内容简介

　　这是一个物质高度发达的年代，人们的娱乐需求不断产生又不断得到满足。一部名为《无尽的玩笑》的神秘电影在地下流传，所有看过它的人都沉迷其中无法自拔，它的致命吸引力将一所网球学校、一家戒瘾康复机构、加拿大分离组织以及美国情报部门都卷入其中，灾难一触即发……

　　《无尽的玩笑》的出版堪称一个事件，一座无法被超越的高峰。全书100万字，没有章节，没有目录，片段之间被神秘符号隔开。这是一部有着自己的大脑和心脏的小说，大卫·福斯特·华莱士挥洒他天才的语言，巧妙构建挑战读者智商的故事结构，于无限放大的细节中，制造出席卷现实与人物内心的连绵不绝的风暴。书中描写的对各种事物沉迷又陷入无尽孤独的群体病症，指向了这个成瘾时代，也将给这个时代的读者带来思考和慰藉。

　　作者简介

　　大卫•福斯特•华莱士（David Foster Wallace,1962—2008）美国作家，出生于纽约州伊萨卡市，在中西部地区长大。父亲是哲学教授，母亲是英语教授，他们会互相给对方读《尤利西斯》，给幼年的华莱士和他妹妹读《白鲸》，在家庭环境的熏陶下，华莱士自幼就对语言及写作充满兴趣。少年时热衷于网球运动，进入大学后专心研究数学逻辑和语义学，1985年以优异成绩毕业于阿默斯特学院，获哲学和英语双学位，毕业论文之一是他的小说处女作《系统的扫帚》。1987年获亚利桑那大学艺术硕士学位，后入哈佛大学攻读哲学博士学位，但因健康原因中途放弃。

　　1996年出版《无尽的玩笑》，上市一个月内即加印6次，至今畅销不衰。1993年至2002年间在伊利诺伊大学任英语副教授，2002年开始在加州波莫纳学院教授创意写作。2008年，在与抑郁症做了多年抗争后，华莱士选择终结自己的生命。2011年，遗作《苍白的国王》由其家人和编辑整理出版，入围普利策奖。虚构作品之外，华莱士曾为多家杂志撰写报道及人物采访稿，有《想想龙虾》《一件应该有趣而我不会再做的事》等非虚构作品结集出版。

　　精彩书评

　　潜入《无尽的玩笑》深处是一次令人振奋、激动人心的经历。书中有如此多的生活与死亡，如此多的狂欢和伤痛，面对绝望时又有如此多的热情，为我们文学的未来欢呼。很少有人会读到如此放肆的有创造力的文体，一场华丽高能的语言冲击。

　　——《每日新闻》

　　这部小说是如此光彩夺目，您需要戴太阳镜才能读它，它还有心脏和大脑。

　　——《当代小说评论》

　　《无尽的玩笑》就像是一艘没有可识别的特征、没有铆钉和螺栓、没有入口、没有方法拆解的宇宙飞船。它光芒耀眼，白璧无瑕。

　　——《什么是什么》作者戴夫·艾格斯

　　有件事很难想象：一个作家太有创造力了，当他去世，语言也贫瘠了。

　　——约翰•杰里迈亚•苏利文

　　《无尽的玩笑》是第一部伟大的互联网小说，早在所有人之前，它就针对大众娱乐潜在的病毒性扩散发出了警告。

　　——汤姆·比斯尔

　　这个人就差把“才华”两个字刻在脑门上。

　　——作家李诞

　　很多写作者所做的工作，是替代你思考，但华莱士要做的，是邀请你进入一个“实在界的大荒漠”，再把你留在那儿，让你独自思考。

　　——作家张定浩

Content introduction

This is a highly developed material age, people's entertainment needs continue to produce and continue to be satisfied. A mysterious film called Infinite Jest is floating around the underground, and everyone who sees it becomes obsessed with it. Its deadly attraction draws in a tennis school, an addiction rehabilitation facility, a Canadian separatist group, and U.S. intelligence, and disaster looms.

The publication of Infinite Jest is an event, a peak that cannot be surpassed. A million words, no chapters, no table of contents, fragments separated by mysterious symbols. A novel with a brain and a heart of its own, David Foster Wallace uses his genius language to skillfully construct a story structure that challenges the reader's intelligence, creating an unending storm that engulfs reality and the hearts of its characters in infinitely enlarged details. The group disorder of being addicted to all kinds of things and falling into endless loneliness described in the book points to this era of addiction, and will also bring thoughts and comfort to readers in this era.

About the author

David Foster Wallace (1962-2008) was an American writer who was born in Ithaca, New York, and raised in the Midwest. His father, a professor of philosophy, and his mother, an English professor, would read Ulysses to each other and Moby-Dick to young Wallace and his sister, and Wallace was interested in language and writing from an early age. A keen tennis player as a teenager, he studied mathematical logic and semantics in college and graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College in 1985 with a double major in philosophy and English, with his debut novel, The Broom of the System, as one of his senior theses. In 1987, he received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Arizona, and later enrolled in Harvard University to pursue a doctorate in philosophy, but dropped it for health reasons.

In 1996, Endless Jest was published, which was reprinted six times within a month and has been a bestseller ever since. He was an associate professor of English at the University of Illinois from 1993 to 2002, and began teaching creative writing at Pomona College in California in 2002. In 2008, after years of battling depression, Wallace took his own life. In 2011, his posthumous book, The Pale King, was published by his family and editors and was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize. In addition to his fiction work, Wallace has written articles and interviews for several magazines, including "Think Lobster" and "Something That Should be Fun That I Won't Do Anymore".

Wonderful book review

Diving into the depths of Infinite Jest is an exhilarating, thrilling experience. There is so much life and death, so much revelry and pain, so much enthusiasm in the face of despair, cheering for the future of our literature. Few people will read such a bold creative style, a gorgeous and energetic language impact.

-- Mainichi Shimbun

This novel is so dazzling that you need sunglasses to read it, and it has a heart and a brain.

-- Contemporary Fiction Review

Infinite Jest is like a spaceship with no recognizable features, no rivets and bolts, no entrance, and no way to disassemble. It was shining and flawless.

-- Dave Eggers, author of What Is What

Here's something hard to imagine: a writer is so creative that when he dies, the language is barren.

-- John Jeremiah Sullivan

Infinite Jest was the first great Internet novel to warn against the potential viral spread of mass entertainment long before anyone else.

-- Tom Bissell

The man nearly had the word "talent" engraved on his forehead.

-- Li Shan, writer

What many writers do is think for you, but what Wallace wants to do is invite you into a "great desert of reality" and leave you there to think alone.

-- Writer Zhang Dinghao