Ever tried the Remote-SSH plugin from Microsoft?
With it I had the exact opposite experience, I'd regularly forget I was working on a remote dev machine!
The first time i picked up Infinite Jest it was a drag for 200 pages and I dropped it.
Tried it second time. Went through those terrible 200 first pages... and suddenly I was on the 900th wishing hard it wasn't about to end. One of favourite books to this day.
I'm general, this is an online problem: how long do you want to persevere on any given book if it's not immediately gratifying? I often take into consideration whether I enjoyed other author's works and friends suggestions.