What does "year of glad" mean? (Infinite Jest)
I didn't choose well what book to read, so I ended up buying David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, I found out that I can't understand a lot of words in it, and that makes me unable to enjoy the book.

So I decided to read it slowly, I won't turn to the next page until I fully understood the present one, and I've downloaded a pdf Spanish version of the book.

So I have a problem already at the title of the first chapter "Year of Glad" I don't get it, I looked up the definition of "glad" and I've only found it as an adjective of verb, and I can't figure out how that makes any sense here, because if I'm not wrong in this sentence "glad" is a noun. Can someone explain to me what does that phrase mean?

Question

What does "year of glad" mean? (Infinite Jest)
I didn't choose well what book to read, so I  ended up buying David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, I found out that I can't understand a lot of words in it, and that makes me unable to enjoy the book.

So I decided to read it  slowly, I won't turn to the next page until I fully understood the present one, and I've downloaded a pdf Spanish version of the book.

So I have a problem already at the title of the first chapter "Year of Glad" I don't get it, I looked up the definition of "glad" and I've only found it as an adjective of verb, and I can't figure out how that makes any sense here, because if I'm not wrong in this sentence "glad" is a noun. Can someone explain to me what does that phrase mean?

Answer

The grammar is not standard and so this is a good literary device which is designed to make the reader curious about the contents of the chapter.  Is "Glad" a person's name?  Is this is a phrase coined by someone for a special reason?  Who knows?  We just have to read the chapter to find out!

Answer

In the book the years are named after brands or products: Year Of Glad: In the novel Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace the final year of commercially subsidized time is referred to as the "Year Of Glad" in reference to the company (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glad_Products_Company). You can use this website for page by page explanations: http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/index.php?title=Infinite_Jest_Page_by_Page.

No pierdas la oportunidad de aprender un idioma desde la comodidad de tu casa. ¡Explora nuestra selección de profesores de idiomas con experiencia e inscríbete ya en tu primera clase!