Never mind the lit-bros: Infinite Jest is a true classic at 30

I’m not what you might consider Infinite Jest’s target demographic; its reputation as a book infamously few ever finish has long been tied to a particular breed of college-age men. I was a late bloomer: in the winter of 2023, at 34, smoking outside a party in Brooklyn, I felt suddenly motivated to take on the two‑pound tome.

A boy I knew from high school mentioned it, I’d developed a casual interest in the so‑called lit‑bro canon, and I set myself a goal of 50 pages a day. That canon tends to centre male loneliness — protagonists isolated, at odds with social norms, often operating in male‑dominated spaces like war zones or fight clubs — and has spawned both mainstream success and fierce backlash.

Infinite Jest shares the theme of solitary men but stands apart in pace and structure. Though neither the Enfield Tennis Academy nor the Ennet House is inherently male‑only, most of the characters are men, each rendered with a kind of levelling loneliness, and the novel’s rhythms resist easy categorisation.