IJ is two books — comic/tennis and AA — fused by a rewrite pass
best and only explanation of the documented strata, unopposed; capped below strongly-supported because the mechanism leg is a single-reconstruction [inference] awaiting draft stratigraphy.
Where readers stand
majority
majority within the biographer tier, awaiting textual scholarship (Max defers to Hering's book) — no dissent, but self-flagged as guess.
In plain terms: Infinite Jest is really two books -- a comic tennis book and an Alcoholics-Anonymous book -- fused together by a later rewrite.
Where the text lands: a question about how the book was made rather than what the text says; on the documentary record it is the best-supported reading. Among readers: the majority view among biographers, though flagged by its own main proponent as a best guess awaiting manuscript scholarship.
The strata dates and the fact that the recovery half must postdate the author's 1989 halfway-house experience bracket the two halves beyond dispute, and no rival account of the book's assembly exists anywhere in the record. It is capped below the strongest tier because the rewrite-to-fuse mechanism is a single reconstruction awaiting draft study. Drawn from the composition tested reading.
The question
This reading answers the crux tennis-book + AA-book fused by rewrite.
The ruling
Weighed in the adversarial ledger The Book's Composition.
The evidence
the AA half necessarily postdates the 1989 halfway-house experience; Somerville-period elimination