I think you are exactly right about his view on self-references [0]

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2doZROwdte4

on the point of recursive loops: The most amazing thing about IJ, to me, is how the book itself _does_ recurse; chronologically the first scene in the book takes place after the last, and when you reach then end you could reasonably start again from the beginning, with the knowledge you've picked up on your first reading informing your second and fundamentally changing the tone and mood of the book.

i.e./tl;dr, Infinite Jest is itself the infinite entertainment it describes.

Sure, my point was not that it cannot have these things embedded or implicit, but that they are not lifted directly into the story as the focus of narration.

Finnegans Wake is also circular.