My kids asked me what I was reading. I flipped to page 67. They both play tennis for fun and so I read this to them, realizing that sports as a metaphor for life is done so eloquently here and sounds like DFW might be just talking:

In this dream, which every now and then still recurs, I am standing publicly at the baseline of a gargantuan tennis court. I'm in a competitive match, clearly: there are spectators, officals. The court is about the size of a football field, though, maybe, it seems. It's hard to tell. But mainly the court's complex. The lines that bound and define play are on this court as complex and convoluted as a sculpture of string. There are lines going every which way, and they run oblique or meet and form relationships and boxes and rivers and tributaries and systems inside systems: lines, corners, alleys, and angles deliquesce into a blur at the horizon of the distant net. I stand there tentatively. The whole thing is almost too involved to try to take in all at once. It's simply huge. And it's public. A silent crowd resolves itself at what may be the court's periphery, dressed in summer's citrus colors, motionless and highly attentive. A battalion of linesmen stand blandly alert in their blazers and safari hats, hands folded over their slacks' flies. High overhead, near what might be a net-post, the umpire, blue-blazered, wired for amplification in his tall high-chair, whispers Play. The crowd is a tableau, motionless and attentive. I twirl my stick in my hand and bounce a fresh yellow ball and try to figure out where in all that mess of lines I'm supposed to direct service. I can make out in the stands stage-left the white sun-umbrella of the Moms; her height raises the white umbrella above her neighbors; she sits in her small circle of shadow, hair white and legs crossed and a delicate fist upraised and tight in total unconditional support.

The umpire whispers, Please Play.

We sort of play. But it's all hypothetical, somehow. Even the 'we' is theory: I never get quite to see the distant opponent, for all the apparatus of the game.

Is that a Molly Bloom YES or just a regular old yes?

Shel, the more I re-read DFW the more I like him. I've been tracking the reading program of Infinite Summer and have just finished the scene with Gately out on the front lawn confronting the Canadians. The way Wallace handles multiple characters in a scene like that (with details such as constantly reflecting back to the fact that Ken Erdedy keeps his hands up through the whole scene) shows an astonishing master of both character AND scene. He's seeing it so clearly he's able to put you exactly there as the windshield shatters and Joelle climbs down from the second floor in her robe and veil. Every page has a line that leaves you going "Yes."

So maybe I'll cross post. In another thread we are talking about hysterical realism. Someone made the point that a lot of contemporary fiction seems to be a demonstration of intelligence but not much else (among other things):

I like your thoughts here.

I was thinking as I was reading the second to last paragraph that it seems like what you're talking about would fall into the category of attempting to imitate David Foster Wallace.

I know, I know. I'm kind of stumping for the guy now.

But no, really.

When I am reading IJ, it is just like reading Ulysses (haven't tried Finnegan's Wake yet). I read a passage. Catch my breath. Go back. Read it again.

There are so many levels. First, the popular culture level. Then, the academic or intellectual one. Then, the DFW Gaze - the one he levels at the world seems to see everything so clearly, so that the other levels slip away. And finally, the heart of it.

There is a lot to untangle, and some of it appears to be a "look how good I am at tennis and math" kind of thing - a demonstration of his brilliance - but in a book that might be an imitation, there would be no more than just that demonstration. Or maybe a little bit more, but not much.

With him - there is a beating, golden, suffering, black, aching heart in everything. There is contradiction. There is so much pain. There is so much love. Even in the details, he is building and building you to the point where you either decide to let the book in, in which case it changes your life, or not, in which case you hold it at arm's length.

He is all about letting the book in. There was a far more eloquent post about this on Infinite Summer, about someone who read the book for drug rehab (ultimately unsuccessfully) - it was about allowing the book to really... seep into you.

Now I'm sounding all mystical and cultish about it but I think it's true.

Ha!

I forgot to add-death bearing witness to life, unless of course they can't see it because of the sideshow they are watching.

Shel wrote: "Wow. Life witnessing death. All framed by degradation.

So you've been reading Joyce then...

Wow. Life witnessing death. All framed by degradation.

Sometimes I wonder if that filmography isn't the key to the whole book. I've read it five times so far.

You gotta love the old motto at the Enfield Tennis Academy: "THEY CAN KILL YOU, BUT THE LEGALITIES OF EATING YOU ARE QUITE A BIT DICIER". This was changed with the new administration.

But my favorite serious quote is from footnote 24 (the complete filmography of the main character's father) where you will find this synopsis of his film Cage III – Free Show:

"The figure of Death presides over the front entrance of a carnival sideshow whose spectators watch performers undergo unspeakable degradations so grotesquely compelling that the spectators’ eyes become larger and larger until the spectators themselves are transformed into gigantic eyeballs in chairs, while on the other side of the sideshow tent the figure of Life uses a megaphone to invite fairgoers to an exhibition in which, if the fairgoers consent to undergo unspeakable degradations, they can witness ordinary persons gradually turn into gigantic eyeballs."

DFW rules!

mm

Yeah... I even blogged about it.

goddamn, that is a good quote...

I may be behind in the book but I am trying to keep up with Infinite Summer. A few days ago an article was posted about The Pale King, his book that will be posthumously published. Here is the final paragraph - it holds one of my new favorite quotes ever:

Pressed for more details, Pietsch cites a commencement speech that Wallace gave at Kenyon University in 2005, which he says is “very much a distillation” of the novel’s material. “The really important kind of freedom,” said Wallace, “involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom… The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

The article is here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books...

Dan wrote: "Those scenes were actually quite good though the faux-ebonics scenes were tedious. I was reading over at the infinitesummer.org site about how these seemingly disconnected scenes come together thro..."

Welcome to the right coast Danman. I was going to mention the Infinite Summer group which Hugh pointed us to. I know I am posting there now, and it would be great to hear some of the familiar FF voice there too.

One of my favorite scenes so far (I'm only in the mid 400's pagewise) is the combo traditionally late family dinner with Mario listing to the veiled Madame P. (Joelle I am pretty sure) intoning lists of the hideously deformed on her radio show. I knew then that this book was written for the ages.

All time funniest (hard to pick one, but clearly) is the recovering Irishman's peon to his healtjy #2:

"Me friends, this tard'o'mine practically had a poolse."

See you at Infinte Summer!
mm

Those scenes were actually quite good though the faux-ebonics scenes were tedious. I was reading over at the infinitesummer.org site about how these seemingly disconnected scenes come together throughout the book to make sense. After seeing this I thought I have really missed something.

I know that I am going to be rereading this book again soon. It will be hard to resist with the infinite summer group going on, my unanswered questions and general forgetfulness.

Part of my problem could be that my new office in the library is at the end of an aisle of books. At the other end of the aisle sits Infinite Jest and the rest of DFW's books.

Do you know roughly what page the TV addiction scene is?

that pot scene is actually one of my favorite sections of the book. my other favorite is the t.v. addiction section. i've gone back to read the t.v. section by itself a couple of times. to me, it seemed to really stand apart from the rest of the novel when i read it, but actually if you try to read it independently of the rest of the novel, it seems kind of flimsy. it doesn't have the same impact at all. so it must be more integrated than i originally thought.

That phone call was absolutely hilarious. How are ya coming along with the book?

I think I finished IJ sometime in April and I often find myself thinking about it. In fact I have probably thought more about this book after finishing it than any other book I have read (Sometimes a Great Notion is second).

I would like to hear some opinions about the inclusion of some of the less obviously connected scenes in the book. The few pages with the extreme accents and the scene that Shel mentioned with Erdedy waiting for the pot. I know there are a few other scenes like this in the book too that I cannot remember. Why did DFW have them there? How does it enhance the experience?

For all the pain and suffering, this is turning out to be quite a funny book. I think the episode that finally won me over was the phone call between Hal and Orin, where Hal was grooming his toenails. After that it has all been downhill for me.

I would definitely recommend writing down characters. (And their associations since the story moves to so many different settings)... The image of the all the overturned glasses holding dead roaches was definitely gruesome.... There's a lot more of those passages like Erdedy.

Wow. I just read the chapter about Erdedy waiting for his pot... that was just excruciating. And then Orin and the roaches - I could hardly read that one through. That was just so... gross...I still have the willies... and then that brief, horrifying Wardine passage and Bruce Green and Mildred... and the conversationalist passage...

How many characters are in this book, anyway? Should I be writing this down or drawing a chart?

See, this is what makes him the modern day Joyce, I think. Or post-modern day Joyce.

What's great about it is that I'm American, I live during the time he did, hell, my family is from the same part of Illinois, so I'm more likely to understand at least a few more layers than I did in Ulysses...

I've only really begun to realize just how inredibly layered Infinite Jest is on this THIRD reading with the Infinite Summer group. (It's only the 1st week, so if folks are interested....)

Maybe it's the fact the group has slowed my reading down and made me a little more intentional, but I got to page 32 and a scene I had simply read through in which Hal receives a cryptic call from his brother...

(Hal)'s way of answering the phone sounded like "Mmmmyellow."

"I want to tell you," the voice on the phone said. "My head is filled with things to say."

Hal held three pairs of E.T.A. sweatpants in the hand that didn't hold the phone. He saw his older brother succumb to gravity and fall back limp against the pillows. Mario often sat up and fell back asleep.

"I don't mind," Hal said softly. "I could wait forever."

"That's what you think," the voice said. The connection was cut. It had been Orin.



This time out... I reread it and thought: "It's the Beatles!" The George Harrison-penned song: "I Want To Tell You."

Here in this family of screwed up communication between family members -- the two oldest boys communicate with song lyrics.

What makes the joke work so well is the last line of the section when Mario, the youngest brother, asks who it was.

He said: "No one you know, I don't think."

Hugh wrote: "Are you doing... is anyone else doing... www.infinitesummer.org? I re-read IJ in January but am thinking of being a part of this.

Good tip Hugh. THANKS! I hadn't picked up on the whole Hamlet parallel, but now that I have it is like a bright light going off. I am enjoying this book - but I am afraid Wittgenstein's Mistress is going to waste because of it.

Thanks again.
mm

Michael wrote: "Infinite Jest is really heating up. Rounded the corner on page 200 recently and the book has gone from difficult to good to GREAT. It has really got my attention now and I just want to stop doing..."

Are you doing... is anyone else doing... www.infinitesummer.org? I re-read IJ in January but am thinking of being a part of this.

Infinite Jest is really heating up. Rounded the corner on page 200 recently and the book has gone from difficult to good to GREAT. It has really got my attention now and I just want to stop doing everything else and lay about and read it. I can see why all the fuss. This 1000 page puppy is excellent. RIP DFW.
mm

Patty wrote: "i thought the best essay in the book, the best essay ever was the one on Usage.
"

Yes! Who knew reading dictionaries could be so fun!! DFW at his best in this essay; the subtext on his family’s SNOOTy background which grows in the footnotes is a great counterpoint to his evolving, scholarly, argument in the main text, and serves as a great wink and nod to the author's pretensions.

There is some debate on the internet as to his conclusions - they make him out a grammar Nazi, where I see him making quite the opposite argument, i.e. that one must live multiple grammars (down to a personal grammar?) His initial catalog of possible “Discourse Communities” is a hoot: “And the United States obviously has a huge number of such Discourse Communities, many of them regional and/or cultural dialects of English: Black English, Latino English, Rural Southern, Urban Southern, Standard Upper-Midwest, Maine Yankee, East-Texas Bayou, Boston BlueCollar, on and on. Everybody knows this…Plus, of course, there are innumerable sub- and subsubdialects based on all sorts of things that have nothing to do with locale or ethnicity — Medical-School English, Peorians-Who-Follow-Pro-Wrestling-Closely English, Twelve-Year-Old-Males-Whose-Worldview-Is-Deeply-Informed-By-South-Park English…”

This essay can be found online here: http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DF...

I’d be interested to hear other people’s opinions on the conclusions he reaches in this fun and thoughtful piece.

mm

Ooooohhhh YUM. On the list. Right now. Vermont, Irish or French butter. Sea salt... YUM. Wow. I'm hungry.

Shel wrote: "Patty, I need to get that radish recipe...! I keep buying them because they look so pretty, but then I get them home and can't figure out what the hell to do with them."

get some really fresh cream butter, spread it on whole raw radish, dip in a little bit of crushed sea salt. :D

Patty, I need to get that radish recipe...! I keep buying them because they look so pretty, but then I get them home and can't figure out what the hell to do with them.

I joined Infinite Summer. I think I'm supposed to start reading... yesterday...?

Greg wrote: "Also, the last line of "The View From Mrs. Thompson's" accounts for the last time in recent memory that a piece of writing actually made me cry. And I mean, I REALLY cried. Took me a few minutes ..."

this got me to finally read this book. i was either saving it for a rainy day or avoiding it, i'm not sure which. i think it's because i had already considered the lobster, and didn't think reading about someone else considering the lobster would be good for my mental health.

i thought the best essay in the book, the best essay ever was the one on Usage.

incidentally, i went to rockland maine over the weekend. i didn't eat any lobster, but i did have delicous radishes with butter and salt.

just saw this:

http://thepenguinblog.typepad.com/the_pe...

Yeah you should have no problem doing 11 pages a day. I averaged about 25 i think. you may run into the problem of not being able to stop reading...

Totally signed up for that one on FB. Looks like fun.

I think I'm ready for it. I think. 75 pages a week is nothing, in other books... I expect it to be "something" with this one, of course. 11 pages a day, I can do, while writing, running the short story thread, and other stuff.

Shel if you are preparing for reading IJ you might be ready in time to get in on this:

http://www.infinitesummer.org/

I don't know exactly what the experience is going to be like but the book itself is pretty damn amazing.

I picked up probably the slimmest volume of DFW's ever published last week. Here is the review I wrote... it's a printed version of the address he gave at Kenyon college.
---------------------------

God, this is so... profoundly sad, considering what happened last year and what we now know of his life.

I hate to say it, and maybe I'm not thinking hard enough about this, but the ideas here seem pretty obvious to me.

But I'm 35 now. I like to think I've learned a few things. Particularly about compassion for other people.

Life is hard enough without being judged by people who know nothing about you.

Had I heard these ideas at 22, I probably would have caught onto the non-materialism thing, but not the compassion or the religion thing. So it's probably totally appropriate.

And I liked the This is Water thread. That was good. Makes a good mantra, actually, when I'm having a shitty day.

As I start wading back into DFW, preparing for the ultimate challenge of Infinite Jest, now I think that most of what he says isn't all that difficult to understand... which is weird, because up to now I have felt like I wasn't up to the challenge

Also, the last line of "The View From Mrs. Thompson's" accounts for the last time in recent memory that a piece of writing actually made me cry. And I mean, I REALLY cried. Took me a few minutes to pull myself together afterward.

I've never read his fiction, but "Consider the Lobster and Other Essays" is tremendous. I love the serpentine mental pathways he carves out as he considers topics and constructs arguments. (If I'd've known you could do that, my school term papers woulda been much better -- and surely would've earned Fs.)

Franzen has a similar nonfiction style, though not nearly as multi-directional. Allow me to recommend his nonfiction essay collection "How To Be Alone." Good shit (especially his piece on the whole Oprah Book Club fiasco, called "Meet Me In St. Louis").

-G

Oh, and from what I've read Joelle is based on Mary Karr whom Wallace dated while at Syracuse (if the story is right both were in recovery at the same time).

Dan wrote:

Hugh, was Gately's de..."

Dan, you're right. Gately's death wasn't explicitly stated but so much of the build in that scene -- and his relation to other characters made me assume he did die. But it's not explicit.

Also just saw this:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/bo...

Two manuscript pages from The Pale King.

So the more I have been thinking about the book the more I am coming to be less disappointed by the ending. I read read the article from the New Yorker which helped as well.


Hugh, was Gately's death explicitly stated? I didn't feel certain that he died in the end. Did I miss Something?

I found this link to a discussion on Infinite Jest right here on Goodreads. There are some interesting posts. Especially with those dealing with identifying the narrator of the book (many believe it to be J.O.I.)

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9777...

I have also read in various blogs and posts to reread the first 50ish pages of the book to get a better sense of an ending. Looks like I will be cracking it open again.

Dan, I second Michael's comment on the article... there's a connection with the Broom of the System ending.... Gately's is (relatively, I suppose) the most relentlessly tragic death -- that he fights so hard to avoid the painkillers, that he is killed as a result of another resident's lying/addiction.... In some ways, ending the book with Gately made the most sense. Hal has actually shown up to try and get some help (since his family seems unable/unwilling (depending on the relation) to help him)... and in some ways, (it's been a few months now... doesn't Gately's death galvanize Joelle?

[One scene that gets to me every time I read it is Hal at night, finally copping to his mentally challenged brother about his addiction....

'Hey Hal?'
'Yes, Mario.'
'I'm sorry if you're sad, Hal. You seem sad.'
'I smoke high-resin Bob Hope in secret by myself down in the Pump Room off the secondary maintenance tunnel. I use Visine and mint toothpaste and shower with Irish spring to hide it from almost everyone. Only Pemulis knows the true extent.'
'...'
[What follows are nearly three pages of Hal walking through what he sees as the inevitable consequences about to happen because of his addiction -- but also how much he's afraid the news will hurt his mother, just the way he believes he's hurt his brother...:]

'Hey Hal?'
'And of course you're hurt, Boo, that I've tried to hide all of it from you.'
'I'm zero percent hurt, Hal.'
'And of course you're wondering why I didn't just tell you when of course you knew anyway, knew something....You sitting there letting me say I was just really really tired and nightmare-ridden.'
'I feel like you always tell me the truth. You tell me when it's right to.'
'Marvelous.'
'I feel like you're the only one who knows when it's right to tell. I can't know for you so why should I be hurt.'
'Be a fucking human being for once, Boo. I room with you and I hid it from you and let you worry and be hurt that I was trying to hide it.'
'I wasn't hurt. I don't want you to be sad.'
'You can get hurt and mad at people, Boo. News-flash at almost nineteen, kid. It's called being a person. You don't have to put on a Moms-act of total trust and forgiveness. One liar's enough....'

[Whereupon we learn of how he's torn between his mother learning and this yawning hole the addiction is making in him....:]

'And the hole's going to get a little bigger every day until I fly apart in different directions. I'll fly apart in midair. I'll fly apart in the Lung or at Tucson at 200 degrees in front of all these people who knew [dad:] and think I'm different. Whom I've lied to, and liked it. It'll all come out anyway, clean pee or no'
'Hey Hal?'
'And it'll kill her. I know it will. It will kill her dead, Booboo, I'm afraid.'
'Hey Hal? What are you going to do?'
"..."
"Hal?'
"Booboo, I'm up on my elbow again. Tell me what you think I should do.'
"Me tell you?'
'I'm just two big aprick ears right here, Boo. Listening. Because I do not know what to do.'
'Hal, if I tell you the truth, will you get mad and tell me be a fucking?'
'I trust you. You're smart, Boo.'
'Then Hal?'
'Tell me what I should do.'
'I think you just did it. What you should do. I think you just did.'
'...'
'Do you see what I mean?'

Dan wrote: "It's done. It took 43 days though I snuck in The Big Sleep somewhere in that time frame.

As I have said before, I didn't think I would like this book but I did for the most part. I was pleasantly ..."

Dan, RE the ending. You should read the New Yorker article on DFW which Shel posted recently. It's out on the shared drive Brian's has donated to the group. Goes into the editing of IJ and specifically talks about various iterations that were proposed for the ending.

It's done. It took 43 days though I snuck in The Big Sleep somewhere in that time frame.

As I have said before, I didn't think I would like this book but I did for the most part. I was pleasantly surprised by how much most of the endnotes added to the novel without being annoying or getting in the way of the plot.

The characters were great and I was really into each of their plights/lives/story. This goes for many of the minor characters as well. Because there are more than 100 pages of end notes I didn't expect the end of the novel to come when it did.

The book ended abruptly, without explanation without conclusion and for me somewhat unsatisfactorily. It is possible I am completely stupid but I couldn't explain what happened to anyone. What about Joelle? Why did Hal become what he was in the beginning of the book?

I feel that Gatley's story makes the most sense. I don't really know what else to say. If someone who has read this book could explain anything about the way this book ended I would be happy.

I remember feeling this way about the ending of Broom of the System except I wasn't that enthralled with the story from the beginning.

In conclusion, I would say that Infinite Jest was brilliant for most of the time but was a lot of work and reading to be left thinking, "What the fuck?!?" at the end.

Patty wrote: "i did think that the editors should have given a little more thought to how they printed the footnotes. if they'd put them at the end of each section or at the bottom of pages, it would have been much easier for me to read. and i could have split it in half, and made it much more portable for the subway. "

I wonder if this was the author's choice? I would imagine if they put them at the bottom of the page the book would look more like house of leaves with the giant footnotes that would take over for a time.

I was reading last night in the supine position and finally realized how big the book is by the weight of it on my chest. It was actually uncomfortable.

Dan wrote: "Making progress, some more horrible accidents and suicide. Pretty insane stuff. Also of note at the 800+ page mark the back cover has started to come undone. A little tape fixed that issue though.
..."

i don't think it was ever published in any other sort of binding. mine held together.

i did think that the editors should have given a little more thought to how they printed the footnotes. if they'd put them at the end of each section or at the bottom of pages, it would have been much easier for me to read. and i could have split it in half, and made it much more portable for the subway.

Making progress, some more horrible accidents and suicide. Pretty insane stuff. Also of note at the 800+ page mark the back cover has started to come undone. A little tape fixed that issue though.

Who else has read a paperback copy and did it start falling apart on you? I imagine a book this big is hard to bind effectively in paperback.

Dan wrote: "You are definitely right about this Hugh. I was surprised at her being annoyed by Hal since I was always fascinated by his grammatical talk and conversations with Orin. After hearing her take on Ha..."

My copy of IJ just came in the mail. I'm off to Taos and points north and west come June and fully expect to have the reading time for this tome. Dan's feedback has really got me stoked that these 1200 pages are going to fly.

You are definitely right about this Hugh. I was surprised at her being annoyed by Hal since I was always fascinated by his grammatical talk and conversations with Orin. After hearing her take on Hal I can see how he could come across as annoying.

Her perspective and significance to each character gives each if the Incandezas a 3D feel which I can't remember getting in other recent novels.

Dan wrote: "As I have said my reading time has diminished recently but I got some reading done today.

I was really stuck by the switch of perspective offered when we start seeing things from Joelle's POV. Pa..."

Great thing about her POV too is that you get a better insight into her and her significance to each member of the family.

As I have said my reading time has diminished recently but I got some reading done today.

I was really stuck by the switch of perspective offered when we start seeing things from Joelle's POV. Particularly her take on the Incandeza family during Thanksgiving dinner. I have spent 700+ pages of thinking of the Incandeza family from an internal perspective and now I have seen them from the outside. Pretty cool, if ya ask me.

My reading of IJ has slowed to a crawl do to being busy with a bunch of crap. I did happen to see these DFW related Obits and Recollections on McSweeney's website and thought I would share.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/dfw/tributes.h...

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/dfw/memories.h...

More thoughts on things later.