As I mentioned in a comment near this one, you're far from the first person in this thread to say so, and the frequency of such statements is starting to make me wonder if I haven't rushed to judgment. After all, the Illuminatus! trilogy could be described in much the same terms, and despite it taking many rereadings over something like five years to feel I really had a solid grasp on the book from beginning to end, in the end I'd have to say it was very much worth my while. (Don't get me wrong - well over 99.9% of Illuminatus! is unmitigated, top-tier, Grade A bullshit, good for fertilizer and not a whole lot else. It's just that the remainder is solid gold, five nines fine.)

In any case, I've just bought a copy of Infinite Jest, so pretty soon I'll be finding out whether I've treated it too harshly or not harshly enough.