The Thousands

Ok, this is the big one. Donna Tartt’s students called it ‘the doorstop’. When my friend Dan was reading it on the tram, he called it ‘the chick magnet’. INFINITE JEST is your 1079-page destiny, so get started and you’ll finish it before 2009 draws to its heady conclusion.

So, what’s it about? Errr. Look, I’m not going to… Alright, um. (This reminds me of that Python sketch where a madrigal choir enters the Summarise Proust Competition.) Okay, laugh it up purists, here goes: INFINITE JEST is the great postmodern novel of our times, counterpointing the story of Hal, Enfield Tennis Academy prodigy, against the story of Don Gately, Demerol addict, and the lives of 17,000 other characters native to a warped future where America sells naming rights for Gregorian years to companies promoting, among other things, Whisper-Quiet Maytag Dishmasters.**Why should you read it? Because this year David Foster Wallace died. And some say the book is set next year. (NB: Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment.)

Really it’s about a life lived and destroyed writing novels. "It now lately sometimes seemed like a kind of black miracle to me," says Hal, "that people could actually care deeply about a subject or pursuit, and could go on caring this way for years on end… We are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe."