David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" is one of the most ambitious
American novels of the last decade. Its huge scope, its immense array of
characters, and Wallace's artful mastery of language make it a complex
and sometimes difficult text that has frequently been compared with
other works of magnitude such as "Ulysses" and "Gravity's Rainbow". This
book aims to provide the reader of Wallace's novel with one (of many)
possible thread(s) which might lead him through the textual labyrinth of
"Infinite Jest". It is concerned with the issues of narcissism,
addiction, depression, and despair and interprets the novel within an
Existentialist framework drawn from the philosophical works of Jean-Paul
Sartre and Søren Kierkegaard. Hirt analyzes Wallace's portrayal of
contemporary existence inside a society that, paradoxically, entraps the
individual self exactly by exposing it to an unprecedented state of
freedom. Furthermore, Hirt discusses the counter-proposals which Wallace
weighs against postmodern culture. "Infinite Jest" is thus set in
relation to postmodern literature, and the similarities as well as the
differences between this literary period and "Infinite Jest" are
illuminated.