Brain Pain discussion
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Infinite Jest
Infinite Jest - Spine 2012
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Discussion - Week Two - Infinite Jest - Page 109 - 198
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I think one of the joys (?) of reading meta-fiction like IJ is when characters and events in the self-contained universe in the book begin to come together.I had that feeling when we listen to Madame Psychosis, very early morning cult radio personality on M.I.T.’s student run radio WYYY-109. According to the inexhaustible footnote 24 on Himself’s filmography she starred (?) in some of the films including Infinite Jest IV and V. Madame Psychosis is also the street name of the DMZ.
On page 169 Pemulus scores DMZ, a “derivative of fitviavi, an obscure mold.”
“The turd emergeth” tie in to mold that HI ate as child.
“Please commit a crime,” says Hal who would like to consume the “single grimmest thing ever conceived in a tube.”
Mario listens religiously to MP even during late night dinners with The Moms.
Another thing of interest—I’m having a difficult time keeping all the transvestites in line.
Based on the first 200 pages can anybody clue me in? Millicent’s father, Poor Tony, Steeply. Who killed the 46-year old Boston accountant with the exterior artificial heart? How many transvestites are there?
Mod
I had that feeling when we listen to Mad..."
Nice! If it turns out later that Hal ate homegrown DMZ as a child, I'm buying you a beer!
Now I'm thinking back to his admissions interview and wondering what influence he may have been under.
Speaking of craziness, I went to google maps yesterday and zoomed in to MIT to see if I could find a student union in the shape of a giant pink brain. Could not locate, but I did find large numbers of empty tennis courts...
for Jim:http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_locatio...
The student union and its brain appearance made me think of this, which would perhaps be Wallace's inspiration.
Also, the Missus is convinced it was a brain at some point, she spent her collegiate years (mostly partying she tells me) in the Boston area.
The transvestities seem to be a Shakespeare nod? All the male actors in female roles. Seems important considering disguise and concealment are thematic here.
The more I read the more it reminds me of a Canadian filmmaker: David Cronenberg and his film about entertainment,Videodrome. However, there's lots going on and its still fun and despite lots of filmic tools in the book, its still all Wallace and not hacky at all. Also, Fringe, the more I think about this world.
Mod
http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_locatio...
The student union and its brain appearance made me think of this, which would perhaps be Wallace's inspiration.
Also, the Missus i..."
Great pics! Ask the missus if she remembers a club called "Spit". I went drinking there the winter of 81-2 while being driven around Boston by some drunk girls from BU, listening to Wild Planet at unreasonable volume!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmdyfE...
I have a copy of Videodrome. Will have to watch it this week.
The Missus' wild collegiate days were a little sooner then that. More late 90s and 00s club kid. Im somewhere in between her and you. But B52s rock, and my favorite Shakespeare adaptation is named after a track from Wild Planet. So more power to you.
apropos of nothing but listening to the B52s while driving at night, I wouldn't recommend Rock Lobster while driving switchbacks in snowy black ice road conditions. Although a great song, this experience will make it a nightmare.
Mod
Or 'Devil In My Car' in a cherry red Volkswagen Rabbit in late December '81 frozen after-midnight after clubbing with 3 crazy co-eds who clearly have no regard for the laws of physics careening through the streets of Boston. I suspect Avril Incandenza may have been up to similar activities in Quebec City at the time...
BTW, I can't seem to get over Struck's response to poor Carl Whale's earnest confusion on how to deal with high pressure farts while on the court, especially considering there's the possibility they might not be farts but something much more embarrassing if accidentally released, when he finally says to the lad:
'Mobes, if it's me: I let it ride.'
'You let it out come what may?'
'A la contraire. I let it ride around inside all day if I have to. I make an iron rule: nothing escapes my bottom during play. Not a toot or a whistle. If I play hunched over I play hunched over. I take the discomfort in the name of dignified caution, and when it's especially bad I look up at the sky between points and I say to the sky Thank You Sir may I have another. Thank You Sir may I have another.'
Gopnik and Tallat-Kelspa are writing this down. (p. 120)
Given the canonical classic status IJ is already given, I'm trying to imagine some grad student or professor in the 23rd century trying to unpack a passage like this. Perhaps they'll do a compare and contrast with The Big Lebowski's tag phrase "Dude, They peed on your rug" or the sinister homoerotic spanking-in-tighty-whiteys fraternity hazing scene in Animal House. I suspect Wallace may have had a good chuckle imagining such a future scenario when he was writing this...
Some (not so original) thoughts here:The comic interlude- Mario is so far my fav character & perhaps the only truly happy one! Only the mad & the innocents can be truly happy or as Mark Twain quips:
"No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is. Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those."
Hal's frst cinematic essay in 7th grade differentiating modern,post-modern & post-post-modern hero,surely deserved an A! Such world- weariness from a 7th grader- but then he is gifted right!
The monologue of Dr. James' father to his then 10yr old son- what do you make of it? Great as a back story & character development- dysfunction like madness,perhaps runs in the family. The inherent irony in that the father claims to understand his son & hardly does! What kind of a monster talks to a child like that,albeit a very tall one ( also a hint to his extra ordinary height- a pituitary gland abnormality)? And then as this one-sided dialogue nears the end,you actually feel sorry for this Willy Loman- like character in his tragedy.
Also,all the characters describing tennis -Schtitt,Hal,James's dad- speak in the same rhapsodic,transcendental way- you know it's DFW talking- needed variation there.
And yes there seems to be some DMZ link to the mould Hal ate as a child.
Mod
A lot of readers talk about a connection. Did you find something in the text that leads you to that assumption? I wondered about it myself, but couldn't stretch my disbelief far enough to have the drug manifest in the Incandenza's basement. Too unlikely, even for Wallace.
Well,you've already finished the book so you know how it all ends! I'm not saying they were growing it in their basement,but recall Hal's empty husk-like personality in the beginning of the book & his childhood memory of accidentally ingesting this substance,flash forward (or rather,backward!) toPemulis' dire description of this drug & you see some connection.Or maybe that mold eating in childhood was just a foreshadowing of a drug addled future?Or a red herring?
Mod
It's very interesting how Wallace's juxtaposition of episodes lead people to conclusions which he doesn't explicitly make. When Pemulis started talking about DMZ, I immediately thought about 4-year-old Hal eating the mold. There are other things like this scattered through the book.
Mod
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66cxc9...
There are a few different versions of the song on youtube.
Taking a break from reading IJ by reading this thread. It's a very dfw-heavy day.This is the first it had occurred to me that there might be a connection between DMZ and the childhood mold incident.
Re the admission interview, I had the idea that Hal was in fact permanently incapacitated, and not temporarily stoned, especially given CT and co's advance preparations for the interview, but perhaps I am wrong and it was a temporary condition. I guess I'll find out.
Also, I have to say that the section on the videophone was the part of the book where I became fully invested in the narrative, endnotes or no. I found this section hilarious, and can already see myself going back to read it again just for the sheer pleasure of it.
I am also wondering if I am the only one who finds that they need frequent breaks, not so much as to analyze and understand something complicated, but because the pleasure of reading the book is akin to eating something tremendously rich and delicious: you want to savor it.
The videophone section is great and I really should go back and read the endnotes of these section properly as there were a bit too much for me to be bothered at the early stages. This section probably has been the hardest slog for me as I needed constant breaks through certain parts.
I definitely had a good chuckle through mario's first 'experience' in the woods along with the description of her father dressing up in his daughters clothing haha. DFW always gives you just enough visual stimulus and let's you fill in the blanks yourself.
Mod
For awhile there, I was afraid our young hero was going to be torpedoed by the USS Millicent Kent!
@Nicole - I don't remember exactly which interview I read, but DFW made a statement that part of the reason for the endnotes and other pomo tricks was a conscious effort to slow the reader down so they wouldn't be able to race through the narrative. He wanted to force readers to pick their way slowly through the ideas being presented - and there are plenty-o-ideas to be contemplated in this behemoth!!
Begins: 3 NOVEMBER Y.D.A.U. ‘Because none of them really meant any of it,’ Hal tells Kent Blott.
Buddies Big and little bitch and moan during their weekly Wednesday pre-dinner bonding sessions. Using the ruse of an abandoned Husky-VI tripod, a husky 16-A bipod, U.S.S. Millicent Kent, leads Mario into a dusky thicket, where she tells a tale of her cross-dressing father while making a failed foray into Mario’s wicket. Marathe and Steeply wind down their desert tête à tête. Lyle the sweat-licking guru. C shoots a hot dose from Dr. Wo that Poor Tony saw coming, the cheese eatin’ fag. Orin kicks around a business idea with Hal. Hello and goodbye to the old Boston galoot who founded Ennet House back in the day. As most bricklayers will attest, what goes up must come down. Hal’s ‘compare and contrast’ essay on McGarrett and Furillo earns a B/B+. Helen Steeply’s article on transvestites and stolen hearts, highlights jeers to elicit tears. The rise and fall of videophony in three easy lessons. Vi-sine, U-rine, well all screen for I-screen. Himself at ten years old receives life lessons from his progressiver drunker father in a Tuscon communal garage. Pemulis cops, Hal says “Please commit…” Mario and Hal make an art film. Ennet House residents interface with Pat. Miss Madame Psychosis, transmits their neurosis, to the ears of the loyal deformed. And finally, a walking tour (in prose) of the Enfield Marine Public Health Hospital and its seven satellites.
To avoid spoilers, please restrict your comments to page 109 – 198 (and the earlier pages).