Seth in New York was one of several readers who addressed the book’s detractors: “It’s always made me sad that the features that drew me to ‘Infinite Jest’ seem to elude its critics completely. It asks a lot of us, to be sure . . . But it ultimately proved to be a warm, hilarious and deeply compassionate reflection on human flaws and human suffering.” ‘rabid’ in Los Angeles had a similar take on the book’s ratio of pleasures to challenges: “Is it self-indulgent? Sure. Is it a challenging read? Yup. Narcissistic? I don’t see it but OK. Is it the product of a huge and caring heart? Absolutely. Addiction, depression, physical pain, boredom, self-loathing, anger, sadness, numbness, etc. They’re all there and unlike a lot of artists, DFW had the grace and humility to write about them in a way that said, ‘I don’t judge; I care.’ ”

Anne in Washington, D.C., was one of several commenters unmoved by the book’s fans. “While David Foster Wallace may have been a talented writer, ‘Infinite Jest’ is, still after 20 years, in desperate need of an editor,” she said. “This novel is a prime example of a case of 1990s literary hysteria (see: ‘American Psycho’) elevating a middling work to cult status simply because someone has repeated enough times that it is a work of genius.”

Chris in New Jersey called the book’s prose “an ugly mashup of instructional manuals for cheap electronics and obtuse postmodern academic criticism, with a healthy dash of straightforward banality thrown in to boot.”

Ted Pikul quipped: “I didn’t like it the first time I read it, when it was called Gravity’s Rainbow.’ ”

Somewhere between the raves and the pans are testaments to the sheer curiosity inspired by the novel, and the significant amount of time that even ambivalent readers might invest in grappling with it. A reader named Dan wrote: “I just spent four months reading this novel, with about 50 pages to go. Someone else described their reaction as ‘lukewarm,’ and I think that encapsulates my feelings toward the book, too. ‘Infinite Jest’ contains some truly stunning imagery and beautiful sentences, such as the ones mentioned. But the book isn’t just ‘difficult.’ It is, without a doubt, extremely self-indulgent.”