Ways David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest Predicted the Future

telegraph.co.uk

21 points·samclemens··9 comments

Very interesting novel...brilliant stream-of-consciousness style that reminded me much of Joyce...

While reading it I sorted the tech he described in his own invented terms and compared them to what's available now... there are many parallels...

I recommend reading it...

If you need priming listen to his 2013 commencement speech--This is Water--delivered at Kenyon College...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI

The speech was delivered in 2005, and published as a book in 2009. Also, David Foster Wallace committed suicide in 2008.

Noted...thanks...note to self: slow down and verify details when you're enthused...

Just listened to that and... wow. I'm soooo stoked to be about to read Infinite Jest now.

Nearly all of the 'predictions' outlined in the article are present in Stand on Zanzibar which was first published in 1968.

For fellow people on HN, if your have not read Infinite Jest I very highly recommend the audiobook version of it. I was not able to get through it reading it as its such a large book but I found the audio version quite enjoyable.

How does the audiobook handle the endnotes? I tried to read it once and the endnotes were often pretty important.

While there isn't a specific section covering endnotes, they are interspersed sparingly as tonal changes in the narrator's voice. This effect is used in other readings of his works and is easy to follow.

related: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-michael/donald-trump-is-u... ("Donald Trump Is Ushering In the Infinite Jest Apocalypse")

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