Editing Infinite Jest (section)

==Style==
''Infinite Jest'' is a [[postmodern literature|postmodern]] [[encyclopedic novel]], famous for its length, detail and digressions involving 388 endnotes, some of which themselves have footnotes.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Infinite Jest Summary |url=https://www.supersummary.com/infinite-jest/summary/ |access-date=May 30, 2020}}</ref> It has also been called [[metamodernism|metamodernist]] and [[hysterical realism|hysterical realist]]. Wallace's "encyclopedic display of knowledge"<ref name="burn webs" /> incorporates [[media theory]], linguistics, film studies, sport, addiction, science, and issues of national identity. The book is often humorous yet explores [[Depression (mood)|melancholy]] deeply. The novel's narration mostly alternates between [[Narration|third-person]] limited and omniscient points of view, but also includes several [[First-person narrative|first-person]] accounts.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Where's Wallace? Infinite Jest's Return to Reality |date=October 27, 2014 |url=https://qc-writers.com/2014/10/27/796/ |access-date=August 4, 2023}}</ref>

Eschewing chronological plot development and straightforward resolution—a concern often mentioned in reviews—the novel supports a wide range of readings. At various times Wallace said that he intended for the novel's plot to resolve, but indirectly; responding to his editor's concerns about the lack of resolution, he said "the answers all [exist], but just past the last page".<ref name="burn webs" /> Long after publication Wallace maintained this position, stating that the novel "does resolve, but it resolves ... outside of the right frame of the picture. You can get a pretty good idea, I think, of what happens".<ref name="burn webs" /> Critical reviews and a reader's guide have provided insight, but Stephen Burn notes that Wallace privately conceded to [[Jonathan Franzen]] that "the story can't fully be made sense of".<ref>Burn ("Webs...") quoting Franzen, email.</ref>

In an interview with [[Charlie Rose]], Wallace characterized the novel's heavy use of endnotes as a method of disrupting the linearity of the text while maintaining some sense of narrative cohesion.<ref>{{Cite web |title=An interview with David Foster Wallace |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ytSdSM-Kk |access-date=2015-08-19 |publisher=Charlie Rose}}{{cbignore}}{{Dead YouTube link|date=February 2022}}</ref> In a separate interview on [[Michael Silverblatt]]'s radio show ''Bookworm'', Wallace said the plotting and notes had a fractal structure modeled after the [[Sierpiński gasket]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=McCarthy |first=Kyle |title=Infinite Proofs: The Effects of Mathematics on David Foster Wallace |date=November 25, 2012 |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/infinite-proofs-the-effects-of-mathematics-on-david-foster-wallace/#!}}</ref>

English critic [[James Wood (critic)|James Wood]] called the novel an exemplar of "[[hysterical realism]]", a term he also applied to works by [[Zadie Smith]], [[Thomas Pynchon]], and [[Don DeLillo]].<ref>https://newrepublic.com/article/61361/human-inhuman</ref> He criticized novelists who wrote books he gave this appellation for seeking to "turn fiction into social theory," and as "evasive of reality".