The Narrative Game The Reading Of David Foster Wallace S Infinite Jest As Play

In 1996, David Foster Wallace published his second major novel 'Infinite Jest' that changed not only our understanding of what literature can do but, also the way we read literature. Despite its age, the book has not lost a single bit of its fascination, its actuality, and its academic appeal. With its hundreds of characters, thousands of pages, hundreds of endnotes and myriads of different perspectives, sub-plots, and narrative digressions, 'Infinite Jest' was, and still is, an extraordinary challenge for its readers as well as literary critics. One interesting question related to Wallace's work is to what extent readers are able to establish, and defend their own way of approaching literature, their natural reading habits, their personal boundaries, and their ‘readerly authority’ that are challenged by their discourse with the book. The author shows in how far the reader of 'Infinite Jest' has to get involved in this work of play, how it affects the way they read the book, and how the idiosyncratic reading experience finally becomes an integral part of the whole book itself.

In 1996, David Foster Wallace published his second major novel 'Infinite Jest' that changed not only our understanding of what literature can do but, also the way we read literature. Despite its age, the book has not lost a single bit of its fascination, its actuality, and its academic appeal. With its hundreds of characters, thousands of pages, hundreds of endnotes and myriads of different perspectives, sub-plots, and narrative digressions, 'Infinite Jest' was, and still is, an extraordinary challenge for its readers as well as literary critics. One interesting question related to Wallace's work is to what extent readers are able to establish, and defend their own way of approaching literature, their natural reading habits, their personal boundaries, and their 'readerly authority' that are challenged by their discourse with the book. The author shows in how far the reader of 'Infinite Jest' has to get involved in this work of play, how it affects the way they read the book, and how the idiosyncratic reading experience finally becomes an integral part of the whole book itself.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, TU Dortmund (Institut fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik), language: English, abstract: In 1996, David Foster Wallace published his second major novel 'Infinite Jest' that changed not only our understanding of what literature can do but also the way we read literature. With its hundreds of characters, thousands of pages, hundreds of endnotes and myriads of different perspectives, sub-plots and narrative digressions, Infinite Jest was and still is a extraordinary challenge for its readers. An interesting question related to Wallaces work is to what extent readers are able to establish and defend their own rules and boundaries that are challenged by their discourse with the book. The whole reading process can thus be seen as a work of play that is established between the poles of 'infinity' and 'jest'. This opens up a new narratological dimension which has an immediate impact on the autonomy of the reader. I want to find out in how far the readers of 'Infinite Jest' have to get involved in this work of play, how it affects the way they read the book and how the idiosyncratic reading experience finally becomes an integral part of the whole book itself.

Mary Shapiro explores the use of regional and ethnic dialects in the works of David Foster Wallace, not just as a device used to add realism to dialogue, but as a vehicle for important social commentary about the role language plays in our daily lives, how we express personal identity, and how we navigate social relationships. Wallace's Dialects straddles the fields of linguistic criticism and folk linguistics, considering which linguistic variables of Jewish-American English, African-American English, Midwestern, Southern, and Boston regional dialects were salient enough for Wallace to represent, and how he showed the intersectionality of these with gender and social class. Wallace's own use of language is examined with respect to how it encodes his identity as a white, male, economically privileged Midwesterner, while also foregrounding characteristic and distinctive idiolect features that allowed him to connect to readers across implied social boundaries.

Where do you begin with a writer as original and brilliant as David Foster Wallace? Here — with a carefully considered selection of his extraordinary body of work, chosen by a range of great writers, critics, and those who worked with him most closely. This volume presents his most dazzling, funniest, and most heartbreaking work — essays like his famous cruise-ship piece, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," excerpts from his novels The Broom of the System, Infinite Jest, and The Pale King, and legendary stories like "The Depressed Person." Wallace's explorations of morality, self-consciousness, addiction, sports, love, and the many other subjects that occupied him are represented here in both fiction and nonfiction. Collected for the first time are Wallace's first published story, "The View from Planet Trillaphon as Seen In Relation to the Bad Thing" and a selection of his work as a writing instructor, including reading lists, grammar guides, and general guidelines for his students. A dozen writers and critics, including Hari Kunzru, Anne Fadiman, and Nam Le, add afterwords to favorite pieces, expanding our appreciation of the unique pleasures of Wallace's writing. The result is an astonishing volume that shows the breadth and range of "one of America's most daring and talented writers" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) whose work was full of humor, insight, and beauty.

From the author of Infinite Jest and Consider the Lobster: a collection of five brilliant essays on tennis, from the author's own experience as a junior player to his celebrated profile of Roger Federer at the peak of his powers. A "long-time rabid fan of tennis," and a regionally ranked tennis player in his youth, David Foster Wallace wrote about the game like no one else. On Tennis presents David Foster Wallace's five essays on the sport, published between 1990 and 2006, and hailed as some of the greatest and most innovative sports writing of our time. This lively and entertaining collection begins with Wallace's own experience as a prodigious tennis player ("Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley"). He also challenges the sports memoir genre ("How Tracy Austen Broke My Heart"), takes us to the US Open ("Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open"), and profiles of two of the world's greatest tennis players ("Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff About Choice, Freedom, Limitation, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness" and "Federer Both Flesh and Not"). With infectious enthusiasm and enormous heart, Wallace's writing shows us the beauty, complexity, and brilliance of the game he loved best.

David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest raised expectations of what a novel might do. As he understood fiction to aim at what it means to be human, so he hoped his work might relieve the loneliness of human suffering. In that light, The Fact of the Cage shows how Wallace’s masterpiece dramatizes the condition of encagement and how it comes to be met by "Abiding" and through inter-relational acts of speaking and hearing, touching, and facing. Revealing Wallace’s theology of a "boneless Christ," The Fact of the Cage wagers that reading such a novel as Infinite Jest makes available to readers the redemption glimpsed in its pages, that reading fiction has ethical and religious significance—in short, that reading Infinite Jest makes one better. As such, Plank’s work takes steps to defend the ethics of fiction, the vital relation between religion and literature, and why one just might read at all.

Marshall Boswell examines the four major works of fiction David Foster Wallace has produced thus far: the novels The Broom of the System and Infinite Jest and the story collections Girl with Curious Hair and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.