Open invite to read Infinite Jest 2012 in good company!

I am coming over here from the 75 where there is a tiny group read of IJ going on for the 'spoiler' part of things mainly because I am hoping you lot who have read the book and love Wallace are always looking for opportunities to display, review, and update your knowledge.

The link to the 75 thread: HERE

I'm part of Lucy's tiny group and look forward to edification by those who have read and hopefully loved Infinite Jest. I'm still in the "dazed and confused" stage. My bookmark has been on Page 79 far too long!

Starring the thread!

1> How cool! I'll go check out that thread, sibyx.

2> Donna, I nearly quit the book my first time around. I'd read maybe 200 pages and found myself getting bogged down in the minutia of the book -- getting lost -- but shortly after page 200 Wallace inserted a sort of guide that made things start to click for me: The Chronology of Subsidized Time, in which he essentially gives every name of every year in the book that's mentioned, an accompanying numeral, so that the timelines (Year of Glad, Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, etcetera) start to make sense.

I sort of equate what DFW did here in IJ in the novel's beginning with how difficult Umberto Eco purposely made the beginning of The Name of the Rose, forcing the reader to work incredibly hard and deduce deduce deduce till they turn blue practically, but also then rewarding the reader who remained steadfast and hung in there. I've no idea if your "dazed and confusedness" -- Ha! -- is similar to what mine was like described here, but I'd bet if you can hold on for another 150 pages or so, you'll be rewarded like you've rarely been rewarded before in a work of fiction.

Thanks Enrique - right now I seem only able to read about 5 pages at a time for now - but I've read at that glacial pace before - Powys, Pynchon come to mind. Eco too, yes, very much so. Iain Banks. And I like being plunged into the middle of things, clueless. After a time I 'get it' and move faster and become more engaged -- I hope that will happen if I am patient. Anyhow, last night I read a little bit about James O. starting up the tennis acad, and then poor old Orin having to 'fly' into the stadium wearing some ghastly bird outfit as part of his sports contract with his team. Stuff of nightmares indeed!

Read the first offering about Katherine Gompert - it felt entirely different somehow, so empathetic to her situation and one of the most moving descriptions of the indescribable awfulness of depression I've encountered. I've had a little trouble -- enough to have 'looked into the abyss' and just enough to be terrified and respectful of the consuming horribleness of what the real thing might be like.

It would have been facile to ridicule the medical resident who is examining her, but he doesn't. That's good too.

And yet again another person with a thing about pot! Hmmm do I detect a theme?

I thought Katherine Gompert was so well-drawn - all through the book. I had never really felt I could understand what depression was like before. I've been in bad situations and felt bad, but I've never felt like how clinical depression is described by her character - I felt very lucky after reading IJ.

It sounds weird to say I'm looking forward to reading more about Katherine's unhappiness, I'm not, but she is the first character by whom I'm fully engaged.

6> I remember noticing that change in tone big time the first time I read the book -- the change between the early scenes involving the demise of the characters of ETA in their addictions (Hal and I think it was Pemulis? -- don't have the book handy to look), contrasted against the rehab side of the novel with those characters at least attempting to work their recovery from drugs and depression and whatnot. It's probably harder to relate to addicts (unless you're an addict yourself), but I think you'll discover deeper in the book, sibyx, as more of Hal's and his ETA inmates' humanity is revealed before they were completely lost in their addictions, that they're pretty relatable characters too, at least up to a point. I say up to a point not just because of their drug abuse, but because ETA forces them to be machine-like in their training and routines, and not many of us can identify with that kind of regimented structure that molds girls and boys into automatons as much as it did into young women and men.

I don't think DFW had to imagine very hard what hardcore clinical depression felt like, as he suffered from it and was hospitalized because of it (like Gompert) and was able to translate, I'd conjecture, his own depression onto the page so that it was painfully palpable and crystallized so true in many of his character's lives.

Another thing about pot, you say? Oh my, yes! You have detected a theme to say the least!

5> And yeah, that Orin had quite the kick. Wonder if he ever won a Superbowl out there in some parallel fictionalized universe somewhere?

edited: and btw, I shouldn't assume that new readers know what the hell these acronyms I'm referencing are!

ETA = Enfield Tennis Academy

I've been diligently doing my homework, so I do know, but thank you.

As I read your comment about the ETA - forcing these kids to be machine-like I had a flash to Ender's Game et al which I read recently..... there's fiction and then there's fiction, eh?

The ETA method reminded me of many kids I knew growing up because I was in an orchestra. Parents that make their kids become great athletes are very much like parents who want / force their kids to be great musicians.

Confession, sibyx, I've not read Ender's Game, but you've piqued my interest.

Anna, did you ever see the movie Shine? Now there's a character so driven to perfection by a maniacal father as you describe that he had a psychotic break and though he recovered somewhat, it was at too great a personal cost and he lost years of a quality life, while barely retaining his genius and virtuosity on the piano.

Tiger Woods really isn't all that different from a Hal, either. (I'm sure it was mentioned somewhere in one of the original threads that Hal had the same name as the computer in 2001) -- cautionary symbol of the risks inherent in attempting to make a machine into a man and vice versa. While Tiger's and Hal's rebellion against their father's hyper-regimentation was acted out ultimately in different ways, they were as equally self-destructive. Or look at Todd Marinovich. Same story.

Interesting talk about the regimented structure of ETA. I've just finished the section starting on Pg. 95 with the locker room talk where the boys are "stunned with fatigue."

Eat, Sleep, Breathe tennis. Poor kids. No wonder drugs are such a temptation. I thought Hal was brilliant to have figured out the angle of loneliness united in suffering.

I made it to Page 121. So far I'm hanging in there...but admit to being flummoxed by the covert meetings in the desert near Tucson. I can't figure out why Steeply is so poorly disguised as a woman and... Oh never mind, I'll keep reading until it makes sense!

So happy to see you here! Like you, I am just accepting Steeply..... and the mystery of how the man in the wheelchair got to the where he was if Steeply can barely manage, albeit in stiletto heels....

>Donna, I went back to p. 95 after your comments and noticed something I either missed or didn't see before, related to your observation.

Pemulis, Troeltsch, and Hal are talking about the exam they took, a question related to the opening line of Anna Karenina and unhappy families right, and Hal, yes, who is a genius and probably the character closest in personality, intellect, and temperament to DFW of any characters in the book (besides Don Gately), makes a distinction that's related to "angle of loneliness" when he says: "The exam was talking about the syntax of Tolstoy's sentence, not about real unhappy families". That may be true, we'll never know, having no access to that exam, but what an interesting angle for Hal to take. It makes me want to know what the exam question was in the first place! Hal is the only person who perceives the subtlety, the nuance, in the question, whatever it was. And time and again, Hal will be the only person who perceives these things nobody else perceives (and not just when he's high or hallucinating), and I can't help but think that only steepened that angle of loneliness, isolation and suffering, especially in him, that you mention.

On the covert meetings in the desert near Tucson ... who else is in Tucson?

Enjoying your comments. Looking forward to more!

So glad you stopped by.

Orin, of course!

Fine insight, felt good to go back and read that exchange, which I found astonishing. I stopped and reread that several times.-- that these exhausted boys would discuss an exam question. I'm just finishing up the peeks into the mentoring sessions the older boys have with the younger ones, that too. Oh yes, and Mario's encounter with the U.S.S. Millicent.

Oddly too, I had mentioned to someone just this week that one thing shrinks say is that in a functional family everyone tells the same story about any given sequence of events (or close enough) and in a dysfunctional one, everyone tells a very very different story about even the smallest happenings. And then quoted Tolstoy.......

I find that somewhere between 5-15 pages is the max for any given day or else I'm not paying sufficient attention.

Loved the comment about functional families describing all things alike and dysfunctional ones describing all things differently.

I haven't read in a while, but y'all are right where I left off, so I am tempted to pick it up some more.

15: I hope you keep nudging and guiding us, Enrique. We appreciate it.

I gathered from the first few pages that Hal was indeed remarkable (for lack of a better word) in both intellect and sensitivity. I just finished that enlightening soliloquy by his grandfather (pp. 157-169) and can see the genetic trait for his talent along with his susceptibility for drug and alcohol addiction.

I also picked up an offhand reference to Separatism in Canada in a phone call from Orin (137). It's going to be a fun challenge fitting the pieces of this puzzle together!

I am loving the writing in the book as well as the sometimes puzzling content. The atmospheric description of Mario walking "crackle crackle crackle" through the "melancholy sadness" of the wooded area of the ETA grounds blew me away. The scene with "U.S.S." Millicent Kent was hilarious. There are enough of these memorable vignettes to keep me reading.

Lucy, I'm reading this in small chunks, too. I'm writing short notes in my book. Something I normally don't do unless I'm reading for class.

BJ, I was afraid we'd lost you. It's interesting that we're keeping pace with each other. I'm taking a few days off from IJ for a quick trip to Kansas City, then playing catch-up with my class.

It took me a long time to read this book and it's also fair to say I may have sleepwalked through parts of it--especially early on. As far as literary comparisons IJ IMO is kind of the Ulysses of the late 20th century. A bear of a book chock full of allusions and tangential roads leading off into all kinds of directions. Just alone on their own the footnotes can even be a daunting task to wade through. I seemed to advance sometimes 5 to 10 pages a day. Even so the deeper I went into it the more I loved it. I expect I'll read it again but it will have to wait a couple more years until I'm retired.

Let me see..... Yesterday I got deep into it, read more at one sitting than I have yet starting out w/ Lyle, licking sweat, hanging out in the exercise room.

Then come a series of short bits: a brief chat between Hal and Orin, establishing a good deal about their relationship, with a tidbit at the end when Orin asks Hal what he knows about separatism. Next a description of Ennet House, a detoxifying place, a back and forth between an insurance agent and a guy who hammered himself under 'a ton of bricks' (cliche anyone) that read like something Dave Barry's 'alert' readers send him, then a paper for an 'entertainment' class Hal is in comparing Steve McGarrett to Frank Furillo -- the heroes from 'Hawaii Five-O and Hill Street Blues -- that was just fun to read, "we await the hero of non action, the catatonic hero, the one beyond calm....." Then onto the heroine addicts in Boston -- a piece of virtuoso writing to me and excrutiating as my brother who lives in Cambridge was a victim of an incredibly vicious and random attack by a member of this world....(He's O.K. but can't ever be quite the same, of course). In any event, nothing funny there and Wallace wasn't making up a single thing. Following that - curiously, written by Steeply, a description of a lady with her artificial heart in her purse, horrible-funny, being robbed by one of the above. Lastly a truly hilarious description of the rise and fall of videophony -- we of course now have Skype and he is dead-on, I hate using it for all the reasons he describes! What I find remarkable is that Wallace's 'voice' is recognizable in all of these vignettes -- there's a nervous energy, the irresistible detail (like the crackle Donna mentions above) and a muscly authority over all of it so that you are willing to not have a clue but read on. Anyway, I think I am getting more used to his 'style' and so can read a little more at a time, which is a good thing.

Donna, after reading your guys' comments I don't think any of you need a guide! You're your own guides. And it's rewarding seeing you all "get it" the deeper you get into it. It's fun for me hearing everybody respond to so many of the same scenes that resonated with me my first time through. Speaking of guides, not that I recommend them until after you're finished when maybe you'll want to go back and dissect the book in greater depth (how obsessive are you?!), but Elegant Complexity is the one I've found to be the most thorough and astute. Not as encyclopedically comprehensive as an Ulysses Annotated, say, but a very helpful resource nonetheless.

Mario & Millicent is one of the most memorable scenes. DFWs use of the word "rooting" in this vignette -- Millicent "rooting" for Mario's package -- I'd just never heard that word used like that before! Or read an amorous encounter ever quite described like that. Beyond that encounter, I think it's interesting how little sex there is in the book. I recall (I think it's Orin) has numerous encounters, in keeping with his womanizing persona, but he's the only one, and for a book this size loaded with so many characters, it's absence is conspicuous. But it's in keeping with the themes of disconnection and isolation and loneliness that DFW was driving home.

"Melancholy sadness"!!! DFW said he wanted to write something sad for a change, when he wrote IJ, and while the book is hysterical at times as you all allude, it is one of the saddest tomes you'll ever meet. The book is probably even sadder now knowing of DFWs depression and how bad it ended for him.

Loving what you wrote there, Lucy! And now that you're at Ennet House, that sadness gets jacked up a notch. I doubt it's a coincidence that Enfield and Ennet begin w/the same two letters. Perhaps the latter with its second syllable "net" captures those adrift in the former's "field". Pure conjecture.

"we await the hero of non action, the catatonic hero, the one beyond calm." Stasis and "recursive loops" are huge themes in the book. You pulled out a nugget of DFWs philosophy right there!

"horrible-funny" is a perfect way to describe that scene and probably the entire book. Wow.

19> it took me four months the first time. I quit the book for a couple weeks, around page 200 (read Deliverance in the interim), but thankfully came back and it just started clicking somehow.

Well, I am flattered, but then I've had plenty of practice reading Pynchon, Powys, Joyce and the like...... I look forward to reading Elegant Complexity when I've read through it once.

It's really kind of Wallace'y that you read Deliverance on your 'break'!

I'll just add this on. Today I've read the 'urine sample' episode and learned about Pemulis (what a name!) and then read the monologue, set in 1960..... of..... ?....... the grandfather of Orin and Hal? Masterful - just when you think, I can't stand this guy, he gets to the heart of it. His father's remark, his fall and ruining his knees. The black widows are so vivid and so menacing too. Yuck. I'm assuming Jim the son is the founder of Enfield and the father of Orin and Hal? I do need my expert help.

Interesting comparison with Ulysses. I read that about a year and a half ago, and there was a lot to it.

I am adding Elegant Complexity to my wishlist.

Sorry I have been kind of absent. Still trying to get used to the job. And I just found out about a new project to add on. But I was going crazy without reading, so I just had to make some time for it.

Greatly enjoying reading this thread, and learning a lot, even after my own trawl through the book with Enrique Freeque and others a couple of years ago.

>26 absurdeist:
"we await the hero of non action, the catatonic hero, the one beyond calm....."

interesting quote, as this is in effect what Gately becomes right at the end.

22> you nailed it!

It's some twisted and cruel indoctrination, though strangely true in the tweaked light of the grandfather's philosophy that views the movements of tennis as comparable to Brando's method acting. I went back and re-read that monologue last night. Profound stuff indeed. Every sentence is quotable. I'll quote the following, as it echoes some of what we've previously discussed:

"Jim, brace yourself against my shoulders here for this hard news, at ten: you're a machine a body an object, Jim, no less than this rutilant Montclair, this coil of hose here or that rake there for the front yard's gravel..."

Brutal. Had a huge impact on Jim. Using my handy dandy Elegant Complexity, we see it haunted Jim so much that he made a three hour(!) movie about the incident, As of Yore, that's mentioned in footnote 24 that itemizes J.O.I.s filmography, on p. 991.

24> those were awesome good times, Murr! This book just won't leave us alone after all these years!

Happy 50th Birthday, DFW: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2012/02/david-foster-wallace-would-...

Thanks for the link and for bringing that to my/our attention.

Read from about 170 to 193 -- including the close-up of Madame Psychosis' late-night radio show and her mysterious person and ways.... seen through the eyes of her MIT tech guy. This ends by picking up the Incandenzas at home in HmH - description of dinner, after-dinner - ending w/ a call from Pemulis, some sort of dealing going down from the sound of it. (Started out with a cameo of Pemulis in Boston, up to no good, without a doubt.)

26: Thanks for the heads up, EF. Those flow charts made my head hurt! Loved DFW's poignant comment about having fun on both sides of the writer/reader equation.

I am starting to have fun with IF. I wish I had more time to devote to it.

You're both welcome. The links are endless! I'm restraining myself not linking more.

Madame Psychosis' radio gig is a fascinating segment. If you read J.O.I.s itemized filmography in one of the earliest footnotes up to this point, you may recall that Madame Psychosis starred in many of his films, including Infinite Jest (a.k.a., "The Entertainment") that's the crux of the entire novel. Pemulis, also, I vaguely recall, referred to a certain drug as "Madame Psychosis". The implications of her name and what it means are provocative and I'm sure scholarly papers have been written on the subject. It's been mentioned elsewhere in this thread on the connection between Madame Psychosis and "metempsychosis," particularly as Joyce used it in Ulysses, so I won't belabor that point again here, but that thread I think is helpful, and echoes and confirms a lot of what you guys are saying.

I'm glad you're having fun with the book, Donna. Even though DFW claimed his intent was to write something sad in writing IJ, it's nevertheless certainly one of the more entertaining novels you'll ever read once you get into it.

So depressing, affirming, joyful and sad at the same time. Just like its name.

I was reading the part of the dad trying/wanting to teach tennis to JOI and then the part with the counselor meeting with the people in Ennet, and I was just finding it all so depressing. Really sad. And then I got to the part about "Apologize? Excuse me? I am the ones with tines in my hand!" and I had to laugh. Thank goodness for those ridiculous moments.

I am still not sure what I think of it all. There are no happy people, except maybe Mario (because he has no talent at tennis).

I don't have my daughter around to discuss the book with me, so I am so glad to see everyone's thoughts here. :)

Very well said, Anna. It's everything.

You've perked my interest, billiejean. I don't remember that scene with the tines. Off to reread it tonight. Glad you guys are here too!

Yes, the stabbing with the fork was memorable to me.

Memorable to me also.

194-258 I have to do this just to help me keep things straight....
It's been over a week since I've last stopped in with a report, but now I've cleared the decks and plan to read a few hundred pages more or less non stop.
-a description of the Enfield Recovery House on the grounds of the old campus of the Enfield Marine Public Health Hospital.
-sliced in a quick scene in the exercise at ETA up the hill
-back to the Recovery House and a recitation of things you learn there, including 'That loneliness is not a function of solitude.' and that '..concentrating on anything is very hard work.' among many others...
-and a sudden shift into Tiny Ewell's pov and his sudden obsession with tattoo's which practically everyone at the Recovery House has somewhere.
-back to Pemulis up the hill who has scored some legendary LSD
-to the mysteriously veiled and suicidal Joelle van Dyne, Madame Psychosis herself, who, of course, is tightly connected to the Incadenza..... I leave her not knowing her fate, but knowing it looks pretty bad.

I've cleared the decks to try and read a couple hundred pages of IJ before picking up anything else to see if anything changes in the way I'm taking in this book if I focus on it more narrowly..... however DFW's above bit of wisdom may be my answer..... leavening IJ with lighter fare may just be essential to the enterprise.

back to bring the stats up to date -- read the long phone conversation betw Orin and brother Hal today, a difficult one where Hal, cutting his toenails and throwing them in a waste basket some few meters away, tells Orin the exact details, bit by bit, of how their father killed himself.

Found myself thinking about how DFW never loses sight of how the mundane and the - profound - (feels inadequate) are found cheek-by-jowl: the hint too, that without the mundane the other would be unbearable. It's a constant theme.

258-270
-the big competition down in Port Washington. As always I am struck by the tenderness between these boys/young men who are also in competition with each other. (I'm thinking of Schact and Pemulis before the match). I also love the description of the feeling of the huge indoor tennis fascilities, these 'Lungs'. ETA is soooo New England too -- a fierce independence so even though the kids use sponsors, they can pick their own (provided someone wants to sponsor them) and wear, more or less, what they want to.
-Both the phone call and the game felt more settled as I was reading, less jumping around, more depth somehow. I could settle into them better. Me? or DFW? Maybe both?

Onward! It's a quiet-appearing Sunday so I hope to make significant progress.

270-299
-Gately on duty at the Recovery House.
-ETAers Coming home from the game at Port Washington
-How Orin became a football star and met Joelle.

So struck by Gately's willingness to do what he had to do, his self-awareness and compassion for people.

Noticing a toenail clippings theme going here.....

Can't argue with DFW's point that so often the Huge Thing that determines yr. life seems to happen so randomly as to be beyond credibility.

Lucy, you are 100 pages ahead of me! I'll have to get going here so I can read your last few posts. Thanks for posting page numbers...it helps me if I need to refer back to a passage.

following with great interest.

Thank you Tomcat, for stopping by! I would probably be writing up notes like this for myself if LT didn't exist, but knowing someone might stop and actually read any of it does make me think a little harder.

No furries, Donna! You'll get to it when the time is right.

You might want to skip this as it is trivial : Inspired by DFW I cut my long over-due toenails today. A propos of nothing, this is something that the younger cannot imagine becoming a difficulty. Eyesight and agility being quite essential. DFW definitely onto something profound here. But that's the point. Everything is, no?

299-325
A friend commented to me that the further I read the more I would understand how well-organized the book is. I think I am getting just an inkling of that, although I am maddened when something dramatic happens and all I want to know is did Tony make it? did Joelle make it? shallow, but I can't help it. Forster called it the 'tapeworm'.
- yes, this is Tony's cataclysmic decline - ending with the seizure on the subway. We've all moved away from that person, and I probably still wouldn't be able to help myself, but DFW is merciless and forgiving to a degree that causes strong feelings.
- back to ETA for a funny description of Troelsch's radio show. Made me remember, vividly, as a kid listening to the sports stats on the car radio, probably WKBW out of Buffalo and marveling at many ways a team could get pulped, overturned, splintered, slammed, trussed up good, trashed, speared, junked etcetera -- I think there were some imaginative DJ types there.... anyway, then a bit about how crazy the prorectors are, (example, one of their examinations) and here a bit of overlap w/ the emerging plot -- Hal studying Quebec and the FLN - all of which I am more aware of than many Americans, being a) from an area not far from the border of Quebec b) a sister who lives in Montreal and has for 34 years, c) a Quebecois camp counselor in 1967 or 8 who was passionate about the whole thing. d) a boyfriend who worked for a construction company (as an accountant) of Mohawks who were affiliated with various other tribal entities across the border and who also had very strong opinions about the FLN goals -- many of them being essentially metis also. (Yes, I attended some interesting parties when I was in my early twenties.) Neither the company nor the boyfriend lasted all that long!
-on to the description of Mario's arrival in the world, how he survived and thrived and is a much loved person. I won't go into the details, but this struck a note too.
-Back to the desert and a discussion that plunges right into the core of what IJ is 'about'. Choice. Choose to live, choose to die, who can judge what is right or wrong? All of the big questions rattling around between Marathe and Steeply. (I keep thinking of Marat and marathon). The crisis revolving around 'the Entertainment' which, if you watch it will cause you to die of pleasure. Will Americans choose this fate? Do they have the self-discipline, the will (and love) of life to resist? And if they don't? Tant pis? So what? That's what true choice is all about? Embedded here I found a line that resonated disturbingly: "who would not choose to die from pleasure alone." Marathe and Steeply are arguing about how to produce a person mature enough to make the choice. It's the BIG Q. and at the core of why ultimately, the Right to Choose for women, having made it here is probably here to stay and why National Health however is probably an ever-receding horizon for us, or will happen in a truly bizarre manner not unlike our tax system. Not for any ethical, or arguable reason, don't want yr. beliefs or opinion pls, just that it is in the american grain, I think, once having a choice to want to retain that choice over any kind of restrictions. Ethics don't come into it.
-I'm now reading about Eschaton, finally. My spouse and nephew have invented an infernal card game (Go Crazy Rummy) that quintessentializes something about the fun of making up and playing an insane game. They've put the rules on a website actually and it is amusing, nothing like the complexity of Eschaton, but just the impulse to create and the absurdities -- I love the clothing, stolen towels, sneakers etc. standing in for bases, airfields, submarines.

I'm trying to keep track of various dates -- jumping from May to November and back again..... moving slowly forward in November toward ...something..... ?

Another comment -- sorry I can't seem to shut up today -- but I am, as I had hoped, getting more involved, I am reading the footnotes but I have to take them a page or two at a time because the print is so effing small, I can't manage much. I am presently in the latest phone call betw. Hal and Orin. (Orin has just said he might be able to make the Whataburger match).

I think that's more than enough for the present.

Great thoughtful posts, sibyx! Don't "shut up" whatever you do! I'm really enjoying your appreciation of the book.

The rock group, The Decemberists, you might know, released a music video last year in which they reenact a game of Eschaton: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/98351

Like Lucy (sibyx), I appreciate the visits and encouragement from Enrique, Anna, and Tomcat.

Some quick thoughts on my latest small chunk of reading pp. 169-219:

Ah, the fork stabbing incident. Now I know what BJ considers humor. ;-) I'm personally getting into the dark comedy of this book. Example: in the description of the units (the word itself shows DFWs twisted humor), the Shed where catatonic residents are stored is a "pretty quiet place." (196)... and Bikers call themselves "Scooter-Puppies" - a term which non-bikers are not invited to use. (207)

On a more somber note, the ongoing sadness about the soulless life at ETA continues...

"Be on guard... If you are an adolescent, here is the trick to being neither quite a nerd nor quite a jock: be no one... Learn to care and not to care." (175)

My favorite part of these fifty pages was the long list of facts and abusable escapes listed on pp. 200-205. Some were on the silly side, but some were achingly poignant. Stars abound in this section of my book. This longish quote on pg. 201 really spoke to me and seems to be at the crux of the addiction strand of the book:

"...a little-mentioned paradox of Substance addiction is: that once your are sufficiently enslaved by a Substance to need to quit the Substance in order to save your life, the enslaving Substance has become so deeply important to you that you will all but lose your mind when it is taken away from you. Or that sometime after your Substance of choice has just been taken away from you in order to save your life, as you hunker down for required A.M. and P.M. prayers, you will find yourself beginning to pray to be allowed literally to lose your mind, to be able to wrap your mind in an old newspaper or something and leave it in an alley to shift for itself, without you."

I fear I'm about to succumb to the addictive lure of this book. Is it too late to 'just say no'?

I think you're hooked, Donna. A goner! That's one of the more profound quotations you quoted there. For a writer who later in his career impugned his alleged reliance on irony -- he was too hard on himself -- it's ironic that the book itself can be so addictive to its readers. No joke. I fear someday my wife returning home to find me in our easy chair, legs propped up on the ottoman, seemingly lifeless and unresponsive, with dried drool coagulating in something like a stalactite from my chin, my dinner cold, apparent victim of "The Entertainment" of Infinite Jest, much like that unwittingly victimized attaché in the early part of the book.

Btw, upon re-reading that fork stabbing scene, I can't believe I didn't remember that. WTF?! I really didn't mean to imply the scene wasn't memorable, just that for whatever weird reason, my memory banks weren't working properly at the time. I'm a big fan of the understated and twisted humor of the book too.

EF - oh gosh - what a video. Not a dry eye here.

326-342
The disastrous game of Eschaton, that sinks into total chaos. Ending w/little Lord, the Game Master falling headfirst into the monitor.... not good. Another person I have to worry/wonder about?

Off to read more before journeying to the Land of Nod, I hope.

Glad you found that moving, sibyx. Perhaps it's already out there just waiting to be discovered, but I'd like to play an Eschaton video game sometime. Or screw the bowling league, get in an Eschaton league.

343-376
- Gately at the White Flag AA meeting -- but also a wider portrait of Boston area AA, what characterizes it, distinguishes it from AA elsewhere.... I just feel humbled. And here pop up both Gompert and Joelle..... so she did survive her attempt.
-a brief interlude w/Marathe and Steeply. It's been in my mind that Steeply has to be the journalist who's got Orin so worked up.
-then, v. Briefly on to Found Drama and the mysterious Lyle as the advisor of Himself....

Looks like a return to Gately and AA is up next for a bit.

376-404
-back to AA and a searing story (the baby)
-Himself visiting Lyle w/Mario in attendance
-Mario's puppet film of Interdependence. As someone who lives in the 'vexity I can't help being v. absorbed..... I'm not quite to the end of it. We're in the Gently presentation part...... Was reading while sitting in the car dealership on Rte 7 which looks sufficiently vexed already, despite the serene beauty of the Adirondacks across the Lake that I could see from where I sat.

the Eschaton game, and Mario's Interdependence Day film were the two highlights of the book for me. I feel these are places where DFW really hit new heights of orginality and brilliance in execution.

Sibyx, I note from your previous post that you are now beginning to sound like DFW...

Jiminy! What's the antidote?

Read George Elliot, Henry James, and Macaulay's History of England. Before bedtime.

49: Yeah I found the Eschaton game so gripping, I was all excited to read it to my significant other who is a "gamer" but I took another look at how long it was and I was surprised. It went so fast because it was SO WELL WRITTEN! It was the highlight of the book for me. Especially right when the kid makes his decision to bomb all the gathered leaders because it totally makes sense in the twisted logic of the game.

I need to re-read this. But there are so many books I need to read!

405-442
-the puppet show continues
-the woeful tale of Eric Clipperton
-Viney and Veals ad agency and start of explanation of collapse of entertainment industry/ad collusion as we know it..... with the advent of the InterLace technology.
-Back to Steeply and Marathe -- what is often the least 'successful' part of the novel in some ways as it is the philosophical underbelly and while fun and inventive my mind wanders - although there are certainly some worthy gleanings and this is not to say it isn't important, essential, only that I'm always relieved when we go back to Hal or Don or almost anything or anyone else..... whatever that means.
-From thence back to the playing out of the Clipperton saga.
-To Don Gately's early morning job at the men's shelter. (not to be read anywhere around food.)
-a return to the 'moral' of the Clipperton story (preparation for celebrity/for the burden of winning as offered at an official tennis academy is a good idea) and the conclusion of Mario's puppet show, during which we get a pretty good, albeit, satirical view of how Interdependence got to be......

Do I have any responses of reflections to make.... hmmmm..... no I think I'm just reading.
-

442-502
-Don Gately at a Commitment meeting.... and remembering things from his past as he moves into sobriety.
-Hal having nightmares. Mario is sleeping at the HmH - upset that Madame Psychosis seems to have disappeared.
-an early morning practice session at ETA in vivid detail.
-Gately at Pat Montesian's wonderful car, more about sobriety, Gately's cooking
-Back to Steeply and Marathe and their philosophical all-nighter on the outcropping....getting deeper into what it's really about, this Entertainment.
-back to Gately in the Aventura having decided to go the Bread & Circus in Inman Square.... because Pat, for some reason, is bending the rules for the two new women residents, that they can eat vegetarian....
-and an astonishingly smooth transition with no break - just Gately whooshing down the street, blowing something onto a window which then brings one of the two Antitoi brothers, the simple one, Lucien to look out the window where he sees wheelchairs, realizes it's the Assassins, too late. Gruesome death. Really gross.
-Back to the outcropping, more specific speculation about how the Entertainment does what it does. - And the frustration that it can't be studied without killing the observer......
-then one of the odd first person remembrances by Orin and Hal's father. This time moving a mattress to find a persistent squeak. When the father keels over, puking then passing out (ulcer?) Jim just leaves, says nothing to his mother who is returning to vacuum under the bed which is thick with dust. One of those moments. The level of detachment, of 'living in the head' of the future father of.... is made abundantly clear.

I am now going to take a break for a week or two - lots of time for you to catch up Donna!

You're taking a break?! To read Deliverance? ;-)

"Really gross" -- YES!!!

I had to restrain myself earlier in the thread when you were discussing Marathe and Steeply to not jump ahead and proclaim, "The Wheelchair Assassins are coming! The Wheelchair Assassins are coming!" Grotesque as it is, it's easily another of my favorite scenes from the book. Thanks for the memories! Enjoy your break.

I'm guessing I'll probably take a few breaks from the break - I just want the option, like coming up for air - this was the only fiction book I've been reading for the last ten days or so..... a little tough at bedtime...... either not wanting to stop or wanting whatever to be over.....

I can't say it is likely to be a favorite, but it certainly was vivid.....

-and I'm glad you liked my succinct summary of the Antitoi demise(s)?.

Reporting in that I'm back in swim. Read a few pages - Ken Erdedy making an ass of himself at the NA meeting and a bit of continuing convo betw. Steeply and Marathe about The Entertainment. Now comes a long bit with Hal, I've started but not gotten very far.

I'm very glad I took my break and I'm thinking I'll allow myself one more if I need it. This just feels like a book best read with room for coming up for air.

Heavy music weekend for me as I am into Irish music - so not much reading. Things will be back to normal tomorrow.

I loved the book. Admit that I mostly dreaded the Steeply-Marathe dialogues.

Yah, they have a 'My Dinner With Andre' quality -- which movie I really liked, btw, but nonetheless...... all in the head.
508-548
So I pick up Hal waiting outside Tavis's office pretty sure he's about to be in a lot of trouble, Pemulis is with him. Lots more about Tavis, his management style, personality, etc.... also Avril's management style - as she is in her doorless office conducting a session with the young girls about inappropriate touching... Hal is starving, missing dinner - it's one of the details that makes the book so real, how hungry athletes are...Avril tries to give him an apple she has in her pocket..... and then the meeting starts..... The kid's head is still in the computer (a bit of a stretch, that, but OK), and.... the door shuts with 'the urine expert' in the room... uh oh. Get the feeling the kid has ratted?

I just finished Packing For Mars where there was a good deal of stuff about urine collection in zero gravity.... odd to have it in two books, or may be not?

Ok so back to Steeply and Marathe, and the imminent dawn and perhaps winding down of this all nighter?

So Joelle has turned up in the Staff office to talk to him and he asks point-blank about the veil and she explains UHID and hems and haws and finally tells him the truth, which, of course, he does not believe.

Then the Randy Lenz bit doing bad things to small animals and going 'There'. I admit I knew it was somewhere and I read it sort of with only part of my attention and just skipped a few bits, but got the gist......

Yep, I'm definitely back in the soup.

I'm a little late getting to the court, but I have just begun reading IJ.

You know, I get the impression that anyone who has read it or is reading it, is thrilled to connect with anyone at any phase of the experience - I am thrilled you are here! I didn't start commenting here until I was some way in (didn't think of it) so I will love hearing your comments. I found the first 200 pages hard - so much going on -- someone reassured me that it all starts to make sense after that.... so far that has been the case.

60> welcome to the cult of jest!
61> ditto! it's like bumping into fellow alumni & having that automatic bond (or something like that).

59> I used to have a lengthy UHID quote on my profile page.

Thanks, y'all! I'm really looking forward to getting into the meat of it. I was going to wait until I finished "Girl with Curious Hair," before tackling it, but just couldn't hold myself back any longer.

548-575
-ze plot thickens...... Rodney Tine of the OSOUS..... he of the retractable ruler.... is getting rumors about some cartridge or other....
-Pemulis is nosing about after hours -- sees Stice in Rusk's office, then Wayne w/and Avril in deshabille but it's probably not quite what you might assume, as in weirder..... All this too is popped back one day - 9 November, when the interview mentioned above in Tavis's office is 10 November..... for a sec I was like whaaa? Then I checked the dates.... gotta do that frequently! (The endless convo in the desert, for ex. taking place MONTHS earlier).....
-Back to Randy Lenz confabulating to Green about this and that, including how his mother died..... but Randy also, in his way has a clue that stuff is going on.....
-Back to Gately, snippets of interactions w/other residents.
-Orin connects with a Swiss woman, drowns his disappointment in the big journalist....
-back to Pemulis who is still wandering around, encounters Idris Arslanian who has blindfolded himself. I loved the 'feeling' of this encounter.... Something to do with the way these kids support each other despite also being in competition.
-Orin is seeing wheelchairs again. Uh oh.

I'm back... spoilers galore ahead.
Pp. 219-379: Lucy has been doing a wonderful job of summarizing the sections as she reads them so I'll just briefly mention the parts that resonated with me.

"Very Last Party -- Too Much Fun"
Molly Notkins can certainly throw a memorable party! Joelle is not in a party mood. She has something else in mind. "The truth is that the hours before a suicide are usually an interval of enormous conceit and self-involvement." (220) "The Fun has long since dropped off the Too Much."(222)

**Ah, the key to time in the book: CHRONOLOGY OF ONAN's REVENUE-ENHANCING SUBSIDIZED TIME, BY YEAR** (Page 223)

The party continues...I might want to kill myself too if I had to listen to all that inane chatter in person. The mysteriously veiled Joelle/Madame Psychic is intent on getting out of the cage and "eliminating her own map" which she goes to great lengths to do in the bathroom while everyone else is still having Too Much Fun.

I am really mesmerized by DFW's writing. That's why I'm using so many quotes in my comments. He even does descriptions well. I think Don Gately is going to be one of my favorite characters, although I'll never be able to get the early burglary/toothbrush vignette erased from my mind! I like that he is making progress in his rehab...421 days substance free on Pg. 274. Here is a brief part of the descriptions of DG and Ennet House that I particularly liked. Oh, the writing...

"Don Gately is almost twenty-nine and sober and just huge. Lying there gurgling and inert with a fluttery-eyed smile. One shoulder blade and buttock pooch out over the side of a sofa that sags like a hammock. Gately looks less built than poured, the smooth immovability of an Easter Island statue..." (Pg. 277)

"Time is passing. Ennet House reeks of passing time. It is the humidity of early sobriety, hanging and palpable. You can hear ticking in clockless rooms here..." (Pg. 279)

"Tony Goes Cold Turkey"
If I'm ever in a position to warn anyone of the effects of drug addiction, I would have them read Pp. 299-306. Brilliant vivid writing about Poor Tony Krause holed up in the bathroom battling his demons and finally succumbing to a major seizure on the subway. He will always be associated in my mind with the funniest (and most disappointing to him) purse snatching ever! I think DFW is outstanding at creating these outlandish scenes which help me keep the huge cast of characters straight.

Just a few more comments because I want to get back to the book...
I really enjoyed learning more about Mario's condition and how well he is accepted at ETA despite his hideous deformity. I'm about to read the part where I'll learn more about his filmmaking skills.

Marathe and Steeply are growing on me as I learn more about the convoluted US/Canadian relations in the IJ world. Very interesting discussion about freedom. Hugh Steeply cracked me up with his description of Quebec as "Cuba with snow" but how did I miss the clues that he is Helen???
Doh!

Not sure I'd be very into the game Eschaton but I can see how a game involving 400 dead tennis balls representing 5-ton nuclear warheads would appeal to the young crowd at ETA. Talk about a stress buster! I liked the comparison to chess with warheads.

Excellent in-depth depiction of AA, a group that I am in awe of. I think DFW makes it clear that he is/was a supporter as well. As Lucy pointed out (Msg. 47), we meet some old friends here. It's good to know Joelle survived her suicide attempt. Now I'm wondering about Poor Tony...

>40 sibylline:: Lucy, it's interesting that you are reading the footnotes a page or two at a time. I'm trying to dutifully read them as they come. I really got caught up in the 18 pages! of Endnote 110. The long phone conversation between Hal and Orin explained much about the background of Quebecian politics and what the heck Marathe and Steeply have to do with the Incandenza family. By George, I think I'm gettting it!!!

Welcome, Bubba. It's great to have another newby along for the ride. I look forward to your comments and insights.

Love these, Donna -- it helps too. The outlandishness of some of the episodes does fix the characters firmly.

I'll be posting soon -- I've been trying to finish the 'battle scene' at Ennet House in between things like trips to the transfer station etc. Sigh. RL can be a bitch!

575-620
-Back to Lenz and Green.....and the story of Lenz's Mom..... of course, most of what Lenz says is a lie, but this somehow is so over the top one thinks, maybe true?
-We learn how Green came to be Green, how his parents died, what happened then. Some paragraphless and endless sentence stuff through this whole section.... but it's amazingly ok......
-Green loses Lenz when Green needs to pee, but then he sees him up ahead and sees him 'demap' a very large dog and then sees Lenz running hell-bent for leather and the Canadiens after him.
-Meanwhile Gately is trundling around getting all the Staff chores done which are considerable -- sounds a lot like being a 'mom' around adolescents, I know something about that!
-A wheelchair fellow with a questionnaire comes to Orin's hotel door, the babe hides under the sheets. Orin figures the guy is after a autograph, but the questions, about 'what do you miss' are strange, but engage Orin -- he misses old-fashioned TV.....and what do you not miss? To which Orin replies 'How much time do we have here?" Increasingly unsettled by the fellow.
-The Canadiens track Lenz down to Ennet House and then the great battle ensues.

For some reason I have begun picturing Gately as Beowulf. Loving the Gately Joelle vibe....

I do have a sense of things just beginning to slide together, as if we've been traveling out to the end of an arc and now we're going to start turning back with pieces folding in as people begin to intersect and interact..... Just as Gately in this state realizes who Joelle is..... thinks about the Quebec guy he suffocated..... all these little bits and pieces.

620-719
As you can see I read A LOT yesterday - I'm both very absorbed in it and very eager to take another break. Sounds contradictory, and it is. I know that when I finish I will be sad, too, so it is a way of making it last a little longer that is more satisfying than just reading little bits at a time. I do think some of the 'larger pattern' emerges when you read more at once.

-it's Pond Cleaning day at the Boston Public Gardens and an audience is gathered. The young MIT student-engineer is also 'sunbathing' in the cold Nov. light on the same hill where the homeless often spend the day, only place w/no birdshit. Anyhow --- the Wheelchair guys want the engineer (cos they really want Joelle????) and a dramatic kidnapping takes place. Demonstrates an aspect of the Wheelchair guys love of the dramatic.
-Back to 11 Nov -- the cafeteria of ETA. Takes me back to my own days at a boarding school.... nuff said. In college you don't sit around in quite the same way, and the conversations tend to have more substance, hard to explain. Once again I am staggered by DFW's feel for detail and compassion for the adolescent - esp. these exceptional ones.
-Back to May, five months back, Steeply and Marathe - Marathe is dying to be out of there, but Steeply goes into this whole thing about how is father became addicted to MASH. As someone who lives in a household where 'scoring' a good quote, applying it to a RL situation, from much beloved movies is a goal, I can relate, however faintly to the problem of being too involved in something made up....... just the teensiest bit.
-13 November. Post the debacle. Kate and others in the common room, late. Kate and Day talking. A serious convo. - moving, really. Day reaches Kate.
-Now for this match between Hal and Stice..... called I guess, to 'show' Hal off to the reporter -- goes back and forth between describing the match minutely, and the stands where Steeply as Helen sits first with deLint and then w/ Poutrincourt, both with differing ideas about the goals and methods of ETA to prepare students for The Show..... and, I guess, life in general. The issue of life goals, what makes life worth living, what to do after you achieve some long-term goal and find that nothing much has changed, and the expectations if you are one of the big winners.... it resonates, once again, with the Keith Richards autobio -- all of them struggled with the price of fame, and of delivering over and over again.
-Exchange of letters w/ Marlon Bain, former chum of Orin's at ETA. He is willing to answer Q's which are to be found in the footnotes. (Confession, I'm a bit behind at the moment on these. - I'm up to date on all the shorter footnotes, but I read the longer ones separately, usually.)
-The younger boys in the tunnel. Oh this is priceless! Spot-on, wonderful.
-Back to the game and the discussion.
-Intro to Pemulis brother Matty and the abuse he rec'd from his father as a child. Bro 'Micky' (Our Mike, I assume?) pretends, always, to be asleep. He sees the wraith-like Krause pass by the window where he is having a meal.
-Hal wants to talk to Schtitt about the game, but finds only de Lint -- wanders off to watch his father's films, settling at las with "Blood Sister: One Tough Nun".
-A shift to Tony Krause who is trailing Kate G and the new resident Ruth van Cleve, coming home from a CA meeting (cocaine anonymous) planning to snatch their purses.... plus a description of a recent gig where they all dressed alike in red-leather coats and auburn wigs and hung about a hotel lobby where the 'Front' lobbed a canister of vile liquid and then they all ran around looking the same as the thrower, so he wasn't caught..... the warp and weft gathering ever tighter as more characters reveal points of contact.....
-and in fact in this next little bit, about depression, the voice, of the omniscient narrator (dare I saw DFW?) addresses both Kate and Hal's depression and talks about the diff. between anhedonia and psychotic depression..... Hal is watching a movie of his Dad's that seems to address just this. This this this is a core revelation and attempt to describe the indescribable wordless consuming anguish of those who have fallen off the cliff into the abyss.
-14 Nov which is the now of Kate and Ruth walking home from this CA meeting and the purse snatching. At the same exact time the following things are happening:
Jim Troelsch alone in the room he shares, settles in for a practice as a sports announcer.
Pemulis is taking something down from a hiding place above a ceiling tile.
Lyle is hovering off the top of the towel dispenser.
Schtitt and Mario are making a sweets run.
Avril has multiple cigs. going and is calling the purported mag where the reporter works.
Hal is watching the move about the nuns. Again, part way through telling the story in the movie, there is a shift to discussing whether or not dependence on drugs parallels what AA offers - a dependence on the platitudes and meetings - are they equivalents? Answer: No, but you have to read it. Joelle is moving toward understanding and acceptance of that difference as she listens to someone tell his story.
-back to the Nun movie's climax and denouement....I should add that during the movie a number of kids come in, some girls and younger boys who watch with him. The description of the girls kicking off their shoes is again, spot on.
-Kate who ends up being swung around against a pole, watches Ruth chase Krause, too hurt to follow or barely even stand up or see.
-Randy Lenz out on the street again and clad outlandishly (disguise), is following two Chinese women, obviously prepatory to robbing them.
-The LAFR (Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents) are after the Master copy of the Entertainment.

I know that when I finish I will be sad, too, so it is a way of making it last a little longer that is more satisfying than just reading little bits at a time.

Well put. I remember reading somewhere that DFW originally delivered 1,700 pages of IJ to his publisher, and that they edited out, line by line, roughly 700 pages. I'm hoping someday his estate will release an unedited edition so that there will be more to read.

sibyx, it occurs to me that your blow by blow accounts are extremely useful, both for new comers to the text, and for old salts like me who need to be reminded of the book's greatness. Thank you for all your efforts. You should save these notes and put them into a blog or something for future readers.

I'm both very absorbed in it and very eager to take another break. Sounds contradictory, and it is.

Isn't this the mark of a great book, though? You want it to last forever, but you also want to see how it ends.

I finished another 90 pages of despair and delight yesterday.
Pp. 380-470:

...Mario's puppet show film...gives an interesting viewpoint of the current politics of President Johnny Gentle and his "Tighter, Tidier Nation"...the show does go on and on...

Marache and Steeply are still "on the shelf" overlooking Tucson. Single serving size can of pea soup as metaphor for delayed gratification. When and how will they get down the mountain?

Don Gately has no conception of who his "higher power" is but finds the discipline of getting down on his knees and asking for help from ??? 2x a day works the magic of keeping him drug free. Go Don!

Life is intervening again so I'll join you, Lucy, on your break. I'm allowing myself the luxury of these mini vacations from the intensity of Infinite Jest so that I can return rested and refreshed. If I tried to plow through the book, I would probably resent its intrusion on my life and thoughts. It does seem to be one of those books that wants to "take over" life!

Purrrrrrrrr, Tom Cat. I am glad to be useful to others. When I read Against the Day I found the most remarkable non-LT (but very like) discussion (finished and closed already but available on-line) that increased my enjoyment and understanding of the book a gazillion-fold - Ditto a very good Powys resource, though less fun - ANYWAY, I've gotten in the habit, with these complex books of doing this - it's a huge help. I am particularly interested in checking out, once I am done, the interlacing (ha ha) of time....... it appears that the 'real' action of the book is taking place over quite a short period......

720-751
-The AFR seek a copy of the Entertainment at the Antitoi establishment This by taking turns going through all the cartridges in the shop, in rotating volunteer order. The two Anti-tois are wrapped in plastic where the slowly expand, ignored by the AFR's. Their leader is Fortier.
-14 Nov Joelle is worrying about her teeth rotting, dreams that Don Gately attends her teeth, as a dentist.
-the AFR find a copy of the Ent. alas, not the master.
-Now they seek family members and the veiled one who has vanished, the femme fatale who starred in the filme fatale who is said to be in a Recovery house somewhere in the Boston area. The AFR fans out to find her.
-Randy Lenz gets the bags off the Chinese women and runs. In a grim back alley in Little Lisbon he steps over .... a victim of the Entertainment????
-Remy Marathe now waits at the Enfield House to be interviewed by Pat..... the usual weird daily scene is going on.
-Upstairs Joelle is obsessively trying to clean the room with kleenexes..... also silently since one of her roommates is in bed, ill.
-Also a flashback to her first meeting with Jim Incandenza and a holiday dinner, Orin's misery at not being noticed by his Dad..... her feeling of..... doesn't he know how common this is? As she studies film she can talk Bazin with the Dad, which no one else can. Nothing to do with competitive sports comes up, despite the deep involvement of two of the children. It's interesting to see Hal, at 10. Joelle finds him to be an annoying little show-off.
-Marathe's interview is finally underway. He finds Pat surprisingly attractive in some way..... he sees some unlabeled cartridges with smiley faces.... and learns that there is someone else who is in UHID in the house. Bingo.

And this is where I am going to take another, brief break. If I read anything in IJ it will be to plug away at some of the longer footnotes, recent ones, I haven't read, the interview etc.

I find myself at the ripe age of 46 of wanting to get a tattoo that somehow honors the reading of this work of art, even though I have to think that DFW was down on them from some of the passages, mainly the Tiny E short-term obsession.

So, will I or won't I? I don't know. What I do know is that I'm enjoying IJ more than I've ever enjoyed almost any other book (exception: The Recognitions--of course, I am only 1/5 into IJ, so...; and if crushes with major female characters count, I know that I am desperately in love with Joelle, whom Esme couldn't really hold a candle to, so...)

I can almost feel my neurons stretching, my brain trying to expand in order to take it all in. And I feel the need to permanently commemorate that somehow. Any ideas?

I feel like I've read some rule of thumb about tattoos..... like waiting to do it..... maybe forever? Also..... one has to consider 'where'....... might matter more than 'what'.... A future sweetie might have a problem with "I heart Joelle" somewhere indiscreet!

I'll be starting up IJ again this week. Man you you are buzzing along BB - anything really grabbing you, bothering you..... ?????

Bubba, my latest favorite blog find, Poor Yorick Entertainment, has a recent post from what looks to be an ongoing project, A Visual Exploration of the Filmography of James O. Incandenza & the World of David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest", that might have some great tatt ideas for you.

Also, if you google "Infinite Jest Tattoos," plenty of examples, including quotes-from-the-book tattoos, come up. You're so not alone in your inclination to create some permanent IJ body homage.

I especially like the "Visit Tucson" visual of Marathe & Steeply in the filmography link. And the collage of subsidized time.

75> Ha-ha! I don't think my wife would appreciate that particular tattoo, either!

But I do find myself really being intrigued with Joelle's character. I love the way she was introduced so mysteriously as Madame Psychosis, in her radio show scene; then you slowly begin to learn more about her, as DFW's starts lifting the veils, and you learn of all the interconnections. But most importantly you learn of her addiction. When he has her go into the tobacco shop to buy the glass-enclosed cigar (regretting later she tossed the cigar instead of giving it to a homeless person) and then buying the pepsi bottle (although she really wanted the Big Red), it's these little details that give her character such depth. But what really knocked me out was how he described her attempt at deleting her map. I was completely mesmerized with each intricate step, and only wondered afterwards (because I was so sucked into the narrative at that point, I couldn't think of anything else) how DFW knew how to write a scene like that. So haunting.

76> Thanks for that link, EF! That is just too cool for words! I

>76 absurdeist:: I have that visual feast bookmarked, Enrique. Many thanks! I had already downloaded the "Visit Tucson" picture when I was looking for a way to express my fascination with Infinite Jest on my new thread in the 75-Book Challenge Group.

Bubba, it's available in poster form for $18 through Cafe Press. Maybe your wife would like that better than a tattoo?

Pp. 470-620:
Lucy, you continue to do a mah-velous job with your book notes so I won't repeat them here. You left off in Msg. 67 with "The Canadians track Lenz down to Ennet House and then the great battle ensues."

Wow, Great Battle indeed! Another case of nail-biting, edge-of-seat reading for me. That crazy car-moving middle of the night comedy sure got out of hand in the blink of an eye. **SPOILER** I loved how Joelle went to DG's rescue. I clearly like how this plot line is developing. Poor Don... I leave him bleeding in the street. I found myself hoping that he would let the Canadians have their way with the despicable Randy Lenz. I have zero tolerance for people who torture animals.

I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to get back to IJ. I'm behind in my class, my book group meets Thursday night, and I'm having a family Easter dinner on Sunday. Week ends are when I get some time to read Jest in the bigger chunks that it deserves. I'm taking notes similar to yours, Lucy, so it will be easy to get back to it whenever I can fit it in. My goal is to finish it in April. No fooling!

So my father asked to borrow my edition of IJ last night. He had just finished Pale King. I don't know why I thought it was interesting that a 69 year old would want to read IJ. I think the main age group for IJ fans would be late 20's to 50-something. I wonder if there is any data on that.

He reads Pynchon and Vollmann too, so I don't know why this particular choosing (IJ) surprised/amused me. Unfortunately he is not an LTer.

I wish you could coax him on board!

Me too! But he is pretty set in his ways.

EF - just wow and thank you for the DFW visuals! I'm back on task, in the home stretch although clearly it is not a book you ever get done with, maybe it gets done with you?

751-785
-Briefly back to Joelle in the 5-women room, still swabbing it with tissues.
-Marathe is offered a sofa in the messy rear office...Marathe likes her, doesn't want to snap her neck, plus judges wouldn't be a good strategy.
-The connection is made explicit between the Tennis Academy 'up the hill' and Enfield House, to Marathe, who is pretty much staggered.
-3 days back to Nov 11 now - Mario's footage. He's walking around the dorms, listening. Finds LaMont Chu in a towel. Chu expresses concern about Hal. Wonders about what kind of trouble they are in. Mario doesn't really get it. He's goes on and finds 'the Moms'. He asks her how you can tell if someone is sad. She is delicately trying to ascertain who he is asking about.
-Mario pans from his mom to the view out the window - of the Marine Complex, of the Hospital (where Don is) to the WYYY transmitter, the Charles, .... 'the river unwinding, swollen and humped, its top a mosaic of oil rainbows and dead branches, gulls asleep or brooding, bobbing, head under wing.'
-back in the room, Hal and Mario talk .... ends "I think at seventeen now I believe the only real monsters might be the type of liar where there's simply no way to tell. The ones who give nothing away.'......Mario wonders how, what's monstrous,
"That they walk among us. Teach our children. Inscrutable. Brass-faced."

For me that last is one of the angriest and most chilling moments of the book, don't ask me why. Ice down my neck.

-Now - in a real interesting twist, Gompert all banged up, and Marathe who seems to have worked himself into a swivet about just where his best interests lie are in a bar together in Cambridge, she recovering from having her head bashed, he .... well I don't know how he got there. He must have left Enfield House and that's all I know. He tells her all about his great love for his wife and Gompert, bless her heart, isn't buying it.
- Then back to Hal and Mario where Hal explains that the extension Pemulis got for the drug-testing was not for himself but for Hal who has had to stop all drugs and is truly terrified he is going to fall apart.

You're quite welcome, sibyx! Your quote, Hal who has had to stop all drugs and is truly terrified he is going to fall apart, made me think of the Joan Didion piece I've read recently.

In Didion's long essay, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" she relays lots of excerpts from W.B. Yeats poem, the title of which escapes me, but contains the iconic lines, turned into future famous book titles to boot, "Things fall apart; The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey through Madness..." A description apt of where Hal is at -- and where addicts eventually find themselves at, with nothing internally to hold onto -- further notated in singular sibyx's post of 83.

In Didion's title essay of her first book of non-fiction, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," an essay that has so much in common, thematically, with the content and character's plights in IJ, we witness many of what may have eventually become several Ennet House inmates roughly 30 years prior to the time of The Year of the Adult Depend Undergarment. Didion witnessed the Haight world in 'Frisco in which five year old kids dropped their parent's acid, to their parental applause, as it was important to them to turn their kids on early to the glorious potentiality of LSD as early as possible. Groovy man. Can you dig it? Stylistically, Didion the understated short sentence stylist of elegant lines has got nothing in common with DFW the maximalist of all maximalists.

Thematically, content-wise, however, mother of God, DFW might as well have been Joan Didion's adopted son. I can't recommend Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays enough as a sort of preface to what DFW tackled roughly 40 years later in a future drug culture compared to Didion's first glimpse of this nascent yet destructive Sixties drug culture wearing their illusory masks and slogans of "beautiful, love, and peace," while drifting aimlessly, good intentioned slogans or not, as self-destructively as Hal roaming inside the secret underground corridors of ETAs lung apparatus, discreetly getting high (think Elton John's "Rocket Man", in his Underground Man universe nonstop. Pardon the rant, man. But you know, Didion turned me on, DFW tuned me in, and now, since it's bedtime, I've no choice but to turn off.

JoDavid, how lucky you be to have yourself a Daddy reading Infinite Jest. You be blessed. Better your Dad read the Jest than Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite or Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon, the only books I can get my morbid and mildly obese Dad to read these days. You be lucky he be reading him some William T. Vollmann too!! I call that winning!

Oh EF - what a powerful connection to make. STB was one of the first cups of ice water thrown at the groovy sixties -- I remember what a stir it made when it came out! Well, that's not quite true, but I (we were all) was reading it when I was in, oh yes, boarding school (1969-72) (and what I don't know about sneaking around isn't worth knowing....), quite near ETA as a matter of fact. My youngest sister was about 5 then.... so..... I could relate to that bit.

I'm raving about Keith Richard's autobio lately (all positive, btw) He describes his boy Marlon, aged seven, putting the needles and paraphernalia away when on tour w/fucked up Dad. Equal mix pride and shame and no apologiues. No one, TG, thought it would be fun to give the lad acid (Keith would have killed them, for one thing w the knife he always had handy) but it was rough. He turned out OK.

Point being: there were varieties of hippie experience and community and inattentive parenting. The people that did the 'back to the land' type communes (my husband is an alumnus of one august Vermont entity, Dimetrodon -- 'architects who will change the world') got a lot more out of it, and more than a few of those places still exist in some form or other or have, in fact, had a ripple effect that is considerable. We certainly live in a 'Dimetrodon' house. For my husband the experience, while sometimes not so great, was a corrective to having grown up in his nuclear family bubble with parents who loathed each other.

I grew up in the 'unedited' Brady Bunch so you couldn't pay me to visit a commune.

Other point being -- IJ is so .... brilliantly centered on the issue of what makes a life worth living which is a feeble way of putting it..... that EVERYTHING I am reading, watching, hearing about seems to refer back to it. Black Hole?

Meanwhile, I hope, this weekend, to do some damage to the footnotes about Pemulis which are extensive and then get back to reading the main text. These footnotes, like most of the longer ones, clearly MUST BE READ. So I'm a bit bogged down with the teeny tiny print problem.

Have you read T.C. Boyle's Drop City?

Thank you so much for stopping by, your comments are enriching the experience.

This thread appears to be languishing but it isn't really -- I'm catching up on the 'longer' footnotes, Struck's Quebec paper, Pemulis etc. I'm nearly caught up with the text now - not sure quite how I fell behind so far in the 'notes except that I couldn't stop reading! I had to do this once before to catch up with the footnotes about Himself's movies. So I AM reading. The footnotes within the footnotes are a bit trying as the print is even smaller..... DFW would not have done this later in life!

I think Struck's Quebec paper was another thing that was a favorite.

don't skip the footnotes! they are essential!

No worries, I'm not skipping any of them, not even the footnotes to the footnotes -- but I have to take my time due to the print.....

85> I've not yet read that KR bio, but I've not yet heard a bad word about it.

Funny you mentioned The Brady Bunch. Swear to God if I didn't learn more about ethics and decision-making growing up from my nearly always-perfectly-moral TV Dad, Michael Brady, than my RL Dad! If you've not read it, Sibyx, here's a highly recommended pdf of E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction that DFW later collected in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, that hits more in depth on TV shows and the pop culture so prevalent in IJ.

Haven't yet read Drop City. Not the communal type either. I did read Boyle in college, though, and Greasy Lake, especially the title story, left a huge impression on me.

I'm still reading. Had to take a longish break but managed to get almost 200 pages read this week end. I'm on Page 809 and met up again with Don Gately in the hospital. The back stories continue...we find out more about Kate Gompert's depression which she has named "It" and Joelle reminisces about her first meeting with the Incandenza family. And Steeply and Marathe finally got down off that mountain! I'm reading the footnotes as I go along. Much easier on the eyes that way, Lucy!

Now it's back to reading different subject matter as I prepare for my C. S. Lewis class. DFW and CSL have been vying for my attention since January. It's been an interesting juxtaposition.

I'll bet!

It's a real treat to read this thread! Thank you, Lucy, Donna, EF, and all. I do have to say that I'm a person too - even approaching age 68 - and there's no reason not to expect me or my generation not to get *IJ* !

Nice to have a visitor! I am here to report I am back on the case, this time I am quite sure right to the end. I am presently just finishing up Hal's embarrassing trip to what he had hoped would be an NA meeting...... what a send-up of that kind of group! Ow.

94: I loved that scene!

What is scary is that people do some of these things! I do however have a bad feeling about how it will impact Hal -- if he had gone to a decent first meeting.... doesn't bear thinking about, I guess. No 'What ifs' since DFW, and not me, is in charge.

Doesn't "bear" thinking about AHAHAHAHAHA

I wish my conscious self was that clever! "I" can't take the credit for that. If only I listened to myself!

I have read the last page of Infinite Jest although that means precisely nothing. For one thing I immediately reread (for the 3rd time the first 30 or so pages)...... and could have easily kept on except, well, except I might have gone mad, eh?

Don must get better because he goes off to dig with Hal (I feel I missed something major there) - when how does he meet Hal, even though you know it is inevitable they will as they 'complete' each other somehow. Oh I am very confused.

MAJOR SPOILER
Can anyone tell me..... does anyone have the Master tapes?? Did Orin get to them first? The family members all seem to know where the Masters went, so he's the only one I can think of who might now who could have/would have (why?) done it? Also when? Did I miss a clue?

I suppose I could go troll around - hm..... Enrique I should look for your recommendations -- Ah yes Elegant Complexity. Are there any good blogs or things on line??? Did you write anything, EF???

There is another EF related IJ thread where a real IJ whiz whose identity I forget commented about many of the most mysterious issues. You may have already found it.

I did find a good one through EF's recommendation - Aaron somebody - due to my reread of the beginning I had caught about 2/3 of what he mentioned - I missed that Joelle was with them when they were digging up the head, and a bunch of other things. I also read an interview where DFW says he's set it in motion so it should be obvious what's going to happen...... Given the mention of the Gentle govt. collapsing, that would indicate that things changed big-time, also given the fact of Joelle being with Don would indicate that they are together, on the other hand John Wayne being murdered for helping them makes me wonder if they were allowed to go free..... somewhere too I came across a discussion of whether or not 'the Moms' is in on the AFR plot. And a discussion about why Orin would betray everyone. Also a speculation that Hal has seen the movie and lived.....

Lucy, as I read the last 190 pages this week end, I'll be looking carefully for the meeting between Don and Hal. Somehow I knew that we would have more questions after our first reading of the book. LOL. I will definitely read it again...someday.

93: You go, Peggy! I'm another 60-something who is thoroughly enjoying the IJ experience.

Speaking of the Entertainment (well, Lucy mentioned it in her spoiler), guess what my mind immediately referenced when I saw this online ad:

Endless Entertainment!
Ready when you are!

Over 225,000 TV shows, movies,
music videos, sports, and more
all in one place - for FREE!

Advertisement for Uverse.com

We really are becoming people with insatiable desires to be entertained during all our waking hours. I don't watch much TV but I am a Bookaholic.

Sibyx, this might be one of the threads slick (thanks, slick) was referring to: http://www.librarything.com/topic/93387

I think it's funny that you immediately started reading the novel again. The book itself serves as a sort of recursive loop entertainment!

I've not written anything substantively comprehensive on the novel, though there's many LT reviewers around here who have. If I can remember and find some worthy blogs, I'll link them here ....

fwiw: I deleted the unnecessary, cynical, ageist jesting in the message above. As my grandpappy, who just turned 97 last month, can attest, and as he would articulate it, I can be one "ornery cuss" (i.e., "a jerk" in todays vernacular). Sorry about that.

Donna's review of IJ is #1 on HR right now. Great work. And great work all of you with this thread. Thanks for reviving the group. It was nice to revisit my favorite novel ever.

And just wanted to mention before I go that I picked up The Dissertation by R.M. Koster today, a novel from 1975 that I'd never heard of until spying it secondhand, but turns out it has over 300 pages of footnotes. I've no clue if DFW was aware of it.

well done on your review Donna828, an honest, human response, to an honest human book.

Thank you EF and tomcat for those kind words. I didn't intend to post a review, but then I got some encouragement re my comments on my thread in the 75-Book Challenge group so decided to go for it.

Does anyone have thoughts about the recent Pulitzer Non-Award that didn't go to The Pale King...or any other fiction book for that matter. I don't know too much about the book and wonder how much of it was written by DFW. I want to read something else by him someday, and would appreciate any recommendations. Thanks!

Great review, Donna! Thumbed! I just finished IJ yesterday. I'm itching to get back into it already. It's funny, I bought the book over a year ago, but couldn't work up the courage to tackle it until about a month ago, shortly after reading his first novel, "The Broom of the System." Great book. Nowhere near as involved as Infinite Jest, but if you enjoyed IJ, you will definitely enjoy Broom. You'll even see some of the themes and ideas he used in IJ first toyed with in Broom.

I still haven't decided whether or not I'll read The Pale King. It was all written by DFW, but was pieced together by his editor, Michael Pietsch, who edited Infinite Jest (you may or may not know, but IJ was originally around 1600 pages!!!)

second recommendation for Broom. Much shorter, but just as funny and weird and sad.

Fiction-wise, for me it's all downhill with DFW after IJ. In fact, I'd say it's just about all downhill for contemporary fiction period, if sixteen years out, IJ still fits that vague "contemporary" definition. It's safe to say the novel scores in the 99.9th percentile of novels published since, say, 1990. And probably a bit before that too. Which is not to say I didn't adore The Broom of the System, a much lighter, funnier book, but obviously one lacking the vast and intricate architecture of IJ, that nevertheless showcased, in spots, some stunning ingenuity and creativity. I've been avoiding The Pale King for a variety of reasons, most recently because the paperback version just released includes extra "bonus material" (oh goody!!) not published in the so-called "original" hardcover. Publishing gimmick that has little to do, I'd wager, with DFWs intentions for the book.

DFWs non-fiction is superb. You really can't go wrong with either Consider the Lobster or A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. He interweaves humor with serious subjects, the low brow with the high, slang with academia, like very few others. One of the most thoughtful and sensitive essayists of his day. His short stories, on the other hand, have always been hit or miss with me. Never been as moved by them as his novels or non-fiction. I think, at heart, I'm really more a fan of Infinite Jest than I am of David Foster Wallace.

Donna, I just finished re-reading Chateau D'Argol and was wowed even more the second time through -- my sole non-DFW recommendation at the moment, excepting anything by Joan Didion, of course, whom I'm also re-reading at the moment.

edit: cross posted with bubba & Murr.

Without a doubt there is nothing quite like Infinite Jest, however, for different reasons I feel strongly about several contemporary novels. While the set of novels about Frank Bascombe by Richard Ford (starting with The Sportswriter isn't as complex a ride technically, it felt emotionally true and immensely sound as well as wise throughout. The third volume The Lay of the Land is, to my mind, the best of the three (so far, I'm sure there is another Bascombe opus in the works).

I'm re-activating this thread because I recently started listening to The Broom of the System. Yes listening - and I like the reader A LOT. The disks, however, are out in the car so I have no idea who the reader is. I am not going out there to look either. I do a monumental amount of driving around (I have a non-licensed teenager who does many things) so I alternate between music and books. I've finished the 9 steak dinner and am back home with Lenore who's cockatiel has just started talking. I am amazed how DFW can make someone simultaneously gross and endearing.

Wow, I keep hearing from folks for whom audiobooks work. Need to start doing that at least maybe at the gym. I have BoftheS on my TBR list....