Week 2 discussion (June 15, page 168)

[Sarah]

It's week 2! Are you on schedule? How are you feeling?

Are you now terrified of having your external artificial heart purse-snatched in Boston by a transvestite prostitute? Can someone really live on the sweat of top-tier teenaged tennis players alone?

Have at it, friends!

[John]

Right on schedule and feeling great. Very much enjoying the book and the sense of humor.

I made a post about this week's reading in last week's thread since the new thread wasn't up yet, but it was about this week's reading (I have to post as I read) so I'll repost it here:

In last year's Infinite Summer (before I jumped ship) there was a lot of talk of Hamlet. There are many Hamlet parallels and nods to Hamlet throughout IJ. The title, of course, and Himself's production company was named Poor Yorick. I was thinking that I should go back through and read Hamlet as I read IJ, but I don't know if I have the time.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that.

I was thinking a lot about Hamlet's reflection on the absurdity of life while reading the section in this week's reading where the boys are all talking about their mechanical training and the tiny chance of actually making "The Show." I love that scene where it move between rooms of older guys talking to younger academy kids. And we have the image of Schtitt's skull grinning as he's flossing his teeth, making me think of Yorick.

Any folks familiar with Hamlet?

Also, what did you think of Mario's weird sexual experience in the woods? (There has to be a joke about searching for an erect tripod in the forest in there somewhere).

[Lauren]

I liked the scene about the guys mentoring the kids too, it reminded me of something that you'd see in a film.

Mario's sexual experience definitely made me laugh, imagining Hal looking for him, Mario laughing hysterically, and then Hal running right over. Poor Millicent :p

I'm kinda hoping that all of the storylines will start to tie together. The mixture of styles makes the book kind of interesting but it's also hard to get a grasp with the characters and ideas changing so often.

One of my favorite experimental parts was the chapter about Poor Tony and them trying to get the drugs. I definitely felt the desparation/fixation on the drugs and thought the run on sentences/drug slang gave it a good voice.

I also liked the part about the video call masks. If it did take off, I can't really imagine it dying out again for telephones with how much we enjoy being able to bask in vanity. Could things like Facebook eventually be considered ridiculous and vain, in the same way as wearing a plastic mask on a video call?

[Dustin]

Loving it! A few notes:

On page 164, Himself's Himself says "That's a boy. That's my J.O.I. of a guy of a joy of boy," J.O.I as in James Orin Incandenza's initials. Love the subtle cleverness.

Heavy mention of spiders toward the end of this week's section.

DFW totally predicted FaceTime, and he was spot on about vanity and stress, in my opinion.

In the magazine article, is Steeply writing about Maranthe's wife or another person? Would Steeply be able ot make this connection? Does Orin realize Steeply is a man in disguise?

C's eye popping out is pretty damn disturbing, DFW really captures a sense of desperation here. With the drug being Drano-laced, what will the addicts do? Go back to Wo? Find drugs someplace else? Get straight? It seems like they are less concerned about C's body than dealing with the addiction. Very, very sad.

I laugh each time I read "militant grammarian."

All for now!

[John]

That section on the video phones is so funny and it's so DFW. I couldn't imagine any other writer tackling it like that. Really, that could be said about the whole book, but that section in particular had that distinct introspective, funny, and insightful balance going that he manages to do so well.

[John]

Lauren wrote: "Could things like Facebook eventually be considered ridiculous and vain, in the same way as wearing a plastic mask on a video call?
"

Eventually? haha -- we might already be there! Wearing a plastic mask sounds like an accurate Facebook description :)

[John]

I actually remember being a little bothered by the video phone section when I first read it -- DFW seems to be a bit more cynical towards people in it. In previous sections, no matter how horrible the characters are, it still feels like DFW believes in the innate goodness of humanity. In this section that doesn't come through as much.

Still a brilliantly written piece of course! And it has one of my favorite quotes: "...it would be like being able to both lie and trust people at the same time".

[John]

Yes, I see what you're saying that DFW seems more cynical here, but I'm not sure if we can assume that the narrator voice DFW creates here shares DFW's views on the innate goodness of humanity. He might be creating a purposefully cynical narrative voice in this section that does not align with his own. Sorry about bringing up the question of narrator again :) but I do think this is a great example of where that matters.

[Dustin]

I took the narration as matter-of-fact, indifferent, although facts can certainly cast light on human vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

Here, it seems like the producers are capitalizing on human vulnerabilities. Producers never want to "lose their shirts," and once stress and vanity were fully realized by the consumer, the product wasn't exactly done away with. Instead, consumers were played. "Oh, well THIS will make you more comfortable, yes? Wear a mask. Not enough? Here's a cut out. Actually, let's make this easier for you and just use an image of a good-looking person." Here, a persuasion to consume, consume, consume trumps human (consumer) consciousness. Only after producers exhausted their options and persuasion tactics did people say "Wait a minute, we actually prefer the old technology. Why have we been buying this crap?"

The damage to consumers is done, though. Now, they are more insecure and look to purchase products without leaving the comforts of home. Immobility? Whatever the case, it's a shame that people were played, their fears and vulnerabilities taken advantage of. I don't know if there's anything that indicates human morality-- the people can still be great people, just victimized.

[John]

I think the videophone section is framed in a way that makes it impossible to be neutral or indifferent. It has a clear perspective of a critic (new technologies stoke cultural anxieties, which stoke newer technologies stoking new anxieties....etc.), whereas the everyday videophone user or a videophone investor or a critic more open to the technology might all have different perspectives on why (or if!) the technology did not catch on.

I do think the perspective on people and technology is cynical, but then again it fits the theme of the book of humans unable to communicate, (which is arguably pretty cynical too -- though a cynic would call it realistic).

edit: I guess this is as good a time as any to ask what you all think of the basic premise of IJ that humans are unable (or unwilling) to communicate. Are we all just bouncing around in our separate spaces, basically impenetrable?

Personally, do you see yourself as a Hal (a "conversationalist" that no one understands) or Himself (understood, but does not understand others). Or maybe we're all Marathe, quadruple agents bouncing between being understood and not understanding back and forth so much we're unsure of where we even are?

Edit 2: The more I think about the videophone section, the more interesting it gets in terms of what it predicted for the future. While videophone is a big part of our lives, texting and text messages are arguably bigger. In a way, we regressed away from even traditional phone conversations toward typing as few (abbreviated) words as possible.

[Griffin Hatlestad]

I think that the theme of being unable to communicate is the theme that really gets to me the most emotionally. While I do believe this narrative is saying that we all have an innermost core that cannot be conveyed (at least fully) to anyone else, I think saying we are impenetrable and wholly separate is a bit too far. Consider Mario and Hal, for example. They may not be able to communicate completely, but they clearly have a deep bond.

I think we are all part Hal and part JOI, whether we are aware of it or not. We all have our interpretive and communicative lenses through which our thoughts and the thoughts of others are distorted, and this creates the loneliness depicted in IJ.

One thing I loved was in the section where JOI's father is talking to him about his knee injury (disgusting). He says of his body during that tennis match "I was in there." We see this phrase repeated in the first scene as well, when Hal was struggling to communicate himself in the interview at U of A.

It's another expression of the theme John was talking about: they seem to be stuck in their bodies, and are unable to fully express themselves for who they feel they really are.

What do you guys think of the bug theme so far? What do you think it does for the narrative? I can think of three examples off the top of my head:

1. Ken Erdedy - The bug that keeps emerging and then concealing itself on his shelf while he waits for the Bob Hope
2. Orin - The cockroaches, both in New Orleans and in Phoenix, which he traps under drinking glasses
3. Himself's father - Black widows, repeatedly described as "flexing" and using their bodies to trip him up

One last thing: Dustinius, I don't think Steeply is describing Marathe's wife in "her" story. She seems too active to match up with the sickly description Marathe gave his wife. Same heart condition though, I think.

[Lauren]

Yeah I noticed a lot off ideas about seclusion in general. How Hal loves the idea of secretly getting high with nobody knowing and lying to Orin on the phone. And the idea of togetherness as the students go through drills in misery.

What do you mean by himself understanding others but not himself? I hadn't picked up on that too deeply. I'm curious to see how Hal develops as a character and we find out why he has those traits. To be honest I haven't been able to relate much to any of the main characters. Their lives and personalities seem to be so ruled by pressure and anxiety, whereas I related more to the third type of person when it comes to the plateau; the one who's just kinda chill where they're at

[Mercurialgem]

Sarah wrote: "It's week 2! Are you on schedule? How are you feeling?

No I'm behind but between today and tomorrow I'll be caught up. =)