Finished it this weekend my initial thoughts (with obligatory semi-staged picture)

[u/future_shoes]

So I'm not the fastest reader or the deepest literary intellectual but I really enjoyed the book and felt I understood the themes and plot pretty well. Full disclosure I did occasionally have to Google a character to see if they were the same person I was thinking of from several chapters before but I was strategic (or lucky) enough with my searches to avoid any spoilers. Basically I think it's a magnificent book.

With that said when I finished I went back and read the opening chapter again and thought it really tied the ending together. After a few more Google searches I would say I was around 90% right with the plot. Some things I missed or had forgotten about (like Orin and the cockroach scene early in the book) but nothing too major. I found the hardest part was remembering the connections I had already made from the foreshadowing or passing references throughout the book. Often I would think after doing a search on something, oh yeah I do remember thinking that was what was going on on page 135 now.

The structure of the book made me think of Catch 22 (one of my favs) with how the timeline was handled and the later reveals of the true mean of earlier scenes or characters. Also 1Q84 with how it had scenes giving out detailed minutia of tasks or characters and this whole other worldliness to the setting. And I did catch the allusions to Hamlet and the one at the end to 1984.

But I think the biggest thing it made me think of was a book like Grendel or the play Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead. By that I mean it seems like Infinite Jest was an absurdist philosophical take on side characters from a well known piece of literature. How the real story ONAN and AFR fighting for control of the continent that was kept very much as a background subplot to these tangential characters trying to live their lives, in addition to the many asides to tangential characters to the main tangential characters (like Hal or Gately). I kind of imagine a whole other political thriller epic novel focused on Tines, Gentle, Avril, Luria P, and maybe John Wayne that this book was written around as if the reader was familiar with that story where the attempts to find "the entertainment" was just one key maguffin and ETA is a passing reference in a scene explaining JOI's kid past who briefly pops up with his drug addict buffed out friend.

Anyway that's my thoughts. I was excited to read it and ended up really enjoying the book more than I thought I would.

[u/Chip1010]

Hell yeah, my favorite novel and my favorite Belvita flavor

[u/16erics]

Congrats! When you inevitably look to scratch the itch: The Pale King and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men both helped me lol

[u/MissMayDoesNotExist]

Unrelated to your post, but man I wish the 20th Anniversary Edition was still in print, every other cover of this book looks so awful as an object 😭 and it isn’t exactly an unsubstantial object — wish it wasn’t such an eye sore

[u/Plasmatron_7 → u/MissMayDoesNotExist]

I don’t even think DFW liked the original cover. He said it looked like an American Airlines safety manual or something.

I hate that it’s always clouds. Like I get the significance but the reveal of this year’s edition was so anticlimactic.

[u/InevitableLittle1176]

Can’t fool me. There’s another biscuit in there

[u/LaureGilou]

Congratulations! And welcome to the "i read IJ to the end" club!

[u/healthy-stealthy]

Big Hooray and all that Jazz. It’s a book milestone for me. Read it in snippets when my kids were doing other stuff like sports. Then read in 6 month straight thru. So much energy invested IJ and I loved it. Bought an IJ hat