Fun Times With Drugs?
I have to say I'm growing to appreciate DFW's sort of expert puppeteer style of writing: i.e. very conscious of the way he is trying to move the reader. On this vein, I liked note #61: "...characterized by a stubborn and possibly intentionally irritating refusal of different narrative lines to merge into any kind of meaningful confluence..." :)
I guess that made me a little (only a little) disappointed to have part of the veil of IJ removed through the EH. Speaking of which, though, let me steal a question from Graham:
1) What connections/constrasts are there between EH and ETA?
A few that seem big to me are:
a) Privilege, in that many ETA's (not all, though) have a fair bit of money. Pretty much all of them have a bright future ahead of them, though. In contrast, EH's usually have pretty crappy background (e.g. Emil/yrstruly). The ETA is also, literally, "above" the EH.
b) Drugs
c) "Freedom" (as per Marathe). At EH, your life seems pretty much controlled whereas at the ETA students are allowed to progress freely. Or, alternately, the ETA restricts students' freedoms by sort of choosing their temple as tennis. In either event, both have "rituals."
2) On that note, how does ETA "freedom" compare with EH "freedom?"
Moving along, I'm sort of interested in the narration. Before we'd speculated about Hal being the overall narrator (as the somewhat main character as well as a character who gets to use "I"). Still, mainly he's been third-personated and the role of narration seems to be increasingly left to the somewhat omniscient nameless "narrator" (writer of the footnotes). In retrospect, DFW does this with other characters: he lets them narrate or almost-narrate (e.g. Emil/yrstruly) and then back to 3rd person with them.
3) Why do this?
Onto the Incandezas. At least two scenes (JOI & his Dad, "conversationalist" JOI and Hal) have been films. This means that either we're seeing films in the book or JOI just takes a lot of films from his life (supporting the latter point is (At Least) Three Cheers for Cause and Effect is essentially about the damage to the EH building because of the ETA and his wife's affair).
4) How much of what is not specifically narrated is objective/subjective (such as one of JOI's films)?
5) Oh, speaking of which: is this death-by-Entertainment cartridge of the SMA IJ (V?)? Is that why the AFR is shadowing Orin?
6) If that is the case, are we "supposed" to be viewing this supposedly irresistable Entertainment? (goodness knows that the book is self-referential enough)
I guess that made me a little (only a little) disappointed to have part of the veil of IJ removed through the EH. Speaking of which, though, let me steal a question from Graham:
1) What connections/constrasts are there between EH and ETA?
A few that seem big to me are:
a) Privilege, in that many ETA's (not all, though) have a fair bit of money. Pretty much all of them have a bright future ahead of them, though. In contrast, EH's usually have pretty crappy background (e.g. Emil/yrstruly). The ETA is also, literally, "above" the EH.
b) Drugs
c) "Freedom" (as per Marathe). At EH, your life seems pretty much controlled whereas at the ETA students are allowed to progress freely. Or, alternately, the ETA restricts students' freedoms by sort of choosing their temple as tennis. In either event, both have "rituals."
2) On that note, how does ETA "freedom" compare with EH "freedom?"
Moving along, I'm sort of interested in the narration. Before we'd speculated about Hal being the overall narrator (as the somewhat main character as well as a character who gets to use "I"). Still, mainly he's been third-personated and the role of narration seems to be increasingly left to the somewhat omniscient nameless "narrator" (writer of the footnotes). In retrospect, DFW does this with other characters: he lets them narrate or almost-narrate (e.g. Emil/yrstruly) and then back to 3rd person with them.
3) Why do this?
Onto the Incandezas. At least two scenes (JOI & his Dad, "conversationalist" JOI and Hal) have been films. This means that either we're seeing films in the book or JOI just takes a lot of films from his life (supporting the latter point is (At Least) Three Cheers for Cause and Effect is essentially about the damage to the EH building because of the ETA and his wife's affair).
4) How much of what is not specifically narrated is objective/subjective (such as one of JOI's films)?
5) Oh, speaking of which: is this death-by-Entertainment cartridge of the SMA IJ (V?)? Is that why the AFR is shadowing Orin?
6) If that is the case, are we "supposed" to be viewing this supposedly irresistable Entertainment? (goodness knows that the book is self-referential enough)
posted by Cory at 5:39 PM
4 Comments:
Cory this is a response mostly to you and somewhat to the discussion our class had last week.
In Walllace's first section (ei Hal in his college ionterview), many of us were shocked to see that mild manner Cory found this scene to be "funny". Though after taling to Cory personally, he explained that he thought this oppening scene was "funny" versus "horrifying", because of his own experiences with college interviews and he said that the interviewers which he met with could not understand things requiring thought.
In continuation of this idea I would say that IJ is a
Sorry, I accidently deleted the rest of my post.
In having this stated I would like to say how this is very astute observation, particularly since in many other situations Hal is perfectly capapble of speaking to others. In many situations he is also portrayed as a functioning being
This leads us to the examination of the the other characters around the main, they have not been examined very much. Is Wallace merely creating an eccentric or socially disabliltated characters which is interacting with seemingly normal others, or rather could Wallace be creating a characters which are being inhibited by the socially disblilated and ignorant around them?
On another note, I would also like to say how I enjoy Wallace's forced feeling of isolation and outward perspective from reading the book. Though when Hal is in his college interview, the reader is more connected to Hal, since IJ reads more like a novel in this passage. You feel more connected to Hal and therefore see the instance as horrigying. I feel another prominent instances in which Wallace allows you to connect to the character is the first section from the reading for tomorrow. I think we need to examine why some characters you are allowed to connect to, while many others Wallace forces you to be an outsider.
Danielle, I thought it would be interesting to point out that the next scene in which Hal talks to an adult, he again speaks in a perfectly capable way, but he once more experiences trouble communicating.
In reponse to the notion of the book potentially being the Incandenza film Infinite Jest, or potentially being "the Entertainment" which so ensnared the medical attaché, or both, I'd like to point out that there are other references throughout the book to events being filmed. For example, in the scene about Mario Incandenza's first and last romantic experience, we are largely distracted by the bizarre details of USS Millicent's character and background, but in fact Wallace puts a great deal of emphasis on the fact that there is a cinematic tripod set up for no comprehensible reason, as though the area is being or has been filmed for some reason. Also, Mario Incandenza films the entire urine sale, presumably for use in his "short strange Himself-influenced cartridges." The book could as easily be a film by Mario as one by JOI. Of course, there's more evidence for it being one by JOI, since of course a film entitled Infinite Jest recurs several times in his filmography. Of course, the idea that the entire book is the same as this one film is rather undercut by the fact that certain specific sections correspond to specific other films, making it seem that the book could easily be the synthesis of a number of films, some of which could be by JOI, others by Mario, others parts of the Entertainment, and god knows what all else.
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