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Infinite Jest
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Infinite Jest - Chunky- Discussion thread
Okay. The April 30 YOTDAU has been the worst for me. Too much F word. I am gathering it is all about drugs? What does crewed mean? and who is yrstryly?Mentioning of fags as in cigarettes? or sexuality?
That's the section I should go back and reread. It was confusing with all that jargon.We don't know who yrstruly is yet. Since he went into detox at the end of that section, I suspect he's one of the people at Ennet House. We'll probably see him again later sometime.
"Crewed" means, I think, "working together as a team". The three of them (C, yrstruly and Poor Tony) committed crimes together and split the take (and/or split the drugs bought from the take). I think this means they "crewed" together.
Poor Tony is a transvestite prostitute (I think), so I'm guessing "fags" may be the sexual kind. Poor Tony wanted to "hang for lunch time with his red leather fags in the Bow&Arrow". This quote sounds to me as if he wants to hang around people at a lunch bar of some sort. I could be wrong. This section confused me.
(I'm still not sure if yrstruly killed Poor Tony or if he just thought about killing Poor Tony at the end or if I got that whole concept wrong)
So far, that was the hardest section to read, I found. Not just because of the cruelty, swearing, hard drugs & hard life but because of the slangy way it was written.
Petra wrote: "LauraT wrote: "Poor Mario!!!"I wonder........At first, I thought this too. Every time a description of Mario came up I thought "poor Mario".
But Mario seems to be the only person in this book wi..."
In the whole you're right. We are barely at the beginning of this huge book bout they all look pretty miserable!
I'm only at page 150, but I finally reached some of the funny sections. I loved the insurance report for the injured brick layer. I also enjoyed the sceen of the heart transplant running after the transvestite purse snatcher yelling "she stole my heart" and the alternate meaning it had to the bystanders. This guy has a wonderfully worped sense of humor when I can understand him.That section with the drug addicts and the crude street language I read as I might view an impressionist painting. I did not try to figure out the meaning of the slang, nor the specifics of who did what. Rather, I just seemed to soak in the violence, desparation, anger,confusion of that world.
Irene wrote: "This guy has a wonderfully worped sense of humor when I can understand him...."Right??!! I find that, too. I laugh at things I'd be appalled at seeing in real life. DFW takes the mean, nasty things in life and gives them that humorous twist. (I laughed at "she stole my heart", too)
Irene wrote: "Rather, I just seemed to soak in the violence, desparation, anger,confusion of that world. ..."
Yeah, that part showed a horrible world. Those people were so deep into the drugs and violence and the dark side of life.
LauraT wrote: "In the whole you're right. We are barely at the beginning of this huge book bout they all look pretty miserable! ..."They do, don't they? This is one miserable, dysfunctional family.
So was Hamlet's family - they were a miserable bunch! :)
I agree Irene. I went back to reread because I thought I was more awake. I really didn't pick anything up the second time. Your right the jargon. Loved your comparrison to a impressionistic painting. Right On. I was grateful for the comic relief about the artificial heart sandwiched between the yrstryly section. I totally skimmed the video telephoning chapter. I was thinking the transvestite that ran off with the heart was Steeply?
Rebecca, that's an interesting thought. I had to go back to reread that article. That article was written by a Helen Steeply, who may be Steeply's wife (or maybe Steeply himself???). It was written in that long year....Year of the 2007 Blah, Blah, Blah, which is 2 years before the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment where we met yrstruly & Poor Tony. I think the transvestite with the heart is Poor Tony.
Do you think that maybe the revenge that Dr. Wo was trying to get on Poor Tony with the drano heroin was because of the heart incident? Could Dr. Wo have known and loved the lady with the heart?
It's hard to sort the action out with the years being so mixed up and so weirdly named.
Petra wrote: "Rebecca, that's an interesting thought. I had to go back to reread that article. That article was written by a Helen Steeply, who may be Steeply's wife (or maybe Steeply himself???). It was writt..."
I think the transvestite was Tony and that Dr Wo was trying to get revenge, but we don't know if it was related to the artificial heart or another incident we haven't read yet (because the book is out of chronological order).
I found this list on the Internet that puts the years in order. There is also a list in the book, but it doesn't give relationship to "real time" years.
Preceding 2002 <-> Before Subsidization
2002 <-> Year of the Whopper
2003 <-> Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad
2004 <-> Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar
2005 <-> Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken
2006 <-> Year of the Whisper-Quiet Maytag Dishmaster
2007 <-> Year of the Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office, Or Mobile (sic)
2008 <-> Year of the Dairy Products from the American Heartland
2009 <-> Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment
2010 <-> Year of Glad
I thought it was Tony also, but did not make the connection with Dr. Wo. I do find this out-of-order narration very confusing. I suppose it mirrors life to some extent. We meet people at some point in their history, observe what they do and how they respond, but do not have the back story to understand how or why they reached those set of behaviors or presuppositions. It is only later (and sometimes never) that we hear parts of their story, and often jumbled and out of order.
Mod
Stacey, I also do just fine with the chapters and sections told by educated characters, but find myself skimming the weird or "stream of consciousness narration" chapters and sections.
Yes I've seen that too Sheila, and later on it describes how Mario was born: terrible!!!
I am way behind but will be reading this weekend, life is getting in the way!
I only wish I had your excuse Meg. I have had downtime from work this week. I am just starting Winter BS 1960. I am trying to finish up The Oprah read and my audiobook.
Sheila wrote: "Well I am almost caught up with this weeks reading, and Petra, it looks like your theory about Hal and Mario possibly being twins is put to rest on page 283: "Hal's eldest brother Orin Incandenza ..."Yeah....I was kind of bummed that my detective work was so shoddy! :D
I wonder, though, why DFW was so vague and indirect about the ages of the boys until almost 300 pages in and then spills the beans on all three of their ages.
I was surprised that there are 2 years between Mario and Hal. If the twin theory didn't work out, I would have thought they were closer in age. Huh!
I'm managing to keep up with the schedule but just barely and I'm not reading anything else but IJ. It's a very dense book. Some sections I breeze through and then I hit a section that takes what seems forever to get through. That tennis tournament was brutally boring. Yawn!
Stacey wrote: "I would love to be able to hear the Madame Psychosis radio show. It sounds pretty strange to keep such a following."I thought the same, Stacey. It is such a bizarre program. She's basically reading pamphlets on the air and people are mesmerized.
I loved the description of Mario listening. He's really becoming my favorite character.
I am getting anxious to learn about Mario. Where does this start?
Rebecca, it must be in next week's segment. I'm looking forward to reading more about Mario. Here is the summary from page 270-298:
6 Nov YDAU
- an afternoon in the ETA Weight Room
- Tiny Ewell studies the tattoos of the residents in Ennet House
- Pemulis, Hal and Trevor Axford contemplate some vintage (circa 1970) DMZ they obtained & seek a 36-hour window of free time to test the strength of it.
7 Nov YDAU
- a veiled Joelle van Dyke (Madame Psychosis) goes to a party to commit suicide. She knew Orin & James.
- Chronological order of years
- Quebec militants hang a fleur-de-lis flag over the statue of Colonel Shaw on the eve of Independence Day (Nov 8)
- Joelle called James “Infinite Jim”
- Someone flung acid at Joelle and/or Orin: it missed Orin; hit Joelle.
- Joelle refers to James as “her true heart’s friend”
- Joelle is a member of UHID (Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed)
- Helen Steeply’s career resume
- The party is held in the apartment that Joelle once shared with Orin & James filmed some of his movies with her in them in the apartment
- Footnote 80: lots of sordid family info; the cassette was to be buried with James
- A vague description of what is on the cassette
- Joelle shoots up in the bathroom
“O” 7 Nov Enfield MA
- garbage is bundled and catapulted into the Great Concavity
5 Nov YDAU
Phone call between Orin & Hal:
-Orin is being followed by a group of wheel-chaired guys
- Helen Steeply wants to interview Orin
- Details on James’ death:
1. killed himself 2-3 days before CT moved into HmH (upstairs; next to Avril’s room)
2. Hal found Himself in the kitchen after the suicide
3. a description of how Himself killed himself
4. Orin needs to find out how grief feels so he’s asking Hal; Hal gets quietly angry
“O” 6 Nov YDAU
- in the past year, Hal has exploded competitively in the tennis circuit. He’s #6 in the ONANTA rankings; #2 in the ETA rankings
- a tennis championship: ETA vs PWTA.
- another mention of Hal’s increasing drug use (1st is on pg. 114…..which happens on Nov 3 YDAU)
6 Nov YDAU
- Ennet House residents, Don Gately, some house rules & dynamics
- ETA students' bus ride home after the tennis tournament
"O" - the story of Orin leaving ETA & a tennis career & enrolls in Boston University
- James distances himself from family
- CT's list of resentments toward Incandanza family, ETA staff & students for not wholly recognizing his worth & value
- why CT became headmaster of ETA instead of Avril
- Orin leaves the BU tennis program; enters the football program. He's a dismal football failure until his talent as punter is discovered
- Orin's reason for leaving tennis for football is a woman nicknamed P.G.O.A.T (prettiest girl of all time), who turns out to be Joelle (Mme. Psychosis)
- life of Orin, P.G.O.A.T and James
- P.G.O.A.T. leaves the pep team and starts filming video shots
- Joelle was a virgin when she met Orin
- Joelle starts to film Orin playing football; Orin likes watching the films over and over again, especially while Joelle is away (sometimes with James and his film crew)
List of Ennet House Residents that we met earlier in the book:
Don Gately: live-in staffer; former resident
Tiny Ewell
Bruce Green
Kate Gompert
Doony Glynn: writer of the WCB letter re: bricks & injury ??
Ken Erdedy
Other Ennet House Residents that we probably will get to know better:
Skull
Geoffrey Day
Randy Lenz
Wade McDade
Emil Minty
Calvin Thrust: has a penis tattoo
Nell Gunther
Charlotte Treat
I am also a week behind. I agree that there are some sections that are so boring. Can't figure wat the point of half this novel is. I can't wait for things to start coming together and making some sense. Right now, I look at IJ and some other book I am reading and have little desire to pick up IJ.
I'm trying to think of something about this week's segment that stands out for discussion. There's a lot of history about Orin, James and Joelle but there's still a lot missing and a lot of hints & innuendos.
The biggest hint was that there's something fishy about James' suicide. There was a bottle of Wild Turkey whiskey in the kitchen & James wasn't drinking at the time of his suicide. This could be a red herring, I know; James could have downed the whiskey to give himself courage to go through with it.
Orin has completely separated himself from the Moms and yet he took her advise on which University to attend when he left ETA. He was (is??) a momma's boy and what his mom does hurts him to the core.
The last line of this week's segment is interesting:
"Of particular interest are the eyes."
Orin is watching a film clip of himself playing football. The clip was filmed by Joelle, who's taken to filming Orin's football games. So, Orin is watching himself and the eyes are his.
What is it that Orin saw while playing that is reflected in his eyes? Is it something that brought about his separation from Joelle? Or something that brought about his separation from the Moms? Or something completely different?
Oh....head's up for next week.......Footnote 110 is 16 1/2 pages long and has its own footnotes!!!
Like Footnote 24 it tells us a lot about the Incandenza family, I think. It may be the beginning of everything starting to come together.
The chronology is confusing, but I think it mimics the way that the human brain remembers and files away information. I heard an interesting segment on NPR about that once, but I'm not sure which program. We think we file memories in the order of the time they happened, but we really cluster them differently. Some cluster around smells and some around relationships. When we retrieve the memories we then think about placing them "in time" after they've been retrieved.I think the odd chronology is why most people go back and read the book a second time to really appreciate the construction of it.
I am way behind as well, but I cannot resist a sneak peek at the commentaries here.Amy, I love your idea of the chronology trying to mimic the human brain, but I still wonder what links those fragments together in this specific way. Also, another one of those links someone may want to bookmark for a reread: IJ in chronological order.
http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/...
Thanks for your patience. I found the notes that dropped out of my book on Friday (phew!) and have updated this week's summary (post 176).
Who else thought that Calvin Thrust's tattoo was hilarious? (view spoiler)Anyone else think it's a bit creepy that Joelle calls her father "my own personal Daddy"? I thought, at first, that it might be a sexual reference but she was virginal when she moved in with Orin.
It is Petra; I don't know but I sort of feel something else will come out from Joelle ...
Me, too, Laura. She's tied up with the Incandenza family in a big way and, with her suicide attempt, I think she'll wind up at Ennis House, which will make her a bigger player in whatever is going to happen. She's a key player in some way.
Yes Petra, I think Ennis House is the destiny of more than one character in this book!
Waste being catapulted into the Great Concavity:
I loved the list of life lessons on pg. 202-204. Someone explain Lyle to me. He is just a talking head that sits on the paper towel dispensor in the weigt room? How is he related to Hal?
Petra, I love all these pics you posted! This last one reminded me that I wanted to see if someone had done a map of the Great Convexity (haha - have to stick with my fellow Nucks on the name!). In searching, I came across this site that I think is pretty amazing: http://infiniteatlas.com.Every place mentioned in IJ is plotted on a map, completely cross-referenced with page numbers and background info and additional place links for the characters and stories involved. (And if you zoom out, it shows the Great Concavity/Convexity - and beyond.)
The creativity and detail that go into all the IJ blogs/wikis/indexes/artwork out there are really something!
Meg wrote: "Everything will be compared to Ulysses............sigh!"Hahaha....I just saw this. In my mini-review, I've said that IJ can be said to be Ulysses-lite.
Stacie, thanks! It's been fun finding them. As you say, there's so much of an IJ following out there and some very creative fans.ETA: I was just looking at the map. In my head, I pictured the Convexity to be more squarish or roundish, rather than spread out like that.
Great map! Have you found ETA yet? I couldn't find it.
Irene wrote: "I loved the list of life lessons on pg. 202-204. Someone explain Lyle to me. He is just a talking head that sits on the paper towel dispensor in the weigt room? How is he related to Hal?"
Irene, I enjoyed the life lessons as well.
I've got no idea who Lyle is or what he's doing on top of the towel dispenser. I do get a chuckle out of picturing a cross-legged guru/swami-type character just hanging around like that. He does go somewhere at night, I think. There was some mention of no one knowing what he does at night.
Petra wrote: Great map! Have you found ETA yet? I couldn't find it. "I did! Took me a little while. To the north and west of Brookline is a noticeable clump of markers - that's the town of Enfield. The tennis academy is one of the white markers. (Within the block formed by Cambridge St./Warren St./Commonwealth Ave./Washington St.)
Thanks, Stacie! I'm going to check it out. I couldn't find it.Big Question re: next week's reading schedule:
A lot of us are behind and I'm having a bit of trouble keeping up with the reading schedule at about 100 pages a week (the 16 1/2 page footnotes aren't helping, in this respect :D ).
Next week's schedule is longer than usual at about 120 pages (plus footnotes). Should we split that week into 2 weeks to give people a chance to catch up?
Where is everyone at? Should we maybe skip a week completely and have a catch-up week?
I don't want anyone giving up because they're falling behind.
How are we doing with this book? This is my first group read here. I'm having a great time with this book and the discussion and wouldn't want anyone to fall off the wagon.
I'm keeping up right now, but support adjusting the schedule to help others catch up. I think the discussion is better when we've all had time to do the reading.
I am way behind and reading it on the Kindle so I don't even know where I am! At least 1 week reprieve would certainly help me.
I am hoping to catch up over the week but from 150 to 500 would be a big jump. I would welcome the reprieve like Meg also. I agree with Amy about having us all able to keep posting in the discussion.
I would LOVE a reprieve week.For those reading on a kindle, do you measure progress - as percentages or by one of those weird page numbering? I am reading part on my iPad and part on my physical copy, but we could try working something out so you know where to stop/start.
Maybe quoting the first/last sentence of each week - assuming you would be willing to bookmark it. If it is percentages, we could always give rough estimates of where each segment starts.
I can make a list of chapters and their last sentence for each week's reading, if that helps.I sometimes enter the percentage I've read as an update here on GR, then go to your "currently reading" list, go to "view", then "graph". The graph shows progress in page numbers.
It's sometimes fun to watch my progress through a book, especially one like IJ.
I am setting up bookmarks for my iPad right now, so I can probably do that if you'd like, Petra.Great tip for the page numbers, by the way! Didn't know that.
Well, since I was bookmarking my iPad copy, I decided to go ahead and post it here anyway. For the percentages, the first one represents the calculation for the physical copy (last page/1079) and the second one represents the pages for my iBooks copy with the smallest possible font (last page/1750). In both cases it counts the footnotes, so if your version doesn't, please let me know so we can account for that.The value changes, but I guess it gives a nice general idea of your weekly goal.
I hope it helps.
Starting from Week 3:
Jan 13-19: pgs 198-299 - 27.7%, 26.9%
First sentence: "1610h. ETA. Weight room. Freestyle circuits."
Last sentence: "Of particular interest are the eyes."
Jan 20-26: pgs 299-379 - 35.1%, 34%
Last sentence: "... various cartoon characters, which Himself eventually started regarding as deep."
Jan 27-Feb 2: ps 380-508 - 47.1%, 45.6%
Last sentence: "... moving jaggedly and making Marathe think of many windblown sparks."
Feb 3-9: pgs 508-601 (to: “that was a matter of opinion.”) - 55.7%, 53.7%
Last sentence: "Orin's smile wasn't as cool as he thought as he told the seated figure that that was a matter of opinion."
Feb 10-16: pgs 601-698 - 64.7%, 62.2%
Last sentence: "She could barely stand to think about them, even at the best of times, which the present was not."
Feb 17-23: pgs 698-808 - 74.9%, 71.8 %
Last sentence: "... looking up and past Hal, his face unspeakable."
Feb 24-Mar2: pgs 809-902 (to: “knock down.”) - 83.6%, 80.3%
Last sentence: "I was impossible to knock down."
Mar3-9: pgs 902-981 (end) - 90.9%, 87.3%
Last sentence (ever.): "..., and the tide was way out."
I' more or less on schedule but I don't mind if we slow down a bit!
Thanks, Julia, for posting the end sentences. I'm glad the graph option works as an alternative.
Okay, lets take a bit of a break. I've got this week's summary ready but will wait until later this week to post it. There will be no update next week, we'll take a week long break. I will change the dates on the reading schedule.
It'll feel good to have us all together on this read. It's a whopper!
So, what should we be up to by the end of this week?
Here's the update of the reading schedule:UPDATED Dates:
Jan 20-29: pgs 299-379
Jan 30-Feb 9: ps 380-508
Feb 10-16: pgs 508-601 (to: “that was a matter of opinion.”)
Feb 17-23: pgs 601-698
Feb 24-Mar2: pgs 698-808
Mar3-9: pgs 809-902 (to: “knock down.”)
Mar 10-16: pgs 902-981 (end)
On Tuesday (29th), I'll post this week's summary. Then we'll have a week & a half (Jan 30-Feb9) to read the next section.
Then we're back on a weekly schedule. We can readjust the schedule after that if we wish. We'll play it by ear.
Does this sound good for everyone?
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I love the subsidized time pic!