Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace discussion

This thread is for discussion of pgs. 682-755 in Infinite Jest. Page 755 → Kindle location 18,022 (70%)

And then out of the blue,comes an account of Matty Pemulis,Mike P's elder brother (P.682-86)- almost all the characters in IJ have had abusive/damaged childhood- Orin,Joelle,Kate,Millicent,Bruce Green,Gately & now Matty- I'm losing count. One wonders if Wallace is making a comment on breakdown of the family unit as a sanctuary. Still,Matty's sexual abuse by his own father is the kind of graphic sexual stuff one never wishes to read about- it made me sick.


In the viewing room 6, Hal watches Himself's movies "as a kind of weird self-punishment"( his guilt over the Eschaton fiasco & what the fall out might cause his buddies)P.686-89 & again in three more segments.
So many movies in popular culture have referenced IJ-  Himself's movie -Blood Sister: One Tough Nun's description recall Q Tarantino's Kill Bill Volume one & in Horrible Bosses,one character re-enacts,Gately's antics with the toothbrush.

Pages 693-695 are, where to me personally,IJ takes a quantum leap into greatness- using Kate Gompert as a pretext,Wallace talks directly to the readers abt " What it means to be a f...ing humanbeing" in this world- Anhedonia or simple melancholy to the " Great White Shark of pain" i.e. Clinical depression are described with the gravitas of truth that comes from only having lived through it.
It's chilling to read about it cause one involuntarily keeps connecting it to the writer's own life & death.

"Caius Is Mortal"-is Wallace here paying homage to Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych or referencing his Philosophy background,or both?
There are so many homages to Ulysses,Gravity's Rainbow,Hamlet,various philosophical thoughts,arthouse cinema,music & fine arts,that being familiar with them would make IJ a very enriching experience indeed,though to be fair,the book lends itself to pleasurable reading on its own as well.

Well I finished the book & I can tell you that after finishing it you'd still be saying that!
It's something to do with the structure of the novel.
Here's something I read in an Infinite Summer blog: Spoiler alert!

"In a response to a master’s thesis long ago, DFW admitted to having four “projects” going on in IJ. I believe that one of these projects was to write a book about addiction that would itself be addictive. A second was to structure the book as a , a particular type of fractal. The center of a Serpinski triangle is empty, much like how the IJ the book revolves around IJ the film and its auteur, both of which are essentially missing from the book. We never really find out what makes IJ so interesting and JOI is never really present– he is remembered, we read his writings, we meet his ghost.

Each of the three main subplots, which are bound together by JOI and IJ, also has a question at their center which is left unanswered. What happened to Hal? Will Gately survive and stay sober? Will the Wheelchair Assassins capture IJ and subdue America?

JOI was a founder of the Anti-Confluential school, and IJ the book has an anti-confluential plot. There is the promise that it will all come together eventually, a promise that is supported by endless connections between the characters and subplots. The connections are everywhere and leave the reader with the impression that with closer reading, they can discover the answers to the open questions at the end of the book. So you jump back to the beginning and start over. In this sense the book becomes infinite, and the jest is on you– because the connections don’t lead anywhere conclusive. They are there as a mechanism to suck you back in."

P.743-47- One of the interesting narrative devices in this book is how we get to see different characters through the eyes of many. Joelle's Thanksgiving dinner with the Incandenza family is full of her instinctive & bang-on-target insights- she sees the then 10yrs old Hal as "insufferable" & keeps "fighting urges to slap the sleek little show-offy kid upside the head so hard his bow-tie would spin." She correctly senses J.O.I's isolation within the family & Avril gives her "the howling fantods."
Later in the book,we'll see Joelle's family through Molly Notkin's eyes.
As an outsider,Joelle has the objective distance to cut through the crap. We'll remember Joelle's impression of Hal later in some very important scenes- reciting verbatim from dictionary is Hal's idea of conversation & who is encouraging him in this? Poor boy! The dinner scene kept reminding me of The Royal Tenenbaums.

Mala wrote: "There is the promise that it will all come together eventually, a promise that is supported by endless connections between the characters and subplots. The connections are everywhere and leave the reader with the impression that with closer reading, they can discover the answers to the open questions at the end of the book. So you jump back to the beginning and start over. In this sense the book becomes infinite, and the jest is on you– because the connections don’t lead anywhere conclusive. They are there as a mechanism to suck you back in."

That's maybe the most concise description of the feeling I am having. Now. At the end of the book. I both love and hate this book. I must... read it again. I think.

There are many ways to approach the ending- as a meta reference to life itself which is messy & doesn't have a neat ending or as a symbol against the 'perfect' entertainment which the readers passivly lap up or as a text outside text where as readers we can project our own thoughts & fill in the blanks for one unaccounted for year. I think it was a great way to bring the narrative from the final page to the final frame in an annular way.
I can't get the final scene of Gately spread out on the beach out of my head- something abt the vastness & the absolute peace of it- mindblowingly beautiful,just beautiful!

Mala wrote: "And then out of the blue,comes an account of Matty Pemulis,Mike P's elder brother (P.682-86)- almost all the characters in IJ have had abusive/damaged childhood- Orin,Joelle,Kate,Millicent,Bruce Gr..."

Kill Bill was the first thought that struck my mind while reading about the Blood sister and LOL at the horrible bosses reference.

About 'Caius Is Mortal' this is what wallace wiki suggests:

This is a variation on an older Greek syllogism used to demonstrate deductive logic:
Major Premise: All men are mortal
Minor Premise: Caius is a man
Conclusion: Caius is mortal
Caius was Julius Caesar's first name.

Also I found Poor Tony being chased by Ruth scene hilarious.

"I found Poor Tony being chased by Ruth scene hilarious."

That scene stretched credibility quite a bit- just recall the medical condition of this fella & here he was running like an olympics sprint champ!
Still high on comedy,nodoubt.

if you are looking for credibility in IJ you are looking in way wthe wrong place for sure

To give Wallace his due,he did create a world credible enough, for me to suspend my disbelief willingly!

Mala wrote: "To give Wallace his due,he did create a world credible enough, for me to suspend my disbelief willingly!"

same for me

The section on depression as both an abstract and concrete illness is horrifying and haunting. I am reminded of DFW essay "The Depressed Person" and Tolstoys The Death of Ivan Ilyich which also references "Caius is Mortal" before describing Ivan's pain. I also read somewhere there is a vague reference to Stephen Kings novel "It", which also deals with painful childhood fears. I believe DFW was criticized for this oblique reference and charged with "unsophisticated naïveté", hence the Tolstoy allusion.

Stephen King reference? That's news to me but yes,Wallace watched a lot of television to keep tabs on popular culture.

I see that one of our earlier members,Obfuscation has removed his posts from here– now I'm looking silly replying to him!
Maybe he got tired of getting notifications from here but isn't there a neat edit option of not receiving anymore feeds from here than deleting all comments!?

@Mala- ill find the full reference and post it tonight

Stephen Kings novel 'It' is about a group of adults who have to deal with a billowing fear from their childhood after one of their members, terrified by the resurfacing of the past, kills himself. Eventually the group goes back down the trenches (like the Tunnel Club) with the thing itself. (See Elegant Complexity Guide to IJ)

Oh yeah, I can see the Tunnel Club being an allusion to It in that way. Cool.

Shmuli,I must say that you got a cool b'day gift! I envy you.
Your review will be so informed now,not fair!

Right bday is over, back to the book. In the referenced film, Blood Sisters, the main character is a tortured drug addict saved by a nun with a severe facial deformity. Ring a bell? What was Hal's old man trying to say?

That nuns can be kick-ass sometimes?

The nuns drug use became habit forming.

They don't stand a prayer.

Ill have nun of that thankyou

Refraining from these puns is my solemn vow.

Ahh the twenty nun puns about nuns

Sunny in Wonderland wrote: "Mala wrote: "There is the promise that it will all come together eventually, a promise that is supported by endless connections between the characters and subplots. The connections are everywhere a..."

Sunny in Wonderland wrote: "Mala wrote: "There is the promise that it will all come together eventually, a promise that is supported by endless connections between the characters and subplots. The connections are everywhere a..."


Agree that that sums it up well. But have to admit that I'm more exasperated than addicted right now.