“In 1996, a curious object came to the attention of readers.... It was, in short, like something that came from above to test the good faith and resolve of book lovers everywhere. People couldn’t decide whether it was a towering masterpiece or a bad joke. Ten years later they still can’t.

“It was hailed as the Novel of the Future, and in fact it kicked off a temporary revival of the maxi-novel, like Cryptonomicon and The Corrections and Underworld and White Teeth. For a moment, it felt as though novels simply had to get longer and longer to encompass the world’s galloping complexity and interconnectedness. Then the fad faded. Now Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day (1,085 pages) just seems self-indulgent and stuntish.

“But it’s a mistake to lump Infinite Jest in with its successors. Think of it instead in terms of its forebears. Think of it as a Dickens novel. It’s a book about two socially disparate groups – the tennis players and the drug addicts – and the various plot strands that bind them together. Granted, Wallace’s plot strands are way more confusing.... Dickens was a synthesizer, writing in an attempt to knit the world together. Infinite Jest holds up a mirror to the world’s brokenness.

“As for its length, well, Infinite Jest is about the way we fill up our loneliness with obsessions – notable tennis and movies – and addictions – notably drugs – and how these obsessions and addictions leave us lonelier still.... It’s as if Wallace were saying, Listen: it would take a thousand pages to tell you what I mean, to fill the infinite void between you and me – and even then, it wouldn’t be enough.”


- Lev Grossman, “Ten Years Beyond Infinite” Time, Dec. 4, 2006.