Stephen J. Burn

Read this guide AFTER completing the book, or the guide will spoil many of DFW's delightful surprises.
Excellent summation of themes and plot - helped me make connections I missed the first time through INFINITE JEST on my own - Now I look forward to rereading the novel!

"...one of the obsessive themes of INFINITE JEST: the search for an adequate understanding of the self. This melancholy exploration, which is largely (but not entirely) focused on Hal, partly explains why Wallace chose HAMLET show more as one of the templates for his novel. HAMLET begins with the question 'who's there?,' and if Shakespeare's play answers this with an exemplary excavation of the consciousness of Renaissance man, then INFINITE JEST attempts a millennial update, cataloging the twentieth century's endless efforts to understand itself." pg. 39

".... While each of the characters act individually in their localized environment, their individual actions have multiple connections to lives and narratives beyond their comprehension. And their apparently random interactions tend to form large-scale patterns (and particularly circular patterns) in the novel. This movement from lower-level action to higher-level pattern is characteristic of emergent networks. As Steven Johnson, in his study EMERGENCE (2001), summarizes, an emergent system involves 'multiple agents dynamically interacting in multiple ways, following local rules and oblivious to higher-level instructions' with these interactions resulting 'in some kind of discernible macrobehavior' (p.19). In many ways this seems an apt description of INFINITE JEST's circular ordering, and it is not coincidental that this arrangement resembles the interconnected 'systems inside systems' of natural ecologies (p. 67)." pg. 54 show less

A decent book that allows us to hear the thoughts and intentions of David Foster Wallace without the spin of a third party. Although there's a good chronological spread across these interviews the bulk of the material deals with Wallace's writing circa the Girl With Curious Hair and Infinite Jest era. Not every interview is illuminating - the earliest ones are especially brief - but there's a lot of good information in here, including Wallace's famous interview with Larry McCaffery where he show more declared "Fiction's about what it is to be a fucking human being."

A lot of the information and sentiments covered here is brought up by Wallace in Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself except there's less fluff to wade through and nothing to do with David Lipsky (thank god). If you've read that other book you might not find this one quite so illuminating but I still recommend it, and if you're deciding between the two then I'd definitely say go with Conversations. It's only for the dedicated, but Wallace aficionados will certainly enjoy it. show less

The main/original essay on the novel is one of the most compelling arguments for reading IJ I’ve encountered.

A review, just as rambling and chaotic as the novel, but only 1/10 the length. The chronology at the end is invaluable.