Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace discussion

This thread is for discussion of pgs. 902-981 in Infinite Jest. Page 981 → Kindle location 23,418 (91%)

Hal's epiphany: (P.896-902 & 906-11)
Hal's nervous breakdown,which remains a subject of endless debates,leads to a kind of  acuity which either results from drugs or high meditative state ( *he earlier refers to Lyle's discourse on Vipassana meditation). In such a mental state,he is acutely aware of his feelings,thoughts & his surroundings.Hal who always felt that he had no interior life & was perhas more robotic than John Wayne,sees his life ahead as one meaningless series of actions repeated ad nauseam & decides to drop out of the rat race. http://www.dhamma.org/en/vipassana.shtml
Both the central characters of IJ- Hal & Gately are simultaneously re-living their lives through free association of ideas & memories- Gately through dreams & nightmares & Hal through recall- and we see that Hal knew everything,he was only wearing the mask of apathy all along.From page 800 onwards,sections dealing with Hal & Gately are charged with powerful,cinematic writing & deep pathos.
The last page with Gately passed out on a vast beach is a sure sign of regeneration & rebirth & takes us in a loop, back to the beginning (which is technically the ending) where Hal is in a kafkaesque nightmare- he is at his sanest when people see him as insane. Hal is finally having an interior life but ironically his solipsism has turned him totally mute- he has become"...the hero of non-action, the catatonic hero, the one beyond calm, divorced from all stimulis [sic], carried here and there across sets by burly extra's whose blood sings with retrograde amines" (142). 
The"lexical prodigy" can not communicate or is it the people who are unable to hear?
Like most things in IJ,Wallace has left it ambiguous.

P.944- Aha,I get my Brecht reference! Considering how J.O.I.'s film sensibilities here reflects Wallace's own (Himself,like one of DFW's fav directors David Lynch, loves flying in the face of cinematic authorities & doing his own thing & yet he basically wanted to entertain),his endnotes prevent "sucker(ing)the audience with illusory realism."

And finally some nitpicking:

In a 1079 pages book,there will be some mistakes- carping critics have found out flaws in the technical part of the writing but my issue is something else- it's abt cultural sensitivity:

Has anyone here wondered how many times Wallace has used the N word? I thought it was politically incorrect to use it.

Wallace doesn't like petite women,ok make it petite Oriental women. His choice of words was "very small-sized Chinese women"," about the size of fire-hydrants" who "scuttle with a kind of insectile rapidity." This impression is repeated several times in several places.
But the real beeper comes here:" conversing in their anxious and high-pitched monkey-language.Evolution proved your Orientoid tongues were closer to your primatal languages than not."P.716. More comes, as they " scuttled centipedishly abreast" their " monkey-languages' exclamatories have an explosive ricocheting sound to them."718
And to think that Chinese civilization was advanced & flourishing when America( as discovered by Columbus who incidentally was looking for India) wasn't even on the map!
Somehow Wallace seems to think that in alternative reality USA,all medical practitioners will be Pakistanis who'll ofcourse be clueless abt patient needs!
Third-world food takeaways,where thankfully the country name is not mentioned.
Indian terms also find mention- Maya ( illusion in Vedantic philosophy), the Monkey God Hanuman,Tantric sexual postures,Vaipassana(sic) meditation- so far so good-& then it came- in the climatic Fackelmann  & Gately drug binge scene,the free-flowing urine on the floor is compared to many-handed Hindu gods!
Sad thing is these observation didn't come from some hillybilly rather someone who shd've known better.
With the world becoming a global village,we all need to be culturally sensitive so we don't step on one-another's toes.

I tried taking them in the same spirit till I came to the Feckelmann part- whose POV was that? Thing is some readers take things at face value & would believe whatever they read in a book- prejudices are formed,hate crimes take place.
Btw Rushdie also tried to pass off the Satanic Verses conspiracy as the innocent dream of a character- nobody bought that lie!
And for the record,Wallace is one of my fav writers,wouldn't even think of maligning him in any way.

Mala wrote: "I tried taking them in the same spirit till I came to the Feckelmann part- whose POV was that? Thing is some readers take things at face value & would believe whatever they read in a book- prejudic..."

UMMMMMM just guessing here.... Gately's?

Jerry wrote: "Mala wrote: "I tried taking them in the same spirit till I came to the Feckelmann part- whose POV was that? Thing is some readers take things at face value & would believe whatever they read in a b..."

Technically yes,but in terms of being in character,the chance of that observation coming from Gately is as remote as me going on a trip to Mars!
That's to say,nothing in Gately's area of life experiences suggest an awareness of Hindu Gods!
Likewise,M.Pemulis,(even though he gets some of the best lines in the book),his casual comment abt breaking the web of Maya lacks credibility- & that's another bone readers pick with Wallace,that all his characters sound awefully smart like him!
So you know,the POV may be of different characters,still there are times,when certain view points could've come from nobody else but the writer himself,given his vast reading & exposure to various philosophical thoughts.

Mala wrote: "Hal's epiphany: (P.896-902 & 906-11)
Hal's nervous breakdown,which remains a subject of endless debates,leads to a kind of  acuity which either results from drugs or high meditative state ( *he ear..."

Great analysis Mala!

Thanks, Garima.

I haven't read the James Wood book so can't comment on that but these lines from Wikipedia make my position clear:

"Free indirect discourse can also be described, as a "technique of presenting a character's voice partly mediated by the voice of the author", or, in the words of the French narrative theorist Gerard Genette, "the narrator takes on the speech of the character, or, if one prefers, the character speaks through the voice of the narrator, and the two instances then are merged."

And therefore,when one thinks the pov to be that of Gately,who has no idea of what's being presented,his voice is partly mediated by the voice of the author- hence my take that the viewpoint is that of Wallace himself.

I dont buy thst, but I respect your opinion

Mala wrote: "I haven't read the James Wood book so can't comment on that but these lines from Wikipedia make my position clear:

"Free indirect discourse can also be described, as a "technique of presenting a c..."

I would have buy that w/r/t David's writing had I not read before Girl with curious hair title story, where there are some really offensive remarks by a character. So in IJ, I agree with Obfuscation's point. Though there was a risk involved, like with that Gately's remark you mentioned Mala, which IMO is a really bad case of allegorical reference, but I think Wallace was much more intelligent than giving away such foolish remarks, but not Gately, so I took it as a character's voice and not that of the author's.

Mike wrote: "Consider the sections on Marathe. They're told in the third person, yet they're loaded with Marathe's own versions of English as part of the text, not as quotes. That's free indirect style at work,..."

Yeah that makes sense,thanks Mike.

.... And I'm done.

I'm done.

Sigh. Seriously - that's the ending??

Don't even bother to tell me that it's a meta joke on the reader that there's no resolution. Or that that the book goes on for so long is a realistic mirror for life; and is a reflection of J.O Incandenza's work.
It's just a profoundly un"ENTERTAIN"ing ending.

I think I may now have anhedonia.

Suzanne wrote: "I think I may now have anhedonia."

Ha! I'm about to finish it tonight!

Ok, I finished. (Finally.) Yeah, the ending was annoying, but I was kind of prepared for that so I don't think it's bothering me as it might have otherwise. It was kind of like a Sopranos cut-to-black.

I think there needs to be a How to Read Infinite Jest (for the Second Time) Guide.

not clear what happens to Orin in his last episode it appears he's trapped in some sort tube?

He was the one who liked to squash cockroaches, right? The older brother? Yeah, I think I remember him being trapped in a giant tumbler, bargaining with some woman (Helen?) to be released in exchange for handing over the Entertainment.

Or something like that.

Mala wrote: "And finally some nitpicking:

In a 1079 pages book,there will be some mistakes- carping critics have found out flaws in the technical part of the writing but my issue is something else- it's abt cu..."

I just think that your too easily offended honestly, this cause for alarm of the over usage of words that are offensive steams from a culture that is out of touch over pc'd. Art is censored enough as it is, and I believe Wallace harbors no disdain when uses offensive words and if you don't see why he uses said words well then you don't read enough fiction...

Jason wrote: "He was the one who liked to squash cockroaches, right? The older brother? Yeah, I think I remember him being trapped in a giant tumbler, bargaining with some woman (Helen?) to be released in exchan..."

The NFL Punter yes! That seems right does he escape? does asking that question miss the point? Thank you

I think he escapes because don't they have a flash-forward in the beginning of the book that suggests he does in fact escape? I can't remember specifically but I think if you read the beginning part again, where Hal has his breakdown, it mentions Orin, and I think that happens after the events at the end of the book.

Rayroy wrote:"I just think that your too easily offended honestly, this cause for alarm of the over usage of words that are offensive steams from a culture that is out of touch over pc'd. Art is censored enough as it is, and I believe Wallace harbors no disdain when uses offensive words and if you don't see why he uses said words well then you don't read enough fiction... "

You are funny! This is very amusing,thanks.