Years ago, not too long after the "worldbuilding is the clomping foot of nerdism" post (and whew did that one rile people up!), M. John Harrison made another blogpost on the same subject as your piece here: he compared the big chonky books of your Pynchon and Wallace and others, with the vast series you found then too in epic fantasy. It always stuck with me when he wrote that with enough effort, you could build a world in a line and stuff the rest of the book full of things.
The trick with Infinite Jest is to start it on page 140, then loop around and finish the beginning after you finish the rest. The first 140 pages are what always alienates everyone, but at least it will make sense after you've read the rest, which is not intentionally disorienting
Years ago, not too long after the "worldbuilding is the clomping foot of nerdism" post (and whew did that one rile people up!), M. John Harrison made another blogpost on the same subject as your piece here: he compared the big chonky books of your Pynchon and Wallace and others, with the vast series you found then too in epic fantasy. It always stuck with me when he wrote that with enough effort, you could build a world in a line and stuff the rest of the book full of things.
The trick with Infinite Jest is to start it on page 140, then loop around and finish the beginning after you finish the rest. The first 140 pages are what always alienates everyone, but at least it will make sense after you've read the rest, which is not intentionally disorienting