Discussion - Week Seven - Infinite Jest - Page 593 - 698

[Jim]

This discussion covers Page 593 – 698


Begins: Live-in Staffers’ duties are divided pretty evenly between the picayune and the unpleasant.

Gately performs his picayune duties. Orin answers a poll after poling a subject. Midnight car moving goes postal when the Nucks arrive, but at least Gately figures out where he knows Joelle from. The WYYY engineer is scooped-up on pond cleaning day. A tense evening in the dining hall finds Hal building defenses on his plate. Steeply recounts his father’s decline into M*A*S*H-obsession to Marathe as the sun rises – could this signal the end of their meeting? The Tunnel Club makes an olfactorally-shocking discovery. Helen Steeply and Thierry Poutrincourt discuss les étoiles de E.T.A. en français. Matty Pemulis snaps to the memory of his own Da. Hal Bob-Hopelessly watches a mini-festival of Himself’s cartridges. Poor Tony Krause strolls post-seizurely towards the Antitoi’s shop. Geoffrey Day misses Lenz’s Hog. Kate Gompert can see the map but not the territory. In the middle of a passage supposedly about Hal and Kate Gompert and anhedonia and clinical depression and “It”, David Foster Wallace makes an appearance (p. 694) to speak about the U.S. arts and hip-ennui.

It appears we have reached the point where the various characters and story lines are beginning to merge. Can you feel it?

To avoid spoilers, please restrict your comments to page 593 – 698 (and the earlier pages).

[Phil]

While reading these pages I was even more struck by the narration in IJ, that is, the narrator’s omniscience. The narrator in these pages moves in and out of the character’s perspective. But with so many games played through free and indirect narration (not the 19th century Dickens kind). For example, how do we know anything about The Moms? It’s mostly (only?) through the other members of the family. Often crucial information is given that the character couldn’t or wouldn’t know. I find that fascinating. My favorite character is Gately. Gately’s not educated and insecure with Joelle about it. And yet he’s pretty smart and makes references and is often capable of eloquent speech (as are all the characters—even the kids at ETA). And—he understands clichés are bullshit and yet…Religious omniscience means the capacity to know all there is to know. But this is not true in literature. An omniscient narrator, almost always a third-person narrator, can reveal insights into characters and settings that would not be otherwise apparent from the events of the story and which no single character could be aware of. And yet, because it’s a novel--and where would a novel be without
“withholding”--the reader is constantly learning something.

I guess I was quite struck by this. I will give three examples:
1—The great great passage beginning on page 608. Gately observing Lenz: “He has that Nietzschean supercharged aura of a wired individual.”

And then Gately’s mind like Philip Marlowe or any great protagonist in a mystery: Cool headedness. Bravery. Ability to slow the action down. Predicting behavior. Beating the shit out of the villans.

2—After a horrific description of Matty’s sexual abuse. Footnote 278 “Where was Mrs. Pemulis all this time…is what I’d like to know.” I don’t know why, but I laughed out loud.

3—Page 694: the appearance of a new narrator discussing anhedonia (original title of Annie Hall, btw) vs. psychotic depression. The former, the narrator says, leads to cool, hip, ironic art, which is the opposite of this novel and Wallace’s point of view. The narrator cleverly says about the “despairing” kind of psychotic depression: “It is also lonely on a level that cannot be conveyed.” I cannot help but think of other novels/novelists of irony that I absolutely can’t stand—like Freedom by Franzen. What Wallace is pulling off here is pretty incredible. He’s offering literary and art theory. And it's not hip!

[Matthew]

Great comments Phil. I found the "Wallace interlude" quite interesting myself.
You are right though, he's being good and entertaining and yet the
way he wrote it, it is in fact unhip. I think because Wallace does not
want us to forget how deadly serious it is for people with those problems
(of which they are certainly not hip, speaking from someone who has personally
dealt with depression as well as other modern maladies). This is part of what makes this passage so difficult to read since its easy to make comparisons with Wallace's own struggles. Although he does use Kate Gompert to sidestep himself.
Speaking of Himself, and the Moms, in terms of those terms, I'm Vaugely recalling
That childhood trauma can affect language output, although I'm no expert in the field.
Perhaps I need to read some Piaget.

Also great Annie Hall trivia Phil, although I am reminded of Annie Hall during the reading
Because I keep thinking about Marshall McLuhan while reading this, who of
Course has that famous cameo in Annie Hall.

Jim, I have no regrets with finally purchasing the book. It's great, but horrifyingly
Easy to identify with, being at various points in my life: a filmmaker(student films but still), writer, alcoholic, and depression-sufferer. Still lots to love though. I'm glad he name-checked Burton since I am reminded of The Anatomy of Melancholy, which could be a secondary title for this book.

Thanks to everybody for the help with the plot. It does seem to be coming together.

[Phil]

Matthew,
we are both kindred spirits...
As you know, Forster famously said in epigram to one of his books--Howard's End----
Just connect!
which Zadie Smith pastiched in On Beauty. But perhaps too ironically for me! I am sick of irony (except maybe in Jane Austen)
This is a simple and cliche-ish slogan I've always kept to heart. It must have certainly guided Wallace--
but with pyschotic depression--well, you know...
I suppose most of these characters are just not connecting with each other. There's no real love or relationships. Again, only "Unironic" Mario could be said to have a chance--but does he really count?
It's almost gratuitous alienation in a book which preports to be about what it's like to be human.
Anyway, onwards.