I read hundreds of pages of Infinite Jest, on your recommendation, and while I did find certain scenes compelling, it finally dawned on me why I didn't like it:

I read hundreds of pages of Infinite Jest, on your recommendation, and while I did find certain scenes compelling, it finally dawned on me why I didn't like it: It's totally devoid of hope. Maybe I just didn't bring enough internal upbeatness to the table to enjoy IJ, but to me, the best part of reading a long novel, is enjoying the distillation of a big part of the authors life and getting to know them. I found DFW (in this book) just brought me down. [EDIT: Maybe it didn't help that it was a Kindle book. I've read long books on Kindle, and it's gone fine when the books are mostly enjoyable and easy to follow throughout, but when they're not, it probably helps to have more physical clues as to where you are in the novel. IJ's chapter titles certainly didn't help me to know my way around the book either.]