Michael’s Comments (group member since Mar 07, 2009)

Michael’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

Jim wrote: "...becoming conscious of living outside the perimeter of the U.S.'s geopolitical/military borders..."

France is outside the U.S.'s geopolitical/military borders? ...hmmm, we might need to talk.

Jim wrote: "Not a leap at all...."

Already we are hearing so much of the "giving oneself to", the "surrendering oneself to" drumbeat. Wait until we get into AA!

But in this case, at least, the thing surrendered to is the player's Übermensch.

Hugh wrote: "After an exhaustive and thorough 10-minutes of wikipedia research..."

Hugh, I'm officially junking my short write up on Transcendental Idealism, Cantor's Transfinite Numbers, and DFW's conclusion that the player's "enfolding boundary, is the player himself."

If, as Shtitt seems to be saying here, that the infinite manifold of the game is overcome ("infoliating, contained"), at least in the best players, by an integrity of character that comes from within the player, I think the novelistic point that DFW is most straining to make here is that such Transcendence is, at least as it serve's DFW's themes, a form of Addiction.

OK, that might be a leap. I could argue it over a coffee with any of you, and don't want to spell it all out here and make you spend a good part of your afternoon reading it. I will, however, point to the following phrase,

"surrender-the-personal-individual-wants-to-the-larger-State-or-beloveed-tree-or-something"

on page 83, as DFW's formulation of such an equivalency.
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Jim wrote: "Mario does seem to function as a voice of conscience whispering into the ear of the characters."

I might take this opportunity to reread ZAMM after all these years, and I would bet you a right coast dollar (worth only 75 cents in the SF area) there is a more purposeful analogy between Chris and Phaedrus in the text. The overall theme of ZAMM, however, is the process of integrating rational and irrational thought/being.

My take is that the theme of the Shtitt rant is transcendence with a capital T - and this in essence just another way of describing the integration of rational and irrational being. So, I am still of the mind that putting Mario on the back of Shtitt's motorbike is in fact some homage, real or imagined by this reader, to ZAMM.
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Jim wrote: "Michael wrote: "Michael wrote: " the dimwit Mario riding on the back of Schtitt's motorbike..."

Of course, the retarded child in ZAMM was named Phaedrus; a point which endeared me to the book from..."

Jim: You are right about this, somewhere over the intervening 30 (40!?) years since I've read ZAMM I've conflated the narrator's child, his son Chris who literally rode cross-country with him on the back of the motorbike, with the narrator's own past self "Phaedrus", a past self that was mentally impaired/ill/recently released from a hospital. I can see how one's such Past Self could be pictured as riding piggy back on one's shoulders, whispering into one's ear questions only a 10 year old boy would ask.
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Michael wrote: " the dimwit Mario riding on the back of Schtitt's motorbike..."

Of course, the retarded child in ZAMM was named Phaedrus; a point which endeared me to the book from the start.

Hugh wrote: "NOTE: If anyone knows of a ten-week course you can take to cover just the five pages from 79 to 85, where Schtitt and Mario have an ice cream cone, please let me know. There is so much packed into ..."

DFW packs a lot into this section no doubt - remember DFW was a philosophy major at one point, and no doubt a fan of the Germans - and the whole Schtitt proto-idealist rant certainly hangs together. More on that later.

Just wondering if the dimwit Mario riding on the back of Schtitt's motorbike in this scene remind any one else of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM)? Has to be a purposeful reference.
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Alice wrote: "Yet he is still worrying about his semifinal match. Then there is the childhood flashback..."

Did anyone else notice the following part of Hal's flashback as he is taken away in the abulance,

"I think of John N. R. Wayne, who would have won this year's WhataBurger, standing watch in a mask as Donald Gately and I dig up my father's head."

Alas, poor Yorick.
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p.s. Speaking of John N. R. [No Relation?] Wayne, might be a good time to reference JOI's film "Homo Duplex" in the filmography.

In these first pages we are already seeing the central theme concerning addiction coming on. There is the Erdedy piece of course. But the medical attaché’s extreme…how to say…“interest” in the mystery TP cartridge is of the same theme; not to mention his wife, and the 20+ others sent in to rescue them. And so also is Our Don Gately’s career at burgling a prop for his life centered on narcotics abuse.

This one quote keeps coming back to me through, in regards to Hal’s obsession with sneaking down to the bowels of the Lung-Storage Room for a quit hit of recreational drugs,

“Some persons can give themselves away to an ambitious pursuit and have that be all the giving-themselves-away-to-something they need to do. Though sometimes this changes as the players get older and the pursuit more stress-fraught. American experience seems to suggest that people are virtually unlimited in their need to give themselves away, on various levels. Some just prefer to do it in secret.”

Here the narrator also ties in addiction, a.k.a. the “entertainment”, with the fixation on tournament competition which the kids at the Enfield Tennis Academy are purposely exposed to.

“Giving-themselves-away-to-something”. Clearly a central theme of the book, even now before we meet all the characters at the Ennet House halfway house.
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Jim wrote: "Some inspiration for you: http://www.cafepress.com/+infinite-je..."

Just love the "Visit Tucson" poster with the silhouette of Marathe and Steepley in the foreground!

Elizabeth wrote: "The phrase "I could interface you under the table." is so entertaining. Someone should go enter it in the Goodreads DFW quotes..."

My vote for best quote from this first section is "I do things like say, 'The library, and step on it!'"

Jim wrote: "Robert wrote: "Hal, in 1st person, but sliding into 2nd, on nightmares (3 November, YDAU), pp 62-63:

"And then you wake like that, quivering like a struck drum, lying there awake and quivering, su..."

I would think this is the author speaking. I had highlighted it, and could not find another section in the entire book where the voice could not be ID'd.

Tentative list (in order of appearance) of Wallacine compound conjunctions:

And then but
And but so
And so but
But so
And but also
Well but and
So but when
And then but so

Will they get even longer as we read on?
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Ry wrote: ""The Carnivalesque"--for those who don't know, the Carnivalesque is a concept developed by the critic Mikhail Bakhtin which describes when a book subverts and liberates the assumptions of the dominant style or atmosphere through humor and chaos..."

Excellent point Ry. DFW works so hard to be a *likable* voice, and one of the ways he does that is by undermining the seriousness of his message with exactly the kind of things you mention here. Reminds me of DFW's definition of "post-irony", and of this description of JOI's work later in the novel,

"But there had been flashes of something else. Even in the early oeuvre, before Himself made the leap to narratively anticonfluential...where he dropped the technical fireworks and tried to make characters move, however inconclusively, and showed courage, abandoned everything he did well and willingly took the risk of appearing amateurish (which he had). But even in the early Work — flashes of something. Very hidden and quick. Almost furtive."
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Patty wrote: "Awesome link, Dan. Thank you! And now, given the discussion of the name Hal, I'm kind of thinking I need to think about the Henry plays, too.

I started reading last night, and I only made it to p..."

Patty - can you repost this link. It seems to be corrupt.

So, I am not the only one with a notebook and the good sense not to overwhelm the conversation with said notes!

I will want to follow at some point with the topic of addiction and "giving yourself" away to something which DFW brings up in these first pages, but short on time this morning if there is one thing I want to say it is is this: these first 200 pages are notorious for kicking readers off the bus. The book becomes much, much more of a page turner in my experience. We have barely met our hero, the man slaughterer, Mr. Gately (he of the block head and Prince Valiant haircut and the "ferocious and jolly" disposition) or our heroine, the Prettiest Girl Of All Time (PGOAT).

Hang in there readers, and trust the author in this.
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Hugh wrote: "Michael wrote: "Delusion, or cinema? Please note the following in James Incadenza's filography.

OR cinema! Yes. (for the record: I was imagining a first time reader coming on that passage of fathe..."

Note: Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited, or PYEU for short. :)

Hugh wrote: First time readers: you'll encounter a scene like the one early on page 27 -- where child Hal has a bizarre April 1st meeting with his father (who is in disguise). It's one of those surreal IJ conversations in which the father references -- Byzantine Erotica -- and talks about Hal's mother (his wife) sleeping with "not one not two but over thirty Near Eastern medical attachés."

Paranoia? Delusion? Blather? "

Delusion, or cinema? Please note the following in James Incadenza's filography:

"It Was a Great Marvel That He Was in the Father Without Knowing Him. Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar. Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited...A father, suffering from the delusion that his etymologically precocious son is pretending to be mute, poses as a 'professional conversationalist' in order to draw the boy out..."

Here are some reading tips from the Infinite Summer group page from a couple years ago. Links to online references can also be found here: http://infinitesummer.org/archives/215

I particularly liked the Chapter Thumbnails found here (http://russillosm.com/ij.html), and kept a printout of these as one of my bookmarks.


There’s no wrong way to read Infinite Jest: front-to-back, upside-down, cut in half, or skipping around. But here are a few tips for the Infinite Jester.

1. Read the endnotes

2. Use bookmarks: Yes “bookmarks”, plural

3. Persevere to page 200

4. Trust the author

5. Flag, copy, or bookmark page 223

6. Don’t do the thing you’re dying to do right now: Namely, flip to page 223 to see what we’re talking about.

7. Abuse your copy: When you are finished, 223 should be just one of many mutilated pages in your novel.

8. Keep notes

9. Brush up on your Hamlet

10. Employ a reader’s guide

11. Use online references

On my 2nd read through of this massive work, I am going to pay attention for any reference to 1. Parabola, 2. Circle, 3. Ellipse, or 4. Hyperbola.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conic_se...

DFW was quite the math head too. Please refer to his excellent book on Georg Cantor's Set Theory, _Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity_

http://www.amazon.com/Everything-More...

Looking forward to rejoining this group after an extended absence. I note that I am still officially a "moderator", and suspect I still retain "Old Dad" status unless someone has caught up with me in age while I've been gone. ;)