Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace discussion

This thread is for discussion of pgs. 827-902 in Infinite Jest. Page 902 → Kindle location 21,532 (84%)

Gately is in St. Elizabeth hospital,battleing serious bullet-wound infection without narcotic aid- drifting in & out of consciousness,he is visited by the wraith of J.O.I.(P.829),a Hamlet reference but this"plain old wraith" is different from the King's ghost as it's "without any sort of grudge or agenda".Another point of departure from the play-why does the ghost visit Gately & not Hal?
The answer could be as Gately thinks-"...thinking he was seeing his late organic dad as a ghost or wraith would drive the youngest son bats."(P.840).
Also,psychically,Gately is in a sort of twilight zone where the wraith is able to interface with him (as the wraith explains its limitations on P.831).

J.O.I.'s exchanges with Gately here, bring home the importance of earlier scenes/chapters,such as-1 April- Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad (P.27-31)-
"Praying for just one conversation...that does not end in terror? That does not end like all the others: you staring,me swallowing?
"..."
"Son"?
"..."
"Son?"
And the chapter Winter B.S. 1960- Tucson AZ (P.157-169), where a 10yr old J.O.I. gets life lessons from his dad,where the idea of the sins of the father is further elaborated in the scene-Hal's narration of Tennis and the Feral Prodigy,a film by Mario Incandenza,P.172-176, where Hal says "Have a father whose own father lost what was there. Have a father who lived up to his own promise and then found thing after thing to meet and surpass the expectations of his promise in,and didn't seem just a whole hell of a lot happier or tighter wrapped than his own failed father,leaving you yourself in a kind of feral and flux-ridden state with respect to talent" & then comes his loaded line about "justifying your seed."

J.O.I. has dominated the narrative of IJ- as a founder of ETA,as the maker of the deadly entertainment- in his suicide,he becomes larger than life. All along,we have seen him through the eyes of others,but now we get to see him in his own words & what a heartbreaking sadness it is that such an accomplished man felt himself to be "pretty much a figurant,furniture at the periphery of the very eyes closest to him...and that it's one heck of a crummy way to try to live."(P.835).

Gately's whole hospital stay section also shows that just like Mario,he is the heart of the book- all kinds of people come & pour their heart out to him,like "a little kid confides to a dog."P.836.

Gately's dream (P.848-51): So many characters dream in this book - Orin,Joelle,Hal,Gately,Kate,Poor Tony Krause etc,that there shd be a whole thread devoted to dream analysis in IJ. Their dreams either play out their fears,or suppressed painful memories of abuse,or they provide clues to events past & future.
Gately's dream of Joelle conclusively shows what the "Samizdat"is all about- & yet in what way would it lead to obsessive viewing is beyond me? Even the idea of your mother being your killer in your earlier life is beyond me ( unless there is some deep philosophical idea going on here. Did I hear someone say "Metempsychosis"? As Hindu, we believe in the concept of Transmigration of Soul but nowhere does it talk abt mother being ...). I think Wallace is jesting with us. And this was J.O.I.'s idea of drawing Hal in with his entertainment!

Hope this clarifies the whole mother-as -killer puzzle:

"The Entertainment's lethal appeal is its ability to give viewers what they think they have wanted all their lives: namely,a return to some state of maternal plenitude. The viewer is that child staring into a mirror that sends back a version of the mother APOLOGISING-and for what,exactly? Perhaps for not being there,always,as the provider of pleasure and wholeness. Now she is there for the viewer,providing the very pleasure the viewer has been seeking elsewhere all along. That viewer therefore is done with desire,and done with desiring.

...In her guise as the film's mother-symbol,she (Joelle/Madame Psychosis) also functions as the primary emblem of Incandenza's complex "mother-death-cosmology", itself a pointed critique of Lacan. As the popular radio talk-show host of the strange,formless programme,Sixty Minutes More or Less with Madame Psychosis,broadcast weekly...she provides listeners with something close to maternal security. The primary allure of the show lies in the quality of her voice,which,according to one character,"seems low-depth familiar...the way certain childhood smells will strike you as familiar and oddly sad." (189-90).

Fittingly,in the role of the apologising mother in Infinite Jest,she represents none other than Death herself,"as in the figure of Death,Death Incarnate" (850).
As such,she dramatizes Incandenza's central point,namely that " Death happens over and over,you have many lives,and at the end of each one (meaning life) is a woman who kills you and releases you into the next life."(850). That woman is always,he concludes,your next life's mother.

For the novel's multitude of desperate drug addicts,that seductive,murderous woman is the Substance that controls their lives. Once these characters succumb to their addictions,their preaddiction selves are murdered,never to rise again,while the woman-murderer,here the drug,that has enslaved them,becomes the mother-creator of their new addictive lives,now little more than "womb(s) of solipsism" and forms of "death in life". The film's debilitating effects on its viewers therefore recapitulates the addictive experience. Not accidentally,Madame Psychosis is also the street name for...DMZ.

...Hence,whether playing the ravishingly beautiful maternal nude or the endlessly apologising celestial mother,Madame Psychosis presents to the film's lonely viewers an irresistable vision of wishes fulfilled,a pornographic object of masturbatory desire( this all takes place in O.N.A.N.,after all), one that provides viewers with the fulfilling desire they have been seeking all their lives. At the same time,the thing you desire most- Lacan's (m)other-is the thing that will kill you.
Such desiring will also lead you to death-in-life,a catatonic state of pure desiring,one that involves a form of self-annihilation similar to the process of metempsychosis."

From Marshall Boswell's Understanding David Foster Wallace.

wow... makes me look at it with totally fresh eyes... im about a third of the way through for the third time in nine months... have i become Wallace's medical attache?

Thanks. That part of the book kept puzzling me so I had to go find the answer. I'm sure other readers will unearth more compelling explanations.
And no,your third re-reading is a very normal & understandable desire. I too would,if I could :-)

Mala wrote: "From Marshall Boswell's Understanding David Foster Wallace. ..."

That book is great! I used it to clear my several doubts about The girl with curious hair and now again shall refer to it since I've finished reading IJ.

"That book is great!"

It sure is!

"I've finished reading IJ."

Congratulations! Waiting for your review :-)

Several, well many actually, times i have returned to endnote 24, the JOI filmography... Last night when I did, I noticed something I had never picked up on in my two previous readings... Two of the final three films before IJ V. "Too Much Fun" referring back to Joelle's attempted felo de se. She was going to have too much fun at Molly Notkin's party. Second, right before IJ V, Sorry All Over the Place, possibly a lead in or prequel to IJ V, or an experiment, although probably failed, at a lethal entertainment? Recall Joelle's major part in IJ V is the repitition of "I'm sorry" over and over... Just saying... Seems like I pull nuggets out of this thing all the time. Anyone see any implications or significance to this?

Wow. I hadn't noticed that, Jerry! Is this your first time reading it? I definitely want to re-read this one soon.

no, i am halfway through for the third time. also my gf is reading it for the first time right now, and it was while discussing the filmography last night that i ran across it. IJ is way better on subsequent readings. you see lotsa stuff you missed or forgot previously. at least thats the case for me!

although the more i read it, the more i think that that is exactly DFWs intent: an infinite jest on us all.

The sudden shift into first-person from Hal's perspective was a little weird.