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Infinite Jest
Infinite Jest - Spine 2012
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Discussion - Week Ten - Infinite Jest - Page 902 - 981
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My last random thoughts and impressions of IJ--As a former student of philosophy, as was the author of IJ, I know well the two main traditions in Western thought. One might be called the Platonic; the other Aristotelian.
Generally it’s intuition vs. reason; mysticism vs. rationalism; idealism vs. empiricism. That said, I feel quite strongly that time is unreal. It may look real and we might feel succession, but in fact, it’s an illusion. It is not a succession of moments. You cannot find the beginning and end of the supposed moment. And for all we know, time, if it flows, might be flowing backward.
This epistemology helps me to understand the end of this book. The narrative breaks down because ultimately there is no narrative. There cannot be closure. This book, and in fact, all books, will be obsolete since reading itself, a recent development in human history, and not acquired through evolution, like speech, are going away.
(It’s also possible that we did not read a book, but viewed a firm called IJ by James O.)
The Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) is the minute area of the brain where reading works. I don’t believe my twenty year old daughter uses this part of the brain and this area will atrophy as it has already done in most “plugged in” people. It’s amazing to me that some of us can read such a difficult book, when many others don’t read a single book after high school, or consider reading to be a little distraction before bedtime. I found the reading experience of IJ almost unsurpassed from any other experience's I've been having lately (at 60).
So, I feel rather arrogant that I finished IJ. But big deal. Who’s impressed? Only us readers. Stronger than the majority of the “educated” who perceive books and reading to be an ancient technology.
If W was prescient perhaps it was in announcing The Entertainment is here. It’s our fucking iPhones.
Any future novel that doesn’t have its characters continually on cell phones texting would be irrelevant and inauthentic and unrealistic. Also boring. Unless Zadie Smith can pull it off in NW which is my next book.
By the way, I do not think W’s technical stuff in IJ is not outdated (especially the “cartridge”) It was W himself who said there’s too much information. And I suppose W tried to create a fictional world like that. But even he couldn’t predict how bad since he wrote his book. A world of Information Overload is a horrible existence.
Another philosophical point first made by Kant is that there is no ontological difference between fiction and the world. I believe W used this precept in his book since he wants us—the reader—to continue the story. It’s called the “integrationist” approach to fiction/world. The author and reader create a fictional world. Gately and others will alway live in my mind. I will wonder what he's doing now. Children with Joelle? Suffering information overload?
All this being said—my ending for IJ is that The Entertainment took over. The bad guys won. There were no good guys, except the slobs at AA. We don’t know, however, how many viewed The Entertainment since mass TV seemed to be passé in the book. Maybe it was only millions before it was withdrawn. And I only hope Gately and Joelle are living somewhere away from society in some little community like the primitives in Brave New World.
Does this still allow for the “Ending,” which was the beginning: Hal in town for the WhataBurger, attending an admissions interview accompanied by CT and deLint, unable to make speech (WTF happened? DMZ? The Entertainment? Bob Hope withdrawal? Puberty? The Wraith? Gately? Enlightenment? CT gave him poison ala Hamlet? A new Hal capable of feeling, which is more important than a speechless Hal?). And how can Orin be still alive and playing in the NFL. Who’s watching the games if The Entertainment was like a WMD? Or did life go back to “normal.” After all, the college interview is one year later after the end. A lot can happen in one year.
Don’t know why, but can’t get the sadistic Linda McCartney remix/Fackelmann screaming re-remix out of my mind. I think that sound track would be effective in any kind of military torture or Tarantino film.
Gately felt “obscenely pleasant” on the last page. He seems to have gone through birth, death, rebirth not unlike the descriptions of viewing The Entertainment. Again, I think of the end of 2001 and the embryonic “Starchild.” By the way, I often thought of HAL, the computer in the movie. Which Hal had more feeling? In fact “the trip” the astronaut may not be unlike taking DMZ, since LSD is used for trippers taking DMZ to “come down” from it.
It’s a mind blower all right. That’s apropos given all the minds blowing up in this book. When you think about it, the book is a kind of sadism, or “saddism” as Gately thinks it’s pronounced. A joke since this book was both sad and sadistic.
I can’t get over the seriousness of the sections taking place at Ennet House. The clichés. As an intellectual (quasi?), I would never abandon philosophy, science, literature for some clichés. As is mentioned many times “believing in a god that only morons believe in.” I wonder what happened to Erdedy and Day, characters more like me. I’m not so convinced they are intellectual fools. Without language, real authentic language, life would be like a commercial. I wonder if the so-called “serious narrator” (some call him Wallace) in the AA sections was also a jest.
Thanks, everybody, I enjoyed reading this book with Brainpain. Especially Jim. Looking forward to final comments. Keep up the good work! I do wish more of you contributed but I suppose it’s understandable. I will reread in three years.
Hopefully the discussion will continue for those who couldn't keep up with the pace of you champions! I definitely intend on finishing-I'm more than half-way finished after all & am really enjoying it-but I will miss the intelligent input of those of you who led the discussion. I think I will be re-reading it as I go along.Happy holidays to those of you who celebrate anything & happy life to the rest of you! ;-)
Mod
And a Happy Holidays to you and yours too!
IJ has reached some sort of tipping point. I'm following 3 IJ discussions on GR and one on Librarything. There is somehow a "message" or some kind of truth being spoken in this book that is finding resonance in the here and now of 2012, so finish when time allows and add your piece to the discussions. As Phil says above, this book is worth the reading AND the discussing, so we can keep it rolling as long as it needs to roll...
There is a discussion between Mario and The Moms that I think you are going to really enjoy when you get there. 'Til then...
My theories (guesses?) about the ending are less philosophical than Phil's. I think Gately was having a fever dream. We see him in the hospital running a high fever before the scene cuts to the hellish/surreal scene at Mt. Dilaudid. I think Pemulis passed some DMZ to Hal at their last meeting. Actually, from the first time in the book that DMZ was mentioned, I assumed that was the explanation for Hal's condition in the first chapter. The theme running through the book that seemed to be the "unifying" theme was how humans seek escape from reality in such self-destructive ways. People use drugs or drink or fantasy or "entertainment" to escape aspects of their real file that are hard to deal with, and at some point the "escape" takes over the "real" life.
Casceil wrote: "My theories (guesses?) about the ending are less philosophical than Phil's. I think Gately was having a fever dream. We see him in the hospital running a high fever before the scene cuts to the h..."Your theories/guesses are compelling.
I'm sort of philosophical, so I might be making things more complicated--but that's my hardwiring.
I see all of your ideas as possible. Addiction and escape seem to be the main themes. One antidote to this might be Eastern wisdom. To practice non-attachment but I don't think there's any of that in the book.
Sometimes I think Gately might have just got a ice cold wash at the end pages which stimulated his dream. Perhaps he had gone deep inside himself to see the nature of his addiction. His all time low so to speak.
I am hoping he got better! The imgage at the end I get is Gately is some kind of evolutionary fish emerging from the water onto the beach...Ah, rebirth.
but then again, it does seem like doctors and nurses were working on him continually. while he was in his fever dream. The hot and cold might come from his treatments.
re: the DMZ-- do you think Pemulis dosed Hal (as he's been known to do) or did Hal choose to take?
The dosed theory seemed to tie in the Hal's toothbrush. Could the drug have been placed on the bristles?
You know it's funny, I read books to escape my life and my point in my final comment is that sometimes the book takes over my real life.
IJ was quite a story world. There's no doubt of that.
it's difficult to put the book on my shelf. It's been in my sight for 2 months in the living room where I read.
Phil, re Pemulis "dosing" Hal. I wondered about the NASA glass. I would have to go back to check the text, but it seemed to me that Hal left the NASA glass somewhere, asking someone else to keep an eye on it, but carried the toothbrush with him, since no sane person let their toothbrush out of their sight at ETA. Later, though, Hal clearly has the NASA glass when he is lying on the floor in the viewing room.
Thinking about reading and books as an escape, I am certainly an addict. I wonder if, for DFW, writing was also an addictive escape.
Let me check on the glass if I can find in text. I thought maybe because hal was so paranoid about his toothbrush maybe the DMZ was rubbed on the bristles.Good comment about objects in ETA. Those were some horrible kids.
From what i know, Wallace found writing novels to keep him from committing suicide. Evidently the drugs he took allowed him to write and be creative at a later age. I am sure it was an addictive escape but like most writers he finally hit the writer's block and couldn't produce. Then he tried to stop taking meds. He then killed himself.
P.S. I just finished my thousand words today on my new novel and feel what the existentialists might called "justified." I always feel good for a few hours. Like I accomplished something. Now I will read and loaf and think good and bad thoughts...
The confusing part about the NASA glass is the first full paragraph on page 873. It starts, "I grabbed my toothbrush and NASA glass from the vent's protrusion," has a clause about never leaving a toothbrush unattended at ETA, and ends, "Keep an eye on Stice and my NASA glass right there, Jim, if you would." Looking through that part of the book, though, there are signs that Hal might already be affected. On p. 875, The janitors ask about Hal's facial expression of "hilarity."
some penultimate thoughts on "finishing" IJI'm quite taken by the "final" images of this book. It's a horrifying scene with Fackelmann and Gately and Mt. Dilaudid. Ditto the emphasis on eyes. The vehement cut that is the last pages of the book when the story is perhaps located somewhere else. And yet the violence of it makes it more real when in reality it is merely memory and fever dream. Is Gately entertaining the thought I wonder?
But I thought that was part of IJ's point. All of these characters are lost in escapism. And the only time we seem to get new "plot" in the book happens when characters are flooded with the past when they are sobering up.
When you stop using after years of abuse, the things that do come forward are the memories that you hadn't cared about, and, perhaps the other message, the actual problems that turned you to using in the first place. That's one reason why IJ is backwards shaped for me.
Phil said: "You know it's funny, I read books to escape my life and my point in my final comment is that sometimes the book takes over my real life."
YES! That's it! The "problem" is that it is entertaining. IJ is nothing if not a novel. And novels
are essentially things that close you off to the world by taking you out of it. It has to create its world to make its point, (plot or what have you), and perhaps Wallace is (was) showing us how much we are involved in that process when we read. (Also was noting the the usage of the word "entertain" throughout the novel, for example "to entertain a thought" can be seen as just as dangerous many times in this book, Gately's time in the trauma with his addiction and the Wraith)
I haven't looked back at points to figure if the DMZ was dosed. But it seems to me the "other universe" that may be in IJ is sobriety. Reality as it turns out. I can't say for sure though just yet as these comments are kind of off the cuff.
@Casceil: Reading and writing certainly can be forms of escapism, but I find that when I write I'm trying to figure something out. And I really do think DFW was really trying to get to the heart of the problems of our era.
Casceil wrote: "The confusing part about the NASA glass is the first full paragraph on page 873. It starts, "I grabbed my toothbrush and NASA glass from the vent's protrusion," has a clause about never leaving a t..."I just reread and see you're right about the glass. perhaps NASA suggests "taking a trip."
Another thing about toothbrush. Early on Gately did
something scatological to a ADA's wife's toothbrush which sent her over the deep end.
Matthew wrote: "some penultimate thoughts on "finishing" IJI'm quite taken by the "final" images of this book. It's a horrifying scene with Fackelmann and Gately and Mt. Dilaudid. Ditto the emphasis on eyes. The..."
I'm with you all the way. Do you remember Gately early on at the Ennet House saying detoxing had opened him up to "reexperiencing" events? I was struck by the difference between "reexperiencing" and "remembering." This is when Gately reexperienced painful childhood memories of his mother and the M.P. beating her.
Do you think the first chapter is a "re-experience" of the DMZ episode?
Mod
What DMZ experience? Did you find something conclusive in the text that makes you believe they took the DMZ trip? I haven't found anything to "prove" it ever occurred.
Sorry, I meant a re-experience of whatever had happened a year before.
Mod
I was excited for a moment there because I thought you might have found some evidence of a trip. Wallace concludes almost none of the threads he starts.
Casceil, I see no evidence to say that the DMZ was ingested by Hal or any other character.
Here's the basic timeline from November 4 thru 20 YDAU:
From the 4th to about the 9th, Hal is still smoking Bob Hope, but goes cold turkey after the Eschaton fiasco and the close encounter with the drug test.
4 November YDAU p. 169 - 171
Pemulis successfully buys 13 DMZ tablets from les frères Antitoi.
5 November YDAU p. 242 - 258
Orin calls and forces Hal to recount the gory details of Himself's suicide and its aftermath, '"That something smelled delicious!" I screamed'
6 November YDAU p. 211 – 219
Pemulis, Hal, and Axford discuss the ins and outs of DMZ, how much to take, should they sell it, sample it, what are the facts, etc.
The tablets are from the early 70’s, and so now, 25-30 years later, they may likely have lost potency entirely, so even if they took them, would anything happen?
Pemulis stores the tablets in an old sneaker.
Pemulis believes they need a 36-hour window of opportunity to take the trip, which would have to be 11/20-21. But Pemulis must make the Whataburger travelling team to have those days free.
Around the 10th or so, Hal goes cold turkey and for the first time, in a very long time, he must face the grueling reality of his life at the academy. Remember too, that Orin has just recently forced him to recount the gory details of finding Himself post-microwave.
12 November YDAU, Note 321, p. 1063 – 1066
Hal tells Pemulis he thinks he had a DMZ nightmare. This is AFTER Hal quits the Hope and is experiencing his withdrawal.
Pemulis tries to convince him to take the DMZ trip to help clear his head.
14 November YDAU, p. 782 – 785
Late night interface in the dark between Hal and Mario.
“It’s Pemulis they want” Hal explaining what’s going on with Eschaton and the urine testing. Hal realizes Pemulis finagled the 30 day urine test extension to save pot-head Hal’s ass and career. Hal is realizing he has a true friend in Pemulis, and feels shitty that he can’t help save him – depression setting in.
“only forty hours without Bob Hope and already I’m bats inside” – Hal without the weed feels himself slipping.
17 November YDAU, Note 332, p. 1073 – 1076
Pemulis is called to a meeting to discuss the John Wayne doping. Towards the end, they show him his yachting cap, visine bottles, and other contraband/paraphernalia. He does not see the sneaker with the DMZ in it. After they give him the shoe, he asks if this will affect his chances to play in the Whataburger tournament.
20 November YDAU, p. 896 - 902 and 906 – 911
Hal discovers horizontality, post-frozen-Stice.
Pemulis pops in for an interface. Hal tells him the DMZ trip is off (908).
A short paragraph on p. 916 has Pemulis going to his stash in the subdorm and finding the ceiling panels are on the floor broken and the old sneaker with the DMZ is missing. I think one of the reasons he urgently wants to speak privately with Hal is because the DMZ is at large and he is probably afraid of what might happen to whomever found it and ingests it, given its reputation for destroying the minds of the users. Hal is Pemulis's buddy, and I doubt he would have the motive or cruelty to hurt Hal.
And so, Hal's behavior appears to be a result of both withdrawal and the attendant nightmares and waking depression of having to face his true reality, both as a budding tennis star, as witness to his father's suicide, as child of an extreme narcissist/nymphomaniac/control freak, and a broken dysfunctional family. The grimaces, the difficulty communicating, the horizontality and its heaviness, plus the thought of jumping out a window to permanently damage his ankle and escape the narrow path he's been on - the psychic chickens have come home to roost and I don't believe DMZ is necessary to have created the mess that Hal finds himself in.
Or something like that...
Jim, you make many good points. I think, from the first time Pemulis and Hal discussed the DMZ (Oct 4) I started assuming that Hal must take it by the end of the book, because that would explain why he is the way he is in the first 16 pages. So maybe I convinced myself. I do think DFW deliberately created some ambiguity on the subject. There is a recurring theme about the lingering bad effects of withdrawing from any substance.
Mod
Early on, I thought the mold he ate as a child had some homegrown DMZ mold. And I also thought the DMZ was the reason for his Year of Glad breakdown when it is first mentioned by Pemulis. Unfortunately, when I reached page 981 and found Gately alone on the beach, I had to face the fact that Wallace tantalizes us with all kinds of shiny facts and coincidences that make the mind dart after clues and links that don't exist - kind of like teasing a cat with a laser pointer, LOL!
Even though he leads us down many a blind alley, wild goose chase, fool's errand, red herring, macguffin, etc., it was a great ride and I'm glad we all took it!
Yes, I am glad to have read this book. I don't think I would ever have gotten all the way through it without this group, since it's the sort of book you really need to discuss with others, but no one I know personally is at all likely to read it. I'm looking forward to the group discussion of "To the Lighthouse." I read it in college, and did not really get much out of it. I have tried several times since then to reread it, but something about the prose style is just a little too relaxing, and I keep falling asleep reading it. But this time, with others to discuss it with, I expect to get a lot more out of it.
Jim wrote: "Ian wrote: "Sorry, I meant a re-experience of whatever had happened a year before."I was excited for a moment there because I thought you might have found some evidence of a trip. Wallace conclud..."
I totally agree with your analysis - the DMZ explanation is such a cop out. Thematically also it doesn't make sense- we see Gately hitting the rock bottom & expect him to rebuild his life on that solid foundation- he has "reexperienced" all the horrors of his life but what abt Hal?
So far he has been the priviledged upscale kid,true there's angst in his life but how does he cope with that? Through escape into Bob Hope. Recall his session with the grief therapist(P.253-58)- how he tries to cheat through that as he were writing an exam & must pass with top honours (though the irony here is the therapist himself refused to see beyond textbook definitions of grief just as the academics in the opening chapter fail to get Hal). Thus Hal has to go through that entire process of mourning,understanding & getting his life back on track.Ted Schacht is convinced that "there's like a psychic credit-card bill for Hal in the mail, somewhere, coming" (270). Hal's inability to communicate, his solipsism does not come out of the blue. The boys at the E.T.A. are trained in the most horrible way:
"We're all on each other's food chain. All of us. It's an individual sport. Welcome to the meaning of individual. We're each deeply alone here. It's what we all have in common, this aloneness. E Unibus Pluram . . . . Existential individuality, frequently referred to in the West. Solipsism." (P.112-13).
But IJ is not just about addiction,it's also about recovery & thus hope.
The characters here are reborn through their suffering.
Yet search the net for explanations & it's rife with DMZ theory! Here is one supposedly concrete one-
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend
Though I've two issues with the DMZ interpretation:
Firstly, J.O.I. Would never drug his son as the wraith told Gately how worried he was that his son was becoming "a hidden boy" & suspected him of substance abuse.P.838
Secondly,Pemulis wouldn't harm Hal but then endnote 129 tells us that " Pemulis is a thoroughgoing chilled-revenge gourmet". Wallace leaves things hazy.
And that NASA cup- I think that just goes with Hal's nerdy image.
Mod
I was excited for a moment there because I thought you might have found some evidence of a trip. Wal..."
The blog guy is clearly deep into the Bob Hope and is just making it up as he goes...
Begins: Gately’s cognomen growing up and moving through public grades had been Bim or Bimmy, or The Bimulator, etc, from the acronymic B.I.M., ‘Big Indestructible Moron.’
And so we arrive at the “end” of Infinite Jest
We begin this week with a guided tour of Gately’s gateway drugs. Pemulis insists on a mano-à-tête with Hal, Stat! A brief introduction to Whitey Sorkin’s Twin Towers. Fax has a dilaudid dilemma. Steeply strong-arms Joelle. Gately and Fackelmann scale Mt. Dilaudid. Joelle plays 20 Questions with Steeply. Hal relocates his horizontality to his dorm room. Old Mikey hits the mike. A.D.A. for Suffolk County 4th circuit interfaces with Pat M. re: Amends with Gately. Mario extends a hand to Barry Loach. Orin gets a bug’s eye view of the situation. C and his crew show up for a luxury apartment party. Gately wakes up on the beach. Fin…
NOTE: Next week, 12/24, is our final discussion of the book as a whole. I’d like to ask everyone to re-read the opening section “Year of Glad” pp. 3 – 16 for that discussion. Much like a film noir of the 1940’s or 50’s where the protagonist has reached some crisis point of capture, impending doom, or death, IJ opens on a scene of distress in a University of Arizona conference room. The entire story takes place one year, and more, prior to the opening. With this in mind, we can try and figure out what to make of this story without end, and what might have happened during that missing year.