fiction files redux discussion
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Infinite Jest
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Infinite Winter of our Discontent: January Thoughts
Hugh wrote: "So here we are, the first day of the New Year, another holiday season behind us (or, for some, a Feast of the Epiphany ahead)... and like the parabolic curve of the radioactive waste being catapult..."1. Did you find concrete evidence that the Master tape was ever located? What page(s)?
2. No concrete evidence that the DMZ was ever consumed. Based on Hal's behavior starting on day one of his withdrawal from Bob Hope, Hal began to have extreme anxiety and feelings of Panic that he normally had on court. Here's something I posted in another discussion:
"For the Year of Glad episode, it might be reasonable to look at the situation as a panic attack, from the perspective of the administrators, but simultaneously, Hal is having the conversation of his narration in his head. He's hearing his explanations clearly and cogently, just as we're reading them, but in the real world of the conference room, he's making animal noises.
A pre-cursor for the onset of panic is on p. 896-7:
"I was moving down the hall when it hit. ... It was some variant of the telescopically self-conscious panic that can be so devastating during a match. I'd never felt this way off the court before. ... But the panic was there too, endocrinal, paralyzing, and with an overcognitive, bad-trip-like element that I didn't recognize from the very visceral on-court attacks of fear. ... And another, dimmer room, filled with the rising mass of excrement I'd produce, ...I had to put my hand out against the wall and stand there hunched until the worst of it passed."
So I think it starts as a result of withdrawal from the Bob Hope and the beginning of both panic and accompanying depression that mirrors some of what Kate Gompert experienced as part of her Hope withdrawal."
3. Shaggy Dog story and a quick chapter from Himself's teenage home life.
4. No thoughts on this.
5. Ditto. Although the atmosphere of violence contributes to Clenette and her home girl while they're applying the spike heel technique to the downed Canuck during the Gately imbroglio.
Re: Hugh's 1: I am not so sure that Hal is not is showing considerable internal strain in the opening scene. Notice the word "over cognitive" in the passage above cited by Jim, which suggests his mind is racing. With considerable effort, HI can appear lucid in his head, but for all the lucidity, he is unconscious of how he appears outwardly. Whether this is DMT(Z) or withdrawal from marijuana and/or panic attack, I am not far enough to have a opinion.
Mod
2. The important thing, whatever the cause of HAL's problems communicating, is that the narrative is circular, and that understanding the beginning of the book makes much more sense after reading through to the end and circling back to start over again.
BTW, thoroughly enjoying The Broom of the System I received as an Xmas present.
mm
Michael wrote: "1. There is a reference, which I cited earlier, to Hal and others digging up Himself's grave. Since the master tape was buried with Himself, there might be a connection here.2. The important thi..."
Like most things in IJ, the facts about the Master Cartridge are tentative. Himself's Will specified that it should be buried with him, but there is no clear statement in the text that it was buried with him.
The story is definitely circular, and also ambiguous as far as "facts" go. Most reader arguments about what "really happened" are circular and unprovable using simple logic. All conclusions, then, become personal opinions. Infinite Jest, indeed!
I just finished this book last night. I used an e-reader so I wasn't quite sure where I was in the book, only that I was near the end, based on what I've been reading here on the various groups I belong to... And when I read the last sentence and turned the page to continue, I realized I had just read the last sentence and I was like, "NOOOOO!". I was emotionally unprepared, LOL, after investing so much time on this book, to be actually finished with the book! I knew it was going to be an ambiguous ending, but still...I wish I had a physical copy of this book to refer to because finding passages on the e-reader is next to impossible for me. So I'll have to get back to you on some of this, but...
1. Highly doubt Hal took the DMZ voluntarily or otherwise. Just don't see where that was supported.
2. Kate and Ken Erdedy (?) have a conversation on how it feels to be depressed which was distilled to one sentence and (of course I can't find this) but I'm sure it described DFW's feeling in a nutshell...powerful.
3. I don't feel like the master tape was ever located (though I have a suspicion it might have been in one of the viewing rooms at the tennis school) and I don't feel like it ever became a huge problem for the general public. I kind of feel like the terrorist plot was a flop.
4. I kind of feel like the opening scene was one of Hal's nighmares he started experiencing when he gave up the Bob Hope... I need to see if I can support this somehow.
DFW called this book a "failed entertainment" and in that I take it to mean it won't resolve neatly, tie up all the loose ends. And, jeez, that's how real life is...ambiguous, sloppy, false starts and stops... People come and go and we never really get a handle on a lot of it, we just go with the flow. Sometimes, things just END, right in the middle and that's it.
This book demands to be read again just so one can pay a little bit more attention to some of the details. Like some details can kind of be glossed over, but others are vastly important to understanding the story, and now with some foresight, one knows when to take notes!
Mod
In addition to any big questions you might be left with, I'm wondering if folks have any thoughts on the STYLE. While the fractured plotline and structure can make it slog at times for readers, DFW's Brobdingnagian prose can be positively daunting.
For 18 dense pages (601 to 618), DFW describes the unique parking challenge of moving cars at midnight that leads to the confrontation that follows between Gately and the Canadians. This follows 13 pages of the walk Lenz and Green take BACK from a meeting.
In the case of the walk, there's definitely an air of the author wanting to communicate the hyped language of Lenz's cocaine jag.
Green's guilt, pain, fear and self-loathing have over years of unprescribed medication been compressed to the igneous point where he now knows only that he compulsively avoids any product or serve with 'N in its name, always checks a palm before a handshake, will go blocks out of his way to avoid any parade involving fezzes in little cars, and has this silent, substratified, fascination/horror gestalt about all things even remotely Polynesian.
But, as we used to say in high school, is it just the drugs? The OCD-like attention to every detail and solid pages of text unbroken by paragraphs or dialog often remind me of Tristam Shandy or Rabelais.
Mine isn't so much a question as a jump ball on your thoughts regarding how this author's prose can be both hilarious and exhausting.
(Michael: I've not read Broom but am wondering how much his first novel matches IJ for these gargantuan passages.)
Hugh wrote: "Robert, Michael, Jim and Sandra: Thanks for your thoughts and keeping this conversation going... I'm curious if any of you have any outstanding issues you wish WERE resolved. (Sandra, I take your p..."Main questions I would have liked to know:
Does Gately live or die? Opening section suggests he lives.
Do Gately and Joelle become a couple? And is she deformed from the alleged acid attack? Or is her deformity her perception of her beauty and its effects on others?
Did Pemulis ever find the missing DMZ? Did he and/or anyone else take the trip?
Did Madame Psychosis return to the airwaves and help fill that empty place in Mario's nights?
Is the poltergeist activity caused by the ghost of Himself? Or ghost of Clipperton? Or Native American spirits who were pissed off that ETA shaved the top of the hill flat instead of leaving it as it was?
Wallace's prose style? I haven't gotten that far yet as I'm still kind of reeling psychically about the book as a whole. In general though, I think he does tend to match the style to the circumstances.
Remember the insurance claim letter written by the bricklayer towards the beginning of the book? While reading a post on LibraryThing this morning, I found a link to this video of "The Sick Note", which is pretty clearly the source Wallace used. Crafty he was, laddies...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66cxc9...
very crafty indeed... the song was written way back in 1958
Unfortunately I'm not yet on the downward arc of IJ. If anything looks like a spoiler it will be skipped. I've just finished the section when Orin meets Joele Van Dyne. The imagery evokes Boticelli's Venus
Hugh wrote: "Robert, Michael, Jim and Sandra: Thanks for your thoughts and keeping this conversation going... I'm curious if any of you have any outstanding issues you wish WERE resolved. (Sandra, I take your p..."Tell me if I'm wrong. Wasn't Tristam Shandy one sentence?
Mod
Alice: I love that scene with Orin. I'll try to avoid spoilers but may reference a couple scenes coming up with specific details.
message 14:
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Hugh, aka Hugh the Moderator
(last edited Jan 09, 2013 06:39PM)
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rated it 4 stars
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I'm looking at you, Endnote 269.
The constant reference to her as "creepy" and "Something was just not right is the only way to put it." leaves with a pretty dark picture of the Moms. There are half a dozen allusions to her affairs. And Marlon K. Bain goes out of his way in said Endnote to discuss how Orin's own "issues" are an echo of the Moms'.
Anyone else find her one of the most darkly drawn characters in the book? (And bonus question for fans of : any echo of the letters Mrs. Slothrop writes to Joseph Kennedy?)
Hugh wrote: "Anyone else find her one of the most darkly drawn characters in the book? (And bonus question for fans of : any echo of the letters Mrs. Slothrop writes to Jack Kennedy?) ..."Oh man! Now I gotta go look that up. Please take pity on me Hugh, and post the page # in GR so I don't spend too many hours hunting!
She is pretty dark, to say the least. She talks the talk about parenting, but can't do a single step of the walk - didn't know she was carrying Mario, wouldn't change his diapers, serial adulterer, ate dinner at midnight, couldn't handle overhead lighting, is she some kind of vampire? Maybe...
Alice,While there are long and rather involuted sentences in Tristram Shandy, it is more than one. Probably part of DFW's stack of references, tho' I haven't detected one yet.
Mod
message 18:
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Hugh, aka Hugh the Moderator
(last edited Jan 09, 2013 06:49PM)
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rated it 4 stars
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I've got a couple different editions of GR, but it is in the back 10% of the book in the fragment closing session of little set pieces -- sandwiched in between "The Low Frequency Listener" and "On the Phrase Ass Backwards".... (My original post had it as to Jack Kennedy but she's actually writing to Joseph Kennedy about her own son, Tyrone.) That said, DFW writes a bit more darkly about the Moms.
[And welcome back, Patty. You were missed. I want to hear your thoughts, especially on the Moms.]
Hugh wrote: "Okay, I gotta ask. I realize that Randy Lenz gets his knocks as the comically absurd coke head who we get to see doing handstand pushups in his jockstrap as he "farts in rhythm to the downstroke" a..."The book really does do a number on Avril, which may or may not be warranted. It seems to me like a lot of the time Avril is so aware of the perception of herself that she does things in order to look better than she feels herself to be--for example, when Hal eats the mold early on in the book, she just runs around in circles screaming for help rather than helping. Now, she could have understandably panicked or she was making a show of caring. She also does that a bit when Mario comes to her office to talk to her about Hal. I don't know how far everyone has gotten, but that scene seems like a great example of where Avril is so concerned about how she's doing as a parent that she is missing and not quite listening to what Mario is saying. Quite heartbreaking actually.
Ry wrote: "She also does that a bit when Mario comes to her office to talk to her about Hal. I don't know how far everyone has gotten, but that scene seems like a great example of where Avril is so concerned about how she's doing as a parent that she is missing and not quite listening to what Mario is saying. Quite heartbreaking actually...""Hey mom..."
If Mario is the heart and Avril is the head, this scene certainly illustrates how hard it is to get head and heart to communicate.
And so, let's call her what she is - a mega-control freak. You'd have to be to be* a Militant Grammarian.
(*I think it's okay to repeat that within a clause. Is there a militant grammarian in the group who might rule on my usage?)
Mod
-decided to have first child primarily to increase ease of emigrating from Canada.
-Was never aware that she was pregnant with child #2 until birth (with severe birth defects)
-Circumstances of #3 pregnancy not described (as of page 520, at least, which is where I am)
-Is so terrified of being seen that she travels now entirely underground via tunnels
Possibilities that have occured to me as more or less likely:
-Avril is/was a severe drug/alcohol addict
-Avril is in hiding
Another thing that I am very curious about is the importance of the overlarge/square head. Are we to make a connection that the square-heads are related somehow? There are so many of them. If it's not a genetic trait, what is it?
Patty wrote: "Stuff I have made mental notes of about the Moms:-decided to have first child primarily to increase ease of emigrating from Canada.
-Was never aware that she was pregnant with child #2 until birt..."
What page did you read about having her first child for emigration purposes? I don't remember that part.
Regarding large heads, there's a story about genetics that comes up later which suggests Uncle Charles may have contributed to the gene pool.
Mod
p64: The birth of the Incandenzas' first child, Orin, had been at least partly a legal maneuver.
Patty wrote: "Jim wrote: "What page did you read about having her first child for emigration purposes?"p64: The birth of the Incandenzas' first child, Orin, had been at least partly a legal maneuver."
Thanks!
Mod
So my question: if Orin is "at least partly a legal maneuver" and Mario is likely Tavis' son (slightly deformed, I have assumed because Tavis and the Moms are stepbrother and sister, so with some biological connection) -- knowing that the relationship between the Moms and the Stork were always problematic: who is Hal? What complications might surround HIS birth?
Hugh wrote: "Patty wrote: "p64: The birth of the Incandenzas' first child, Orin, had been at least partly a legal maneuver."So my question: if Orin is "at least partly a legal maneuver" and Mario is likely Ta..."
I don't remember the page number, but the genetics of Tavis' mother pretty much explain the Mario situation. Charles and Avril share no genetic material, since Charles' mother was the second wife and brought Charles into the marriage as a child. Maybe the creepiest aspect is that Avril continued to menstruate throughout Mario's 7 months in vitro.
Since The Moms was such a loose slot, Hal's father could be anyone. I don't remember any real mention of Hal's origins. Given Hal's attachment to the OED, his father could be one of The Moms' radical grammarian cohorts...
Mod
I assumed that the section with the junkie and her still born baby was meant as a huge hint that Avril was drugging during pregnancy, given the analogous spiderwebby amniotic substance. (Yuck!)
Patty wrote: "I actually think that Mario is JOI's son, only because they share the enormous square cranium (plus shared proclivities). Waiting for the genetics section, though. Hal doesn't have an enormous squa..."Dang Patty! I don't remember JOI having an enormous square head. I just finished 3 weeks ago and I'm already going to have to do a re-read... but with pleasure, I'm sure.
Re: parentage I definately feel that Orin's father is JOI... Mario is a different story... evidence that CT is his father, or maybe Schtitt... but based on my third IJ read, there is evidence that Hal's father may be the newly deceased Saudi medical attache???? ANYONE CARE TO COMMENT?
Mod
I have been working with the idea that CT is Hal's father, perhaps led by his role in the opening scene. That sort of messes with the Hamlet analogy, since Claudio is not his father, but then he is brother of the father.
Patty wrote: "Yep, that's what I'm leaning toward, Jerry, per my comment (message 27). Still, I'm only around 500 pages in, maybe my mind will change. What other evidence have you found, besides Avril's affair a..."middle of 2nd paragraph, page 101... Hal is the only extant Incandenza that looks in any way ethnic... and then read to the end of the paragraph.
Jerry wrote: "middle of 2nd paragraph, page 101... Hal is the only extant Incandenza that looks in any way ethnic... and then read to the end of the paragraph..."Not seeing any evidence here Jerry, to support the medical attaché theory. "Himself had looked ethnic, but he isn't extant." Himself being dead doesn't alter the possibility of him having donated his DNA. Father looked ethnic, Hal looks ethnic. Father's family had Pima Indian and Umbrian Italian blood, so "ethnic" appearance is completely feasible in Hal's DNA.
That being said, Avril is reported to be a bed-hopper, so Hal's father could easily be one of Avril's lovers.
A red herring is that the samizdat that the attaché watched had a return address in Phoenix, implicating Orin as the sender, but he would have been only a few years old when Avril and the Saudi were lovers.
And so, inconclusive theory, like pretty much everything else in the book.
Mod
Jim wrote: "Jerry wrote: "middle of 2nd paragraph, page 101... Hal is the only extant Incandenza that looks in any way ethnic... and then read to the end of the paragraph..."Not seeing any evidence here Jerr..."
I disagee, as the description following in no way resembles JOI, but more describes a mixture of his mothers features with a middle eastern... just my take
Patty wrote: "Next time around I'm going to pay attention to eye color!"BLUE
Jerry wrote: "I disagee, as the description following in no way resembles JOI...""Himself (JOI) had looked ethnic" + Hal looks ethnic = Himself (JOI) and Hal are ethnic looking
The math doesn't lie...
Mod
I never got the sense that Himself wasn't Hal's biological father.
Sorry to say that I am behind. There's work and family. Still plugging away. I agree with an earlier poster, IJ must be read more than once. Every sentence matters as well. I liked the Eschaton section. It makes D&D look like Candyland. It showed quite nicely how WWI started in a microcosm.As for the AA meeting, did DFW have any real life experience with AA? He really drew this part of the chapter out. You feel that you're at an actual rendesvouz.
JVD makes an appearance. Her veil is more of symbolic necessity than a real one In My Humble.
Alice wrote: "As for the AA meeting, did DFW have any real life experience with AA? He really drew this part of the chapter out. You feel that you're at an actual rendesvouz...."He did have trouble with drugs and alcohol and spent time in a halfway house. He got some awesome material out of that experience, don't you think?
Mod
But maybe it's just getting so many different perspectives in this thread and some of the details that I've found glaring about the medical attache this time around... After all, the medical attache is important enough to be the first "victim" of the Entertainment... I'm starting to wonder if Orin IS the one who sent the tape out of spite (even his friend alludes to the attache in infamous endnote 269), so it appears to be pretty "common knowledge".
In my earlier reads, I must admit I never really bothered with WHO sent the Entertainment -- Marathe who is in Arizona (with Steeply?) Orin?
Here's a (rather prolix) theory it was Orin: http://infinitetasks.wordpress.com/20...
(Oh, and in the process, I found this piece (my apologies if someone has posted this earlier; I had never seen it!.... http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/cu...)
Hugh wrote: "To Ry's point: on my first two reads too I didn't get a sense Hal was NOT James' son. His (James') early attempts to try to communicate with Hal and the fact that Hal finds his father (and even the..."The Slate article highlighted the difficulties of a film creation. Maybe this play could be presented like the Chinese Opera Peony Pavilion; having a few acts as a presentation. Hmmm....that may not be feasible either. The novel is so interconncted that no section is a stand alone section.
Jim, yes the AA meeting did have the feel of authenticity. it was everything from the drab linoleum floors, the copious amounts of coffee and cigarettes consumed and even the motley array of humanity.
Alice wrote: "Jim, yes the AA meeting did have the feel of authenticity. it was everything from the drab linoleum floors, the copious amounts of coffee and cigarettes consumed and even the motley array of human..."One of the creepier moments of authenticity was the scene with Kate Gompert speaking with a doctor after her suicide attempt (early in the book). Wallace suffered from severe depression and I imagine some of the feelings she expressed might come from his own experiences with depression.
Mod
"Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment: InterLace Telentertainment, 932/1864 R.I.S.C......"
I asked back then, what the heck is this and what is it doing here? and now am wondering if it was a printing error (the page 60 iteration).
Patty wrote: "Okay, weird question. My copy was printed in 2006. I'm am hoping that someone with a different edition can check and let me know if it's in other editions. On page 60, there is a bizarre fragment t..."Nope i think its just another Wallace idiosyncracy... more futuristic techie stuff... to get you in the scene he is describing. I do remember he did this earlier, dont remember where though.
Mod
Mine was also printed in 2006 and has the same strange anomaly. I suspect the Québecois separatists may be behind this...
Mod
At this point, knowing that we'll probably encounter a Spoiler or two for those who are on their way out of the book, in addition to the question of Freedom (posted in the December thread for those who are interested), here are some thoughts that continue to nag at me:
1. Have I missed how the Master tapes of the Entertainment got from James Incandenza's coffin (he was supposed to be buried with his tapes) to Guillame DuPlessis' house which (I think I'm tracking here) are boosted by Don Gately and eventually find their way to the Antitois' brothers?
2. This read through I am finding more reason to see support for our opening discussion of whether Hal is on DMZ at the start of the book, but it STILL doesn't quite jibe with me since Hal's inner world is so at peace in that section... it's his OUTER behavior that is freaking everyone else out (but I definitely got more of the Antitois/Pemulis connection on the purchase of the DMZ this time around, so can see how one could make that connection, given Hal's fascination.)
3. Could the mattress scene on pages 491 to 503 possibly be one of the world's longest Shaggy Dog stories to simply get us to James Incandenza's theory of annulation, i.e. a single trigonometric equation?
4. Any thoughts on the legend on the unlabeled cartridge the Antitois' Bros. have: IL NE FAUT PLUS QU'ON PURSUIVE LE BONHEUR, or: "It is no longer necessary to pursue happiness"?
5. Any thoughts on the arc of the character of Roy Tony from the Ebonics section on pages 37-38 and the hugging scene with Ken Erdedy in the NA meeting at 505 to 507?
Of course, that's just for starters, feel free to hypothesize/vent/muse/rave/etc.