Endless joke

Infinite Jest is a novel ^{[1] by the} American writer David Foster Wallace , written in 1996 . The voluminous and complex work, which tells about the events taking place in the half-parody version of the future America , touches on many topics: tennis, programs for getting rid of drug addiction, depression, child abuse, family relationships, advertising, popular entertainment, film theory and Quebec separatism . The novel includes 388 numbered footnotes (some of which also have their own footnotes), explaining or setting out some points in the story. Wallace characterizes this technique as a way of undermining the linearity of the text while maintaining the integrity of the narrative.
The novel was translated into Russian by Alexei Polyarinov and Sergey Karpov. Both of them have already worked on translations of other works by Wallace. The book was published by Astrel-SPb in December 2018.

The name of the novel is taken from the first scene of the fifth act of “ Hamlet ”, in which Hamlet holds the skull of the court jester Yorik and says:

- Alas, poor Yorick! “I knew him, Horatio; a man infinitely witty, a wonderful inventor; he carried me a thousand times on his back; and now - how disgusting it is for me to imagine! ^[2]

Original text

—Alas, poor Yorick! —I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!