It's hard to sum up Infinite Jest: the book passes through so many modes of writing, brings you to so many places, that it seems contrary to boil it down to an essence. A simple explanation would be that the book is about empathy and identification, about recognizing the same consciousness and foils in everyone from tennis prodigies to AA attendees. But one of the lessons of the book is that trite maxims often aren't, that you have to experience a piece of wisdom firsthand to see the truth in them.

So it is with Infinite Jest, a book that starts out orbiting a wide variety of individuals, who slowly converge until they finally meet somewhere just beyond the novel's horizon. While it starts out covering Enfield Tennis Academy, the residents of Ennet House quickly colonize and then take over the novel. Their process of coming to terms with their addiction and coping with resurgent memories of their childhood is some of the most powerful writing you will ever read, and they drive the book through the middle portion—often more captivating than the ostensible "plot" driving the novel. And then towards the end, an event causes everything to collapse onto one character, and his perspective is amazing to behold.