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Continuum Contemporaries

David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: A Reader's Guide

stephen j. burn

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This is part of a new series of guides to contemporary novels. The aim of the series is to give readers accessible and informative introductions to some of the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential novels of recent years - from ‘The Remains of the Day' to ‘White Teeth'. A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question.

96 pages, Paperback

First published April 26,2012
Series
Continuum Contemporaries

This edition

Format
96 pages, Paperback
Published
May 20, 2003 by Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN
9780826414779
ASIN
082641477X
Language
English

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About the author

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stephen j. burn

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Community Reviews

Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 68 votes)
5 stars
22(32%)
4 stars
29(43%)
3 stars
17(25%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
68 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
yorokobisenpai
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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My main complaint is that I wish there was a LOT more analysis, but what's there is good. Adds some nice commentary and thoughts on the book. Felt a bit like cheating, but I gave a lot of other reviews a fair chance before reading this one... plus, who knows if Burns is 100% on target anyway. But a nice, reasonably thorough, easy-to-follow discussion.
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Potabi_
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Intended for the general reader and not the Wallace scholar desperate to exhume every interred signifier from that most overindulged of overindulgent masterworks, Infinite Jest, Stephen Burn’s slight guide copes well with the restrictions imposed upon it by Continuum Books, whose embarrassing range of guides include books on such towering works as The Poisonwood Bible, Birdsong and Ian Rankin’s Black & Blue, for the love of G*tt. To be honest, this doesn’t help stir up my enthusiasm for a re-read of Infinite Jest (as intended)—it makes me more wary of the laboured satirical aspects of the novel and the relentlessness of Wallace’s (eventually tedious) style in the book (which is brilliant enough for a five-star rating but in danger of baccelerating into a four-star). Maybe one read is plenty?
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marvy
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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The one chapter analyzing the book was interesting and helpful. The rest felt like padding.
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YesidMiura
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I read the second edition, which apparently differs significantly from the first. I thought it did an excellent job not only of summarizing Wallace’s oeuvre and preoccupations, but the major themes of the book itself. Really put it all together for me!
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dante_deicide
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This was decent, but dated, and I think you are probably better off going through the DFW wiki if you are looking for answers.
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millieismypal
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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A cute little pocket sized thing, and fairly useful. It helped to clarify a few fuzzy thoughts I was having on Infinite Jest, particularly regarding its position on the modernist/postmodernist continuum (there is something apocalyptic and human and unironic about the novel that feels more modernist than postmodern to me, and Burn keys into that idea nicely). There's also some stuff in here I hadn't considered, particularly on mythic readings of IJ which I totally missed (I ALWAYS miss the mythic stuff, what's wrong with me?) but Burn definitely convinces me on this.

It's such a teeny guide, though, so there's a lot it can't do. The plot outline is kind of useful, but skims over or misses out SO MUCH STUFF that I found desperately significant - I think this is inevitable. And there's some tantalising ideas ('it's basically a religious novel') that are just, like, MORE HERE PLEASE. But that's no criticism of Burn, just a reflection of my current need to bury myself in IJ criticism and and obsess over What It All Means in great detail. It strikes me that I'd really like to read a fairly lengthy character-by-character study, which, I don't know if this exists, but it should. Particularly if it was alllll about Michael Pemulis, on whom I have a huge literary crush. ANYWAY.

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