IJ study archive

Nieuws: David Foster Wallace goed tegengeluid in een tijd waarin Hendrik Groen het Boekenweekgeschenk schrijft

source

TL;DR

A short Dutch-language news item by Coen Peppelenbos (editor-in-chief of Tzum, the Netherlands' literary news/review site), dated 23 February 2026, occasioned by the launch of the first Dutch Infinite Jest — Eindeloos vertier (endless amusement — gloss ours), translated by Robbert-Jan Henkes (Koppernik, 2026, a 1176-page paperback). It is not a review; it is a press-roundup with one piece of real news at its centre — the title fight. Henkes wanted to call the translation Grenzeloze grol (boundless jest — gloss ours); the publisher, we are told, happily shot that down, and it was the house's head of publicity Jan van Helden who came up with Eindeloos vertier. Around that kernel Peppelenbos tallies the wave of coverage the translation drew — three pages in Trouw (by Koen Schouwenburg, who had written on Wallace for Tzum before), a cover and thirteen pages in De Groene Amsterdammer in January, three pages by Nina Polak plus one by Joost de Vries in the Volkskrant's Zondag supplement, and, the day of writing, two more pages on the totstandkoming van de vertaling (the making of the translation — gloss ours). The framing is combative: publisher Chris de Jong and Van Helden pitch the book as a tegengeluid (counter-voice — gloss ours) to the Boekenweekgeschenk (the Dutch Book Week free-gift book — that year written by the crowd-pleaser Hendrik Groen), a very funny book with, thirty years on, a great relevance for this moment (his phrasing, glossed ours). Four reader comments beneath it argue about the fifty-euro price and the paperback-only format. No Infinite Jest text is quoted; no plot or ending crux is touched. The value of the note is as a dated translation-history / reception primary: the earliest reception document the archive holds for the Dutch edition, and the source of record for the Grenzeloze grol → Eindeloos vertier title fight.

(Compact by design — this is a ~400-word news item; the note is kept proportional. A standalone compact note is warranted: the title-fight datum and the launch-window press census are load-bearing translation-history facts that live nowhere else in the archive.)

Key claims

The news kernel: the title fight

  • Henkes's rejected working title. The translator Robbert-Jan Henkes wanted to call the book Grenzeloze grol (boundless jest — gloss ours); Peppelenbos reports this was gelukkig … afgeschoten door de uitgeverij (happily shot down by the publisher — gloss ours). The published title Eindeloos vertier (endless amusement — gloss ours) was, he writes, coined by the house's hoofd publiciteit (head of publicity — gloss ours) Jan van Helden. This is the item's one piece of genuine reporting and the archive's source of record for the title's provenance.
  • The English title as printed. The English original is named Infinite jest (line 57) — cite-as-written, with a lowercase second word (see Accuracy notes).

The book, the publisher, the price

  • A 1176-page paperback from Koppernik. Peppelenbos calls it the 1176 pagina’s dikke boek (the 1176-page-thick book — gloss ours). The publisher is Koppernik — named not in the article body (which says only de uitgeverij and Uitgever Chris de Jong) but in the reader comments below, where a commenter names Koppernik as the house and criticizes the paperback-only decision. Publisher Chris de Jong and head of publicity Jan van Helden are the two named house figures.
  • Price and format (from the comments). The reader comments below the piece debate a roughly fifty-euro price and the paperback-only format (some think a hardcover would only have made an already dear book dearer; one commenter argues the true lovers of the book would happily pay more for a fine edition). These are reader reactions, not the article's own reporting — recorded here as context only, by first name.

The press flurry the launch drew

  • A wave of Dutch coverage. Peppelenbos's frame is that you can nauwelijks ontkomen (hardly avoid — gloss ours) the translation: Trouw gave it three pages the previous Saturday (written by Koen Schouwenburg, who, Peppelenbos notes, had written on Wallace for Tzum before); De Groene Amsterdammer had run a cover and thirteen pages on Wallace in January; Nina Polak filled three pages in the Volkskrant's Zondag supplement and Joost de Vries added one more; and on the day of writing two further pages appeared on the making of the translation.

The publisher's framing: a counter-voice to the Boekenweekgeschenk

  • The book pitched as a tegenhanger. Chris de Jong, Peppelenbos writes, sees the book as a tegenhanger van het Boekenweekgeschenk (a counterweight to the Book Week gift-book — gloss ours) — that year written by the popular Hendrik Groen. In the carried block quote de Jong says literature is allowed to be like this even in a Hendrik-Groen year, and van Helden adds that, its reputation notwithstanding, it is a very funny book with a great present-day relevance thirty years on. The article's own headline endorses the frame: Wallace as a goed tegengeluid (a good counter-voice — gloss ours) in a Hendrik-Groen time.

Theories & evidence

(This is a short publishing-news item — a title-fight anecdote plus a press census and a publisher's positioning quote. It touches NO Infinite Jest plot, ending, or character crux: Hal, Gately, the wraith, the missing year, the Entertainment's lethality, JOI, the A.F.R., DMZ — none appears. The novel is named by its titles only and never quoted. Its subject matter is translation history and launch-window reception, for which the archive holds no crux slug. No connection is graded; nothing is coined — the same do-not-coin finding every landed non-English reception note has reached.)

Themes

The launch of the first Dutch Infinite Jest (Eindeloos vertier, Robbert-Jan Henkes, Koppernik 2026) and the burst of Dutch press it drew; the title fight (Grenzeloze grol, the translator's wish, rejected; Eindeloos vertier, the publicity department's coinage); the book as publisher's counter-programming — a 1176-page literary doorstop pitched as a tegengeluid against a middlebrow Boekenweekgeschenk; the low-stakes reader argument about price and paperback format; the Netherlands as a very late arrival to a Dutch Wallace novel. A dated translation-history datum: the Dutch edition's public launch window, February 2026.

Cross-references

  • theuwis-vuur-herontdekt-2017 — the natural arc, nine years earlier. Toon Theuwis closed his 2017 Filter review by arguing there was no longer any excuse for the absence of a Dutch Infinite Jest while German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish editions had long existed. This news item is the answer to that plea: the Dutch translation Theuwis wished for, landed at last (2017 plea → 2026 launch).
  • esposito-ij-around-the-world — the cross-language who-has-it-yet reception map. The Netherlands, absent from the languages that had an IJ when Theuwis wrote, is now on the map; this item dates its arrival.
  • news247-kaltsas-2026 / lapresse-infinie-comedie-2015 — the Greek and French non-English reception primaries; this is their Low-Countries counterpart, and — like the Greek edition — a document of a language that came late to Infinite Jest.
  • kerline-vice-2015 — a fellow reception/press primary (French) in the non-English cluster; a launch-window press piece to this one's launch-window news roundup.

Notable passages

Peppelenbos's words unless marked. Dutch is the verbatim anchor; the English in parentheses is our gloss (paraphrase). The source's only quotation mark is the curly single quote (U+2018 'left' / U+2019 'right'); there are NO double quotes of any kind in the file, so these spans are wrapped in the house curly double quote (U+201C / U+201D), which cannot collide with any source byte — the source's own curly singles and apostrophes are preserved byte-true inside each span.

  • Peppelenbos (the frame): the translation is one you can “van David Foster Wallace kun je nauwelijks ontkomen” (you can hardly escape it, David Foster Wallace — gloss ours).
  • Peppelenbos (the title fight): “Robbert-Jan Henkes de vertaling Grenzeloze grol wilde noemen, wat gelukkig is afgeschoten door de uitgeverij” (Robbert-Jan Henkes wanted to call the translation Grenzeloze grol, which the publisher happily shot down — gloss ours); “hoofd publiciteit Jan van Helden bedacht de veel uiteindelijke titel Eindeloos vertier” (head of publicity Jan van Helden came up with the … eventual title Eindeloos vertier — gloss ours; de veel uiteindelijke titel is an odd construction in the source, reproduced as printed — see Accuracy notes).
  • Peppelenbos (the counter-programming frame): the publisher “ziet het 1176 pagina’s dikke boek ook als een tegenhanger van het Boekenweekgeschenk” (also sees the 1176-page-thick book as a counterweight to the Book Week gift-book — gloss ours).
  • Chris de Jong [Q — Koppernik, carried by Peppelenbos]: “Wij vinden dat literatuur zo mag zijn. Ook in de tijd dat Hendrik Groen het Boekenweekgeschenk wordt, zeggen wij een maand voor de Boekenweek uit: dit mag er ook zijn. Beschouw het maar als een tegengeluid.” (We think literature is allowed to be like this. Even in the time when Hendrik Groen becomes the Boekenweekgeschenk, we say, a month before Book Week: this too is allowed to exist. Just regard it as a counter-voice — gloss ours). Quotable as this article's reproduction of de Jong's words, not as independently-verified verbatim.
  • Jan van Helden [Q — Koppernik, carried by Peppelenbos]: “En laten we niet vergeten dat het ondanks de reputatie een heel grappig boek is, met dertig jaar na dato een grote relevantie voor dit moment.” (And let's not forget that, its reputation notwithstanding, it is a very funny book, with — thirty years after the fact — a great relevance for this moment — gloss ours). Carried by Peppelenbos; quotable as this article's rendering, attributed to van Helden.

Accuracy notes

Cite-as-written throughout (orthography and typography preserved as printed).

  • “Infinite jest” — lowercase second word. At line 57 the English title is printed Infinite jest (lowercase j), not the usual capitalized form. Reproduced as printed; a source styling, not ours.
  • “de veel uiteindelijke titel” — an odd construction. At line 69 Peppelenbos writes that van Helden “bedacht de veel uiteindelijke titel Eindeloos vertier.” de veel uiteindelijke titel reads as a slip (one would expect e.g. de uiteindelijke titel, the eventual title, or de veel betere titel, the much better title); reproduced byte-true, the source's own phrasing, not a transcription error of ours.
  • The two titles are titles, not Wallace prose. Grenzeloze grol (rejected) and Eindeloos vertier (published) are the Dutch translation's titles; the English Infinite jest is Wallace's title. None is Wallace's prose and none is quoted as such; the glosses (boundless jest / endless amusement) are ours.
  • The publisher's name is in the comments, not the article. The article body says only de uitgeverij and Uitgever Chris de Jong; the house name Koppernik is supplied by a reader comment (line 148). Attributed accordingly.
  • The block quote's speakers. The block quote (lines 74-79) runs two speakers: it opens in Chris de Jong's voice (introduced at line 71-72, Uitgever Chris de Jong ziet het … als een tegenhanger …) and switches to Van Helden: mid-block (line 77) for the second sentence. Split as printed.
  • The “»” and “›” characters are navigation, not quotation. The seven U+00BB (») and one U+203A (›) in the file are the scrape's breadcrumb and author-link decorations (Tzum » Nieuws; Bezoek de website van Coen Peppelenbos »), NOT quotation guillemets; the article quotes only with the curly single quote. Noted so the census is not misread as the source using guillemets.
  • The related-posts dates post-date the article. The Gerelateerde berichten widget lists a Tzum essay (23/04/2026), a BoekenFM podcast (19/03/2026) and a three-part Filmpje with Henkes, Maartje Wortel and Nadia de Vries (07/03/2026) — all AFTER the article's 23/02/2026 date, i.e. later Tzum coverage surfaced by the widget at scrape time (the page was captured mid-2026). Not part of the news item's own reporting.
  • Reader comments dated “4 maanden geleden”. The four comments are timestamped relatively (“4 maanden geleden”, four months ago) rather than absolutely — consistent with a mid-2026 scrape of a February-2026 article. Left as printed.