Erich Strom’s review of Infinite Jest from 1996
At first I didn’t know what Strom was talking about; folks consume a lot of this-and-that in Infinite Jest, sure, but other than the parodic Subsized Time, Wallace’s near-future isn’t anywhere near as commercial dystopic as, say, the ones depicted Snowcrash or even Minority Report. Then I realized Strom was most likely referring to Interlace On-Demand Entertainment, which is sort of like the iTunes/Hulu combo of The Future Back in 1996. Interlace is definitely described in ominous tones in the book, but since since on-demand entertainment is so normal now, it’s hard to take those passages seriously. It’s strange, reading a contemporary review, to know that others were reading those passages as a warning of the dangers of omniaccessible entertainment.
