Tennis is Pretty Sweet

All I have to say is, I never looked at tennis this way before I read the book.

Of course, that's not REALLY all I have to say. I found the chapter involving James Incandenza's father lecturing him on tennis (pages 157-169) to be amazingly cool. The descriptions were vivid, and I loved the idea of having complete control over your body, of moving your body through space and seeing everything and the idea that people like Marlon Brando can completely dominate objects through simple careful acts. The idea that a tennis ball is a perfect object and that each spin and lob is a product of complete fluid mastery over it. Reading this chapter was like being in a very sharp dream where things are too real to be believed, and I also find it humorous that James' father completely detests golf as an empty, stupid "sport". It is also interesting to note that James' father was deeply upset by his father's lack of support, so he decided to be at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, however James seems unwilling to participate in his father's dreams.

Note that while the character in this chapter is in fact called "Jim", I feel that the use of the initials J.O.I. (pg 164) and the name Incandenza (pg 166) are too coincidental to ignore, combined with the fact that Jim could easily be short for James.

Another thing I thought super cool (and pretty funny) was the description in the cycle of videophony technology. The arc of popularity seems totally realistic and I found it hilarious that it ended up being simply two digitally generated celebrity photos on the visual interfaces. It's an interesting commentary on the behavior of people, and I relate a lot because I have never been a fan of video chat online.

Lastly, I found the chapter with C and Poor Tony to be extremely difficult to read. The sentence structure was obnoxious and I had to settle for not knowing really what was going on throughout. Although it got exciting towards the end, the whole chapter was a long struggle, which I did not find pleasant.

One final note: I KNOW I've seen that bit about the man and the barrel full of bricks on humor sites all over the web. I found that very interesting, it shows that this book has many levels of comedy.

LangComp makes me see the world in parallels

Selected Transcripts of the Resident-Interface-Drop-In-Hours of Ms. Patricia Montesian, M.A., C.S.A.C. Executive Director, Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House (SIC), Enfield MA, 1300-1500H., Wednesday, 4 November – Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment
(p 176)

We’ve encountered many perspectives on across the vast spectrum of drugs and the thought process when planning, using, abusing, et cetera. The whole question of ‘perspective’ and whether or not we can legitimately trust in the claims of the narrator is prevalent through the majority of IJ so far, and has been since page one when we are deceived to the reality of the situation while being told only of Hal’s perspective.
Here, we come across a discussion between all sorts of addicts at all levels of addiction, as a strong parallel to the greater Infinite Jest itself. Each statement presents a problem or state of mind regarding the common theme of drugs and addiction, like each brief section of the book showcases one person’s point of view on that certain drug. With no certain string or tie between speakers, it is hard to follow the logic behind the conversation, but makes sense as in the big picture when one knows the context of the discussion, much like the book as a whole.

I am only able to approach reading Infinite Jest as a whole because I am aware, after having read thus far, of what seems to be the method in which it is written, and can prepare myself for the style and style changes, as well as it’s intimidating size, when I sit down to read a chunk of it. Though connections are coming together slightly more clearly than before in that characters play reoccurring roles, I am still overwhelmed by the construction that is at the moment, to me, still seemingly an acute form of madness.

I very much enjoyed the inclusion of Hal’s essays (140, et c.) This is one of the only places where we are distinctly told that the characters in the book exist in the same world we do. Pop culture references, like the discussion of Hawaii 5-0 and modern technology, connect Hal, in his sober state of mind, to us as readers, which has not been done in such a way until now. We see a conscious view of something we know to be concrete and not skewed by drug use, and we can relate this to what Hal is saying about the subject.

The footnotes simultaneously aggravate and enthrall me. The ridiculous definitions are entertaining, and the stories within stories manage to successfully get my mind off of the real world, from which I desperately need a break. Furthermore, the filmography, though impressive, makes me seriously question David Foster Wallace, even more than the book itself. Why would its presence play such a major role that it was necessary to take the time to create it, and what purpose does it serve? I can’t seem to find one, except as something that I was forced to read through by my own mind, despite the evident lack of necessity of the information it contained.
Also, the fact that every year present EVER, except for in essays relating to the real world, like when Hal mentions the 1970s, are documented in their wordy, unexplained name, like the year of the Whopper, has began to annoy me greatly.

I hope I’ve adequately literarily luminated these parts of the text that I found especially interesting or bothersome.

David's response

What was with the “Jim” part? The dad calls Jim “J. O. I.” And says that their last name is Incandenza so this must be Hal’s grandfather. I’m guessing, which would make Jim Hal’s dad (since the dad’s name is James O. Incandenza).
I felt really bad while I read this part because I just imagined this drunk guy trying to explain all this stuff about grace and respect to a huge, retarded kid (even though it seems like he might be smart since he likes reading).
If Jim is Hal’s dad then he must have somehow passed tennis to his children from his father. There’s a part when Wallace is focusing on Mario and he says that Mario would be the only one of the Incandenza men who wasn’t a successful athlete or something. So does this mean that Jim was a famous tennis player in addition to a failed filmmaker?
Also, it seems like there’s something going on with Jim. We never focus on his character and all we know is that he killed himself with a microwave. It seems like he’s a really nice guy who loves his family, but it seems like he’s got something else going on that we haven’t seen yet. Like he’s a serial killer or tortures himself or something.

There’s also Steeply and Marathe. On page 137 Hal talks to Orin about Separatism in Canadia but the conversation ends before we see why Orin cares about this. I’m not sure yet how the Incandenza family is connected with this but later on it seems like it’ll become more important, especially with the list of Canadian Separatists on page 144. There’s also the article written by Helen Steeply about the woman with the stolen heart, so it seems like the Steeply’s will become important later possibly.

On a final note, I have no idea how the teleputers fits into anything.

Mr. K's Infinite Jest Blog

Mr. K's Infinite Jest Blog

Here are a few things that have really stood out to me from this section of the book. A lot of what we're reading about is tennis. I would say that more than anything else in the book, we read about tennis. However, we only hear about how much practice is miserable, or different rankings, how much the players do not like the coaches. I find it quite strange that after all this talk about tennis, no tennis match has actually taken place in the book. There's mention of different matches, but no tennis play has actually occurred as of yet. I would like to actually read about Hal going a few rounds after all this talk of the sport.

I think the account of the tennis players in the locker room gives a lot of insight into the world and lives of the young players. Based on the description towards the bottom of pg 104, the players' lives seem so tedious. Earlier in the section, the players talk about all the things they wish they could do, the things that they feel a normal person their age would be doing if they didn't have to practice all the time (all of page 102). Then, sitting in the locker room complaining, the text says, "they've all been just here before, just like this, and will be again tomorrow." (pg 104). That quote conveys the idea that these players lead tedious lives that they don't want to lead, and also that they are stuck without the ability or enough motivation to make a change that could relieve them from their misery.


The description starting on page 115 of the different types of people who "plateau" gives an insight into the world of struggles that the tennis players face, but also has implications outside the world of tennis. There are the Despairing, Obsessive, and Complacent types of players. The description of each of these describes the different types of players on their way to the mastery of the sport, but I read it and thought that maybe these types of people also occur in different struggles in everyday life. For example, you could view students on their way to masterying academics as possibly being a Despairing, Obsessive, or Complacent type of learner. The Despairing learner gives in and stops believing they can learn more once they begin to struggle with a subject. The Obsessive learner never wants to give up once they struggle, but end up burning out. The Complacent learner accepts mediocrity when they cannot master a subject and instead tries to build their life around their weaknesses, but the weaknesses eventually become their downfall.


I have not had a pleasant experience with the reading thus far because I can't really figure out what is going on the story. However, the short section about the construction worker's insurance claim (pg 139) was one of the most amusing sections of writing that I have ever read. I'm not sure what it has to do with anything else going on in the book, but few things are as refreshing to read as a guy colliding mid-air with 900kg of brick because of his own ignorance. It was a nice change of pace from triple agents, tennis, and drugs.

One thing DFW certainly does is write without sympathy. I feel like none of the characters whom we've spent a lot of time with at this point are what we could consider "normal" people; they're all quirky and (for the most part) unhappy. There are not yet any healthy relationships in IJ; all we have is people who are wallowing in their loneliness, who focus all of their attention inward. DFW puts people in these ludicrous, pathetically sad/ sardonically humorous situations and we kind of observe them from afar, like little specimens, as opposed to in other books (how often can that be said for IJ?) where we are there with the characters.

I love DFW's choice of words; since I began reading IJ I've been reminded of this short EB White passage called The Hen (An Appreciation)...here is the first paragraph:

Chickens do not always enjoy an honorable position among city-bred people, although the egg, I notice, goes on and on. Right now the hen is in favor. The war has deified her and she is the darling of the home front, feted at conference tables, praised in every smoking car, her girlish ways and curious habits the topic of many an excited husbandryman to whom yesterday she was a stranger without honor or allure.

Although obviously it is entirely unrelated, both EB White and DFW write about normal/usual things in an entirely unexpected manner, by adding specific words or details, that just makes them all the more delightful.

In particular I enjoyed the passage p. 145ish concerning the takeover of videophony and then the transition back to the normal telephone; when videophony was first described, my first thought was (embarrassing…) “you’d always have to look good when you answered the phone!” Really the whole thing was just described in a rather amusing fashion..

p.s....What was the deal with that section (127-135) with the misspellings etc? It was very bizarre, back to the Wardine/ Clenette section almost.

A few years back two particularly witty professors from Amherst wrote a series of short satirical pieces and lumped them together in a compilation titled Sense and Nonsensibility: Lampoons of Learning and Literature. As should already be apparent, the shorts in this collection are focused primarily on poking fun at the tradition of literature and some of its most notable figures via absurd means like faux interviews with long dead poets and the fabricated web pages of revered novelists. The excerpt of a review on the cover perfectly encapsulates the book’s essence: “Monty Python meets Immanuel Kant…”.
In one particular piece the authors create an Oscar-style award complete with a variety of different categories, some more ridiculous than others (in “Most Loathsome Character Who We Love In Spite of Ourselves”, God is nominated for his role in The Old Testament). It was here that I had my first encounter with David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: it was tellingly nominated below the behemoth that is Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past in the “Best Novel Unfinishable By Reader” section.
Of course I didn’t fully appreciate the humor until I glimpsed the physical dimensions of Wallace’s book, and then I didn’t appreciate the quiet and very serious truth in the humor until I tried to read the book and discovered that, sure enough, the book would be a challenge to finish (ridendo dicere severum—through what is satirical tell what is solemn).
Yet, having now –nearly- completed the second set of assigned reading, I feel that the book is becoming increasingly easier to progress through. A permanent set of characters is beginning to materialize (in addition to Hal and Mario Incandenza we are also reintroduced to Erdedy) and recurring themes have begun to mold into the story’s frame as fixtures (tennis and drugs are two prevailing examples). It seems that as I become more familiar with this strange reality that Wallace has constructed I become less distraught by seemingly abrupt changes in the narration or the placement of new characters. On the other hand there are still certain frustrating incongruities, for instance the series of scenes recounting the rendezvous between Remy Marathe and M. Hugh Steeply of the Unspecified Services, however comparatively cohesive, left me with a number of pressing questions (the least piquing of which is why Steeply’s agency requires him to dress in disguise, in this case a woman). Fortunately I’m having to have a little more faith in David Foster Wallace, and I suspect he will reveal both character’s relevance to the rest of the story in due time (he has already dropped some clues). At this point, I think any sort of conclusive assertion regarding Infinite Jest’s essence would be premature. Though I could recite a number of different themes in the book, I wouldn’t feel comfortable telling someone else what the book is about. Perhaps I never will. I think it was Mr. Karafiol who compared Infinite Jest to a puzzle (forgive me if I’ve given credit to the wrong source or similarly misrepresented you Mr. Karafiol). I think this is a particularly acute analogy—the book is by and large a sort of pleasant struggle, certainly difficult and demanding but not so terribly disparaging, a struggle that I expect will be vindicated by the eventual rewards. In the meantime, it's easy to become preoccupied with the hilarity of chapters like the one in which Mario is nearly assaulted by the beastly girl tennis star.

I think something that becomes painfully obvious when you've decided to keep track of all the characters is the nearly absurd number of them (I count 38 significant characters on my list, and this is only the second assigned reading). Yet as the story progresses, what seemed like barely related fragments of various narratives start to coalesce to form the pieces of a classic story. This chaotic mess doesn't offer any easy answers, but if you look for long enough you begin to notice patterns. The book for instance, primarily takes place in Massachusetts and revolves mostly around the Incadenza family. Next you get little bits of plot: the Québecois separatism keeps coming back as well as the life (and death) of Dr. Incadenza. And as if to taunt the readers, DFW tosses in a connection between these to central plot elements on page 137 when Orin calls Hal and asks "What do you know about Separatism?"
Having so many characters also makes make want to classify or categorize them. The best distinction I could think of was between the characters that were central to the plot ('s development) and those sorts of fleeting characters, which I feel DFW uses to illustrate an idea. Good examples of plot-based characters are Hal and Steeply (and maybe Marathe), while good examples of idea-based characters are Erdedy and Schtitt (and maybe Marathe {again}).

Unrelated to analysis; how Dr. I died --> (p.142) (seems really unlikely)
My question about what ONAN stands for answered --> (p.151) (I guess that makes Québecois separatism a little bit more understandable)

The Unbearable Surreality of Being (or, Irony, Tragicomedy, and Wheelchair Assassins)

Overall, it seems to me that Infinite Jest is a comedy in form, but a tragedy in plot, in as much as it has one. Really, David Foster Wallace seems to write more by creating this world as a setting than through using a traditional plot. The book certainly is ironic- the Wheelchair Assassins particularly hilariously so. I was already familiar with how the FLQ caused the October Crisis in Canada in the 1970s, kidnapping several high profile figures and resulting in the government even suspending habeas corpus, invoking a War Measures Act only used then and in WWI & WWII, and positioning tanks on the lawns of the national parliament, so the idea of the Wheelchair Assassins assassinating one of them for being too moderate was hilarious. I think that it really epitomizes the book and what makes it so ironically tragicomic. Though I still don't know quite what to think on the matter of plot with reference to Infinite Jest, I think that it does create a sort of "worldview plot" through the depiction of, effectively, a society that has lost its rationality (or, perhaps, all perspective), extrapolated from ours. It certainly is interesting, though even as someone who appreciates irony, I found the quantity of it rather overwhelming.

Quite a Character

I guess I was somewhat curious when I began my reading about which characters would come to visit us again. DFW does a great job of creating characters with a surprising amount of depth for all the number of pages in which they are presented in. However, he creates SO many characters, it seems increasingly unlikely that even in 1000 pages they could all be woven together into one "story" unless DFW suddenly changes his style drastically. This brings us to questions 1 & 2:

1) We've seen some strongly recurring characters (Hal, Mario, Pemulis...) and some who come back quite a bit less strongly (dealer in the trailer with the snakes, Mildred Bonk & her husband) and some who, as far as I can tell, have not returned at all (Tiny Ewell, Wardine & co.). What significance does it have for a character to recur/not recur?

2) Why have characters that don't recur?


Sort of in relation to #1, we've seen a few characters who somewhat vaguely appear and reapper throughout the story. As noted above, the dealer, Mildred Bonk & her hubby, and James I. are a few. I also thought that Poor Tony was the one who stole that lady's heart (literally) as they mentioned something about a feather boa but it was hard to be sure.

3) As somewhat of a checkup, are there any others who seem like they could have been mentioned before? The people at the Ennet House could certainly be people mentioned a while back. Just sort of wondering about the other ones that people noticed.

These characters often seem to play the odd role of connecting stories that would otherwise be disparate (add in the Medical Atache to that list).

4) Why connect the stories? Why not connect them more? It seems as though (currently) there are a number of vaguely connected plot lines running around, but none really latch onto the Incandeza plotline.


Finally, if some characters, as seems likely, do not come back to visit, they must somehow connect to a broader theme in the book.

5) What are some things all these characters have in common?

[To the above I would tentatively note that a large number seem to be concerned with coping in some sort of way. The ETA is all about coping & so is the Ennet house. Erdedy has interesting ways of "coping" (or not). Much of the Incandeza family (except Mario??) seems to be coping with something although exactly what isn't 100% clear to me.

I also liked Alex's point as it does seem to connect a lot of the stories.]

Just some thoughts, looking forward to seeing the rest of the posts.

Comedy v. Tragedy

In my writing this current post, you will have to forgive me for two things: A) for trying to extrapolate what may or may not be a major theme of a 1000-page novel from a single sentence, and B) for drawing most of my conclusions from last session's section of the book, since that's what I've really had the time to think about. I've been trying to squeeze all of this week's reading into the last few days of the allotted time, which isn't leaving me too much time to truly analyze it.
I did, however, do a fair amount of thinking about last session's reading (admittedly, a lot of it was on the train ride home from our last seminar day.) In my last post, I didn't want to make any stabs at analyzing themes in case I happened to get it all horribly wrong, so I focused on the erratic writing style, but now I'd like to make the attempt to discuss a possible major theme.
I would like to form this entire post purely by taking a single line and connecting it to the title and generalities of the book. Last week (or two weeks ago, whenever it was,) when I reached page 71 and read the sentence, "Nor that jokes and sarcasm were here usually too pregnant and fertile with clinical significance not to be taken seriously: sarcasm and jokes were often the bottle in which clinical depressives sent out their most plangent screams for someone to care and help them," one of my first thoughts was "hey, I wonder if that's the whole point of the book." Now, given the amount of book and how many proto-themes we've seen developing (by which I mean the seeds of what may turn into themes over the course of the book) I would consider it more than unlikely that this is literally the entire point, but I suspect that there may be a major theme here.
In my mind, this line signifies that everything that we percieve or put forward as comedic actually can be horrifying, sickening, or depressing. I certainly think that this is true; I think that being amused, being horrified, and being nauseated come all from the same root-- something not being right, something being twisted out of all normal order. This is certainly true of the novel's first chapter, wherein Hal is talking to the university deans, and the following chapter about Erdedy's addiction. I read both these chapters originally with primarily a sense of horror and sympathy for both characters' situations, but in a different mood, such as many of you clearly were in when you read it, I might have just as easily responded more to the humorous exaggeration and phrasing. This probably holds true throughout the entirety of the book, as far as I can tell. The scenes dealing with the medical attaché and how he is rendered helpless watching a cartridge started off puzzling me, then somewhat horrifying me, and ultimately quite amusing me as he continues to stare blankly ahead, so dominated by the teleputer and so dependent on his wife that he begins to soil himself as he sits their pathetically. If anyone has any more evidence, such as anything from this week's reading, that particularly supports or refutes this idea, why not post it as a comment on this post?
I'd also like to bring the title into this. Infinite Jest suggests a comedy, but the scenes depicted in it are horrifying. Mostly, the title simply leads me to think he has something to say about comedy. I also find it interesting to note, as Sean did with his post last week, that the phrase "Infinite Jest" seems to come from Hamlet; the title which leads us to think about and expect comedy is, in fact, drawn from western culture's most famous, and arguably, best, tragedy (by the way, another tidbit of support for this origin of the title is that one of the films in Incandenza's filmography is produced by Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited). I think that every time you pick up Infinite Jest, whatever mood you happen to have at the time dictates whether you percieve it as hilarious, tragic, nauseous, or horrifying.

Sometimes Very Frustrating

Philip Silberman

The very first thing I thought about when I read Infinite Jest was “what kind of a book is this?” After the first little chapter I expected an almost narrative like situation in the same style he started using. When Erdedy’s section came, I modified my theory and figured it’d probably be impossible to have an 1000 page narrative anyways. Still, trying to follow the plot of Infinite Jest feels very similar to following To the Lighthouse.

While Virginia Woolf uses stream-of-consciousness literary technique, Wallace seemed to take that style, and change it so that he liked it. Each of the little story bits that we go through do have a narrator and I think it’s because it’s someone’s thoughts. Even the sections that seem totally unrelated (at least to me), such as the “Prince Q-------” story (vignette? puzzle piece?) must have some sort of narrator in that they stem from one of the main character’s thoughts. I actually thought his writing style was very interesting, even if at times I became very frustrated.

For each different story, Wallace will modify his prose so that it sounds like the thoughts of the narrator. For instance, in Erdedy’s section, Erdedy is (at least in my first observations) ridiculously obsessive compulsive, so Wallace basically writes how an obsessive compulsive would think. Every detail that crosses Erdedy’s mind is expressed by Wallace in some manner. Since Erdedy’s character is more or less mechanical in his efficiency, Wallace’s syntax and diction are very mechanical. The same goes for every character that narrates a particular story bit. Though it seems like there are multiple narrators, somewhere around five, I believe that number will decrease as the book goes on, as in we will see that the extra character we thought that narrated that section is actually Hal or Erdedy or whatever. I feel like there are many main characters but only Hal and Erdedy (and maybe someone else) would narrate.

In the vein of comedy, I do feel there are very comedic moments. When Hal is pinned down in the beginning by the Deans and his uncles are trying to get him away from them while they attempt to “heal” him in the boys bathroom, Hal wonders who doesn’t like the “leonine roar” of the men’s toilet. I see the book as being incredibly ironic at times, in that it can swing back and forth from dead serious to comedy very easily since Wallace is portraying the thoughts of the characters. Wallace is being ironic, I feel, in his portrayal of the humanity of these characters. I feel that as a reader, I forget sometimes that these are relatively young people and they have their own funny situations.

Of the themes I’ve come across, substance abuse is seemingly one of the most important. Nearly every character in the book abuses drugs, and it’s almost always marijuana. I think it’s very interesting though, the way that each character basically smokes. It’s a real indication of their character, like how Hal can only take one inhalation as opposed to Erdedy who smokes non-stop for days at a time. I think Erdedy’s drug use is actually very sad, because he’s so enveloped in his own obsessive compulsiveness, that he can’t get out of this self-destructive pattern he’s set forth. It’s also very interesting to compare the reasons why each of them are really smoking. All in all, I think this will be a recurring them, and I believe the book will only get more interesting from here.

On behalf of Zorn

So far the story has been portrayed in an unconventional manner, and
it skips around a lot. The interesting thing about the book is that it
seems very disconnected and yet forms a cohesive novel. It is not
obvious now that the novel would not be effective if each story were
to be read separately as its own isolated short story. However there
are elements of each section that connect to parts of other sections
and help develop cohesive ideas that begin to tie the novel and its
storylines together.

Clearly there are recurring themes throughout the novel, most notably
at this moment are tennis and drugs. The ETA and people involved with
it (Hal, James and Mario Incandenza, Charles Tavis, Gerhardt Schtitt)
are all central characters involved with tennis that appear in more
than once section. In addition there are smaller references to tennis,
such as the Medical Attaché's wife going out to play tennis on
Wednesdays.

As for drugs, it is revealed that Hal is (although covert) a fairly
regular user and other characters such as the unnamed man who
anxiously awaits marijuana in his house, the teenagers Mildred Bonk
and Bruce Green, a powerful drug is lectured about by Michael Pemulis,
and Kate Gompert was in a psyche ward because of her addiction.

There are also recurring characters but in different scenarios that
help piece together what is happening, for example in the Year of the
Depend Adult Undergarment on November 1, Michael Pemulis is lecturing
about a particularly effective hallucinatory drug and on the 3rd of
the same month somebody with the surname Pemulis is lying next t Jim
Troeltsch in a dorm in the tennis academy. Orin Incandenza appears
once in his apartment and then later doing a stunt for his football
team. A later chapter is centered around the burglar Donald Gately but
earlier Hal makes a reference to him and Donald digging up his
father's head. It is things like these that help tie together stories
and try to make sense of this whole deal.

While the story is still loosely tied together as of now, the
occurrence of familiar names and ideas and even storylines (one
specific event involving the Attaché seems to be stretched out over
several non adjacent parts) hints at a plot that will draw the
separate short stories together, and it makes this book kind of like a
cool puzzle, which I am enjoying.

Am I Confused? (with some nickname analysis)

I think I must have been confused by the stories some, mainly the first one. When Hal has his outburst and the administration becomes frightened it had at first occurred to me that Hal might just be so gifted that the administration couldn’t even comprehend what he said. What I don’t understand is why Wallace makes Uncle Charlie agree that Hal has problems unless he really did. It would make sense seeing as how his uncle is always talking for him and he’s so shy. I assumed that since it was from Hal’s point of view, he might have seen himself as giving the rousing speech he had so wanted to give but in reality he couldn’t get out the great things he had done, and instead his physical disorders stopped him from being able to communicate his intelligence to anyone. From what I knew about the book beforehand I assumed that it would be referred to again as being the long-term consequence of some drug addiction (which we learn he has later on). Essentially making Hal a depressing character who has an entire wealth of knowledge but cannot apply it.I also thought it was interesting how each character in the family has some sort of vague nickname, Hal, O, The Moms, Him, C.T., these names sort of act as a mask for each of the characters and represent the way that each character hides their own secrets and demons from the rest of the world (and their own family) by means of them. They also take away the person’s identity, making them no longer a person, but Letters or a Pronoun.

Communication Breakdown

David Foster Wallace has, with Infinite Jest, written an "experience novel" rather than a novel concerned with an actual developing plot. The use of named years, as opposed to numerical ones, the lack of any formal seperation between the various segments other than the naming of the time period, and the optional, but informative, interjections of the endnotes all function to fragment the novel into a collage of experiences.

Because Inifinite Jest is not a linear novel, it is very important to pay close attention not only to the individual experience each segment communicates, and how it fits together with the rest of the novel, but also to the actual ordering of those experiences in the book.. So far (through page 87) it appears that the unifying theme of the novel is the breakdown of communication, as evidenced by the juxtaposition of the verbose yet precise diction and the character’s inability to connect through to others.

The first segment is one of three places written in first person(whereas the rest of the text so far has been written mostly in third person).It introduces Hal, also the Narrator for this segment, in what is essentially a horror story. The tension is mainly developed through the juxtaposition between the detailed and perhaps verbose descriptions of the event by Hal and his complete silence. The interjection of Hal's childhood mold-eating story(as a description of his brother Orin's recollection(s)) suggests that Hal may indeed be mute, or at least unable to speak, as his throat, and hence vocal cords, are inferred from their mother's panic to be damaged from the mold. Immediately afterwards, Wallace reveals that while Hal is able to speak, he is unable to be understood as his attempts are perceived as violent, derranged, threatening and animalistic. At the same time, however, it appears Hal does not care for his inability to be understood. He is, in essence, as alienated from other people as they are from him, which is a corollary of the human communication breakdown theme. It is also worthy of note that Hal's physical experience seems particularly surreal and, coupled with the mold-eating, creates the notion that Hal’s own perceptions may be tainted and that the world presented may not be actual reality.

An interesting character is the Father, James Orin Incandenza, whose filmography contains a work by the title of the novel. This is significant, as his filmography also contains a film that is the third segment in the novel. Given the facts that J.O. is referred to as Himself by his family, is the creator of the Tennis academy, his extensive filmography and the fact that Infinite Jest is his life’s work, it seems as if James Orin represents the Creator in the novel’s world. However, he is dead, which may in part imply the lack of guidance for the characters in the novel.

Infinite Jest is, so far, not exactly a comedy because of the stark alienation portrayed that brings its characters closer to tragic. Nevertheless, there are humorous moments throughout the book, albeit most of them off-color. The title, however, suggest if not a comedy, then at least one joke of an incredibly large scale. In part, this creates the expectations that the extremity of the characters’ alienation and other substance-related problems will have a surprising, not necessarily funny, but nonetheless ironic resolution. This is alluded to most clearly in the second segment

Who's telling the story

The first thing that I noticed when I began reading IJ was the perspective from which the story was told. The entire story seemed to be taking place inside the heads of the characters. This may sound like a trivial observation, but the distinction that I am making is that I did not think that very much, if any of the story, is told from a 3rd person point of view. Therefore, there is no way to know for sure what the reality of what is occuring at any point during the story, because the story is only presented to the readers through the perceptions of the character who's head we are in. This is quite apparent in the opening section in which Hal thinks he is behaving perfectly normally and to the reader he is, except that Hal describes what the actions of the other people in the room, the Deans, were doing. Hal is almost trying to convince the reader that he is perfectly fine, but everyone else in the room perceives him to be doing, well, its not clear quite what, because we only see the event as Hal perceives it, which is him giving a speech defending his academic record (page 12).

I think that this is the manner that all of the story is told through: the world strictly as it is perceived by a single person at a time. This method of writing sheds light on why the specific syntax and varying styles of writing from chapter to chapter are used. If you were to listen in to the thought stream of the character's heads, I think it would sound exactly like it is written in IJ. The chapter about Erdedy waiting for his drug delivery shows how Erdedy looks around the room and traces his, as it seems to be written, complete thought process throughout the section. Wallace does not just pick and choose which thoughts are important towards plot development and which are not. He includes the whole train, which in many cases leads to what I find to be dull descriptions of the physical world around the character.

Each section, as the character of focus changes, is accompanied by a change in the writing style. For example, the section from pages 37-38 shows a very different grammatical structure than the other sections. My guess would be that that structure is how the thoughts really sound to that person (I'm not sure of all their names, but I believe this particular character's name is Clenette). This idea of being in the heads of the different characters makes all the stylistic changes throughout the book much more reasonable.


-Lawrence Tanzman

Reading Assignment 1

Wallace conveys such a fragmented story that my mind practically begs for some of the pieces to come together. In particular, I'm frustrated by some of the references/acronyms he uses and then comes back to, but never explains. For instance "The Great Concavity" and "The Great Convexity" come up twice, but I have very little of an idea of what they are (Also, ONAN, which may or may not be a joke concerning onanism). On the other hand, he also comes back to a few things in different plot threads (The drug dealer with snakes, the Québecois-separatists) but they never make much sense. This suggests that there is some sort of underlying connection between the different threads, but only begins to whet our appetite for coherence.
It seems to me that the story is being told by different people entirely and not just different points of view between sections. The tone, diction, and even the reliability of the narrator change dramatically as the story progress. One second we have the calm, erudite Hal, the next we are left with anxious and unreliable Erdedy, and in case that was too easy, we also find ourselves with colloquial Clenette.
Some of the situations presented are humorous at first read, but after some thought become very tragic. Specifically, the violent reaction to Hal's calm, composed response is absurd in a sort of slapstick way, but really it seems like the stifling of a perfectly fine intelligent person.
The themes which I feel play the most important role so far are entertainment and addiction. Because so many of the characters do drugs (13/36 of the footnotes are primarily about drugs), the two go roughly hand in hand.

Is the writing style parodic or just obnoxious?

In reading Infinite Jest so far, things like some major motifs and possible themes have emerged, (the references to insects being an example of the former, people being somehow out of sync with other people's reality being an example of the latter,) but none of this is as interesting (immediately) to me as the writing style. In a sense, the writing style is atrocious. He uses sentence fragments, ends questions with periods instead of question marks, and frequently changes his tense, narrative tone, and even person.
I would say that this is inexcusable, but in writing, anything is excusable; it just requires a good enough excuse. That is to say, I'll appreciate the way he is writing only once I grasp whether or not he has a valid artistic reason. It is possible that he is using these intentional errors to satirize contemporary speech and/or writing, or it is possible that he is merely cultivating an odd style to lend his writing a more distinctive flavor. Hopefully it is the former, because I don't want to endure the nauseous effects of questions ended with periods for much longer if there isn't some good artistic reasoning behind it.
The writing is certainly creating interesting effects. He varies it from complete colloquialism (not to mention the pure-slang section starting on page 37,) to very formal tones of voice, which gives the whole book an interesting sense of discontinuity, enhancing the sense that none of these chapters have much to do with one another, although hopefully we can look forward to some coalescence later. The sections are also internally disjointed in this way, because he combines some of the more colloquial turns of phrase, e.g. ASAP, etc, with some very erudite and scientific vocabulary. My theory, or at least my hope, is that the varying styles are meant to characterize the focal characters of their chapters, and that the disjointedness, disunity, and combination of opposites is all meant to say something about humanity. Otherwise, I will be irritated.

So far Infinite Jest is a comedy in style but not in actual happenings; it’s like David Foster Wallace is observing all these miserable people and casually dissecting their lives kind of flippantly, without any compassion or empathy. I thought the most arresting sections were the ones about Erdedy’s and Kate’s drug habits, and then the one about the poor old man suffocating due to all the mucus in his nose; they’re “funny” only in the most depressing and ironic sense. I like that David Foster Wallace’s writing style changes so dramatically between stories: sometimes it’s perfectly coherent standard English, then it’s statistics and shorthand, then there’s no punctuation whatsoever.

In the Erdedy drug section, specifically, it’s jagged, rambling thought starting with “Where was the woman who said she’d come.” No question mark, because Erdedy isn’t really wondering, he’s just expressing anxiety. At the end of that section (p 27), the description of Erdedy’s awaiting his drug supplier (“he moved first toward the telephone console, then over towards his intercom module, then convulsively back toward the sounding phone, and then tried somehow to move toward both at once, finally, so he stood splay-legged, arms wildly out as if something’s been flung, splayed, entombed between the two sounds, without a thought in his head.”) reminded me of the Buridan’s ass paradox: that if an entirely rational donkey, whatever, is staying equidistant from two equal stacks of hay, will starve to death rather than choose one since there’s no rational reason to pick one over the other.

I’m about ready for the story to come together, but even as separate anecdotes I’m enjoying Infinite Jest because I love the way David Foster Wallace writes, and the bizarre little details he adds (the image of a maze of glass tumblers on the floor, each in the process of asphyxiating a cockroach, for example).

Sam Devenport

Though there are a variety of evident similarities between the style and certainly the content of the different story fragments, I did not find them nearly as notable as the differences. From short to short David Foster Wallace seems to vary his approach towards narration: in some fragments he writes with an officious tone, paying due respect to the conventions of the English language, while in others he speaks colloquially, casually, his sentences rolling with a certain fluidity that brazenly ignore grammar and punctuation. In these instances it almost seems like Wallace is avoiding the writer’s issue of making choices, that is making choices regarding what details to include in his story (to me it seems he is either making choices in an indiscriminate fashion or not making choices at all—he writes unobstructed, unopposed, describing absolutely everything whether fit or unfit. I suspect that there may be a correlation between his style of writing and the character he is addressing. Notice how, for instance, when talking about the plight of a certain unnamed addict, or rather periodic addict, from page seventeen through twenty-seven, Wallace writes with a quickened pace, leaving little room for parenthetical breaks, detailing every minor aspect of the moments waiting for his dealer’s phone call, tracing his calculated logic, his every emotion. This style of writing feels almost like a worded depiction of the man’s anxiousness as he eagerly awaits his delivery.) This makes for a difficult state of affairs—I felt the rhythm of my reading often interrupted as I adapted to Wallace’s styles. Further discouraging are all the multi-syllabic names of various drugs he chooses to include in his story (again this dampened the flow of my reading). I also feel that there are certain incongruities throughout the stories, things alluded to but then left unexplained. This is excusable but all together wearying after awhile. Admittedly my reading has been biased-- I concluded stubbornly after about the fifth page that I hated the book. That said, it’s possible that the incongruities that I perceived were more a fabrication of my own unwillingness to read the text carefully and thoroughly (the first eighty pages was a tormenting endeavor to say the least even after deciding that I would approach the book as if it was leisure reading). Yes, I am seeing a comprehensive picture being drawn, that is I am able to recognize the basic story, but I don’t yet understand why the story is being told, and this is one of many questions that have remain unanswered.

Blog (and class) Ground Rules

This isn't a response to Cory's post, but just a few ground rules so we all enjoy ourselves and discuss freely.

1. Talk about the text.
2. No personal history. If you want to dredge up volumes of stuff from WebMD about the effects of pot, alcohol, etc., that's fine, but no stories about what you (or your friends) did (or did not) do, feel, etc. (Why not? It just gets into a weird competition thing, and then all the people who haven't (or have) done, felt, etc. what you did get into these crazy arguments that have nothing to do with the text.) If you have stuff like this that you really need to talk about, ask Mr. K for suggestions about times/places/people to talk to..
3. No spoilers. Especially for this first entry (when nobody is supposed to have read past page 87 anyway), please try not to reveal ideas, connections, etc. that aren't strictly based in the readings so far. IJ is a little like a puzzle, and watching someone else solve a puzzle for you isn't a whole lot of fun.
4. No arguments about things that aren't supported by the text. We'll play the "Why did the author do this?" game since it's an essential mode of literary analysis, but please don't speculate about stuff that's not in the text.
5. Don't quote your classmates' in-class statements. Let them quote themselves, which is more accurate and won't get you in trouble. (So: "Could you blog about what you were saying in class today about Erdedy? I didn't quite get it" is okay, but "I disagreed with your statement that Erdedy is the Nietzschean Ubermensch" is not.)
6. Have fun. Really, I mean it.

== pjk

Free Will article in NYT

The title of this entry links to a pretty good piece for the layman on free will, a topic we will discuss frequently.

== pjk

Threads

Here are 2.5 things that ran through a number of the stories that I feel are some of the biggies (no doubt more will become clear/be made clear to me)

1) Satire: Corporations are allowed to buy time ("subsidized time") for advertising, a fact which seems to comment on the power of corporations, the weird places advertisments can be found, or both. Further, the power of the US shows up when we are reffered to as a "trash exporting nation." There's also the slightly ridiculous armed resistance in Quebec; something whose satire I'd probably be better able to discuss if I knew much about the situation in its current state.'

The book also seems to poke a lot of fun at people who view things in too academic a manner. Specifically, the Deans & Co. who interview Hal come off as far too absorbed in their academic perspectives to truly judge Hal as a candidate. Their reaction to Hal's admittedly esoteric, but probably insightful, comments is far too funny to take as completely literal (i.e. academics in general are horrified when they are approached by something outside their expectations/something with true value. To them, it all comes out as inhuman noises). Kate Gompert's doctor is also satirized for his inability to look at Kate as a human (and not a subject).

Come to think of it, even the book's language often diverges into the idiosyncrasies of today's language (abbreviations (YDAU, w/o), using "like" a fair bit). In that sense, perhaps IJ doesn't so much satirize but provide something of a homage to today's culture. The other bits noted above are generally portrayed comically and therefore do not have to be taken as things gone out of control.

2) Public vs Private self (differences in expectations of what peopleare like and what they actually are like): A lot of characters seem to have something of a private world within them that they are unwilling or unable to share. Hal, for example, never seems to have truly shared his esoteric essays with anyone (or at least anyone save his teachers) and admits to spending a lot of time (presumably alone) in the library. Tennis, towards the end, is also described as more of a private struggle with oneself and one's limits (appropriately fitting with Hal's dream where he plays tennis but cannot see his opponent). Finally, he also spends all his time practicing for tennis so we would not expect him to have the capability to soak up his reading.

In a similar vein, the other Incandezas' private worlds are also shown to some extent. Orin is wrapped up in his fear of cockroaches, and James seems to have struggled with expressing himself through poorly understood/appreciated film (although in the end he seems to have succeeded with his last film?).

Outside of the Incandeza family, Wardine lives in her own private world of physical/sexual abuse and doesn't know how to react with its collision with her public role.

2.5) Drugs: Drugs (and the weird dealer with the reptiles) come up a lot, especially as another form of private life. Hal, Erdedy, and Kate Gompert (to name a few) all use drugs in extremely private affairs. The main usage of drugs, indeed, is in an obsessively private fashion.
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Are characters' private roles there by choice or by inability? It seems we have a fairly large spectrum: James I. tries very hard to express his private feelings through film (one of his films, for example, is literally the incident where he pretends to be a conversationalist in order to talk to his son); Hal I. is willing but unable to express. On the other hand, Wardine and Erdedy seem to work extremely hard to keep their activities private (though, perhaps, more out of fear than anything else. It seems reasonable to say that what they truly want is someone they can share it with without the fear of consequences)




As a final note, I very much appreciate the ironic style and Cantor/infinity mathematics. I also saw some integral signs in the footnotes which is a good sign (in calculus and non-calculus books both).