A note to readers new to Infinite Jest

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TL;DR

Edwin Turner's advice essay for readers approaching Infinite Jest for the first time, reposted on the novel's thirtieth anniversary (originally 2015). Its argument is contrarian for a books blog: first-time readers "need only a dictionary and some patience", and the very abundance of guides and analysis around the novel may paradoxically impede a new reader by implying that they "can’t “get it” without help." Turner sketches the three plot strands, marks the early stretches where readers tend to give up, and offers a generous "fair place to abandon" argument — read at least to page 64 and the filmography in endnote 24, and if nothing there compels you further, feel free to stop. It advances no theory about the novel's plot cruxes; it is a piece of reading-guidance and, taken as data, a comment on the guide-and-commentary economy that has grown up around Infinite Jest.

Key claims

The minimalist prescription. "With this in mind, I’d suggest that first-time readers need only a dictionary and some patience." The novel "is very long but it’s not nearly as difficult as its reputation suggests."
Three plot strands, obscured on purpose. The Incandenza family saga; the Ennet House recovery narrative with Gately as "the primary hero"; and the Québécois separatists' schemes — linked by the deadly film. Turner notes Wallace withholds the explicit connections until after the 200-page mark, with the Hal–Orin conversation on pp. 242–58 the point where "the real contours of the Big Plot come into (incomplete) focus".
Where readers quit. The opening interview is "chronologically the last event in the narrative" and front-loads exposition; the Erdedy chapter reads as deliberately interminable, and "My guess is that this where a lot of new readers abandon the novel" (sic, "this where").
A fair place to abandon. Read at least to page 64 and endnote 24's filmography; "readers who make it to the filmography and find nothing to compel them further into the text should feel okay about abandoning the book at that point."
On the endnotes and guides. "I will not even discuss the idea of not reading the end notes. They are essential". As for guides: "you’d probably do fine without them." He recommends the scene-by-scene table (a re-hosted faculty guide, not his own work) solely for chronology — "however, I’d advise against peeking ahead." — and says to save plot diagrams for after a first read.
The closing frame. "Infinite Jest is a rhetorical/aesthetic experience, not a plot." And — in the anniversary editor's note — "Wallace’s novel remains underread by overtalkers".

Themes

First-reading experience and the fear of "not getting it"; the paradox of reading advice warning against guides; abandonment and permission to stop; the endnotes as non-optional; motif-tracking as a rereader's pleasure withheld from the first-timer; the reception economy of commentary around a "difficult" book.

Cross-references

Its companion table, the scene-by-scene guide, which Turner recommends here for chronology while warning against reading ahead.
The archive's other how-to-read / first-reader sources: Infinite Summer's how-to-read essay, McEvoy's how-to-read, the "read consciously" guide, and the first-time-reader podcast episode — several of which share Turner's "just read it" bias against front-loaded apparatus.