subject matter: drug addicts, alcoholics, tennis academies.  Very weird stuff.  And the writing style is so dense, so full, so rich.  Here's an analogy that just popped into my mind to describe it: Wallace's style is like an insanely complex, multi, multi ingredient, many-coursed meal prepared by a world-famous chef like, say, Thomas Keller.  And this meal is served to you constantly, over and over again.  And your brain gets stuffed to the point that its almost impossible to go on, fearing intense indigestion or puking.  And then your ordinary writing style, like, say, the guy I read right after "Infinite Jest," Christopher Moore, is like eating a box a Kraft Mac & Cheese, meaning its not very good, it tastes artificial and it leaves you hungry at the end.

So, it sounds like I loved the book, right.  Well, to be honest, I'm still in shock from the ending.  And anyone who read the book will definitely go, "Oh yes... the ending!  Ha, ha!"  Why you ask? Well, friends and neighbors, its because the book just stops.  It doesn't end.  It just stops!  Every plot: left hanging.  Characters: left in mid-whatever.  Everything: left hanging.  He just fucking stopped writing!  I have no idea what happened to any of the people I spent 1.5 months reading about.  I know nothing.  Its the exact same as if I had just stopped reading the book and put it back on the shelf.  He just stopped writing!  And he did it in mid-story of one of the main characters.  I'm reading along and then, BOOM, end of book.

Now that isn't in any way going to mess up the book for any of you people.  For one, no one reads this blog.  And for two, there was nothing to ruin.  No surprises, no cliff-hanger.  Nothing. So the shock of it is still blowing my mind.  But, it didn't piss me off and make me want to tell everyone I know to avoid the book like grim death.  The read was so good that I'm holding my critical tongue.  But, man, I didn't see that one coming.  Just stopped writing!

I think I'm going to incorporate that style and just

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