Too Much Fun
I know that I'm posting a few days early, but I don't want to wait until Wednesday night to post and forget all the things I've noticed.
Joelle Van Dyne refers to her suicide by cocaine overdose as "Too Much Fun," with that exact capitalization, by which (the capitalization) Wallace managed to lure me into contemplating that phrase as a central thematic concept. In class we've discussed the idea that, through an addiction, something which is supposed to be fun ceases to be fun (e.g., Erdedy's pot addiction and the masochistic masturbation routine that accompanies it, Kate Gompert's pot habit, which goes through cycles of fun and not fun, and of course Eschaton, the game so in-depth with maturity and roleplaying that it is clearly not even remotely fun,) but as Van Dyne's suicide* illustrates, something which is supposed to be fun can also reach an intensity so great that it kills you.
Van Dyne herself is the P.G.O.A.T., or prettiest girl of all time (the fact that this acronym spells "goat," usually thought of as something ugly, seems like no accident to me,) a person so sublimely beautiful that she is effectively ugly, alone, dateless and virginal through high school and into college, so beautiful that she alienates everyone around her so much that she joins the Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed and wears a veil to hide her ugly gorgeousness. I think the concept of being so beautiful that you are effectively ugly is closely related to the idea of something being so pleasureful it kills you.
The title of the book, Infinite Jest, seems in itself to be an expression of the concept of Too Much Fun, and they could even be regarded as paraphrases of each other. Jest seems very difficult to separate from Fun; they aren't synonymous, but they are closely related ideas, and it is not a huge leap of the imagination to go from Infinite to Too Much. Infinite anything is usually too much of it; infinite crack makes you OD; infinite entertainment makes you sit and rot away and die.
The connection to entertainment comes from, unsurprisingly, The Entertainment, which I am becoming more and more certain is the film Infinite Jest. The cartridge, when viewed, leads the viewer into inertia, stagnation, and eventual death. The connection between the cartridge and death through too much pleasure is substantiated by Marathe on pages 317-321, though unsurprisingly I can't pick out a neat short quotation to illustrate this. He also refers back to his idea of the "temple," the idea for which you are willing to die, and suggests that once entertainment or pure pleasure becomes the temple, you are already effectively dead, ("What you call the death, the collapsing: this will be the formality only.")
Unrelatedly, I find that David Foster Wallace is enjoying messing with our minds. We've been reading about Mario for hundreds of pages before he abruptly decides to finally tell us how truly bizarre he looks, making us have to revise all of our previous conceptions of him ex post facto. I'm more amused by the sadism he directs towards his readers than annoyed by it, and I had to cringe and chuckle when I applied this new image of Mario back into the section with the USS Millicent Kent, which is now even more grotesquely hilarious.
Also unrelatedly, is anybody sure what the Concavity is? I imagine it as a combination of landfill, nuclear waste dump, and possibly site of some considerably massive nuclear explosion in the recent past (I imagine this as what makes it so concave, though I could be wrong. I don't have much textual basis for that part.)
Also, I've just come to the disturbing thought that Orin's Helen, the oversized reporter on whom he has a growing crush, is actually 'Helen' Steeply, the transvestitic undercover B.S.S. agent, who is probing him for information about his father because of course JOI made the Entertainment. Only possible reactions: "Ew," and, anticipatorily, "poor Orin"
*EDIT: OK, so it didn't take that much more reading to find out that she isn't actually quite dead. This weakens the immediacy of my point but I still think I'm on to something.
Joelle Van Dyne refers to her suicide by cocaine overdose as "Too Much Fun," with that exact capitalization, by which (the capitalization) Wallace managed to lure me into contemplating that phrase as a central thematic concept. In class we've discussed the idea that, through an addiction, something which is supposed to be fun ceases to be fun (e.g., Erdedy's pot addiction and the masochistic masturbation routine that accompanies it, Kate Gompert's pot habit, which goes through cycles of fun and not fun, and of course Eschaton, the game so in-depth with maturity and roleplaying that it is clearly not even remotely fun,) but as Van Dyne's suicide* illustrates, something which is supposed to be fun can also reach an intensity so great that it kills you.
Van Dyne herself is the P.G.O.A.T., or prettiest girl of all time (the fact that this acronym spells "goat," usually thought of as something ugly, seems like no accident to me,) a person so sublimely beautiful that she is effectively ugly, alone, dateless and virginal through high school and into college, so beautiful that she alienates everyone around her so much that she joins the Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed and wears a veil to hide her ugly gorgeousness. I think the concept of being so beautiful that you are effectively ugly is closely related to the idea of something being so pleasureful it kills you.
The title of the book, Infinite Jest, seems in itself to be an expression of the concept of Too Much Fun, and they could even be regarded as paraphrases of each other. Jest seems very difficult to separate from Fun; they aren't synonymous, but they are closely related ideas, and it is not a huge leap of the imagination to go from Infinite to Too Much. Infinite anything is usually too much of it; infinite crack makes you OD; infinite entertainment makes you sit and rot away and die.
The connection to entertainment comes from, unsurprisingly, The Entertainment, which I am becoming more and more certain is the film Infinite Jest. The cartridge, when viewed, leads the viewer into inertia, stagnation, and eventual death. The connection between the cartridge and death through too much pleasure is substantiated by Marathe on pages 317-321, though unsurprisingly I can't pick out a neat short quotation to illustrate this. He also refers back to his idea of the "temple," the idea for which you are willing to die, and suggests that once entertainment or pure pleasure becomes the temple, you are already effectively dead, ("What you call the death, the collapsing: this will be the formality only.")
Unrelatedly, I find that David Foster Wallace is enjoying messing with our minds. We've been reading about Mario for hundreds of pages before he abruptly decides to finally tell us how truly bizarre he looks, making us have to revise all of our previous conceptions of him ex post facto. I'm more amused by the sadism he directs towards his readers than annoyed by it, and I had to cringe and chuckle when I applied this new image of Mario back into the section with the USS Millicent Kent, which is now even more grotesquely hilarious.
Also unrelatedly, is anybody sure what the Concavity is? I imagine it as a combination of landfill, nuclear waste dump, and possibly site of some considerably massive nuclear explosion in the recent past (I imagine this as what makes it so concave, though I could be wrong. I don't have much textual basis for that part.)
Also, I've just come to the disturbing thought that Orin's Helen, the oversized reporter on whom he has a growing crush, is actually 'Helen' Steeply, the transvestitic undercover B.S.S. agent, who is probing him for information about his father because of course JOI made the Entertainment. Only possible reactions: "Ew," and, anticipatorily, "poor Orin"
*EDIT: OK, so it didn't take that much more reading to find out that she isn't actually quite dead. This weakens the immediacy of my point but I still think I'm on to something.
posted by Alexander Dove Lempke at 4:52 PM
3 Comments:
BLAGONET! POST!
I'd just like to say, that in a previous section, DFW says, That God - unless you're Charlton Heston - is always in the form of a human. And that is hilarious and brilliant. Thank you David Foster Wallace.
Anyways, on to my response. One thing I noticed on pg. 235, "She represses all bathetic this-will-be-the-last-thing-I-smell thought-patterns." I wanted to find out if this was pertinent (how he double spaced between each word), so I looked up bathetic. Bathetic means insincerely emotional. The next sentence is "Joelle is going to have Too Much Fun in here." I think this is an important trait of Joelle here. When Wallace double-spaces the sentence, he puts in a feeling of stress, like its hard to get through. I think Joelle works very hard to repress the almost nostalgic this-is-my-last-blank feeling, and shows her determination to really have Too Much Fun. The next part really plays into what you were talking about Alexander: "It was beyond all else so much fun, at the start." This really implies that what once was so much fun, as soon as the quantity increases, it loses the actual fun part.
I think the relationship between Jim Incandenza and Joelle is very strange. I kind of expect it to be sexual, but apparently they never once took part in that sort of activity. Howerver, their relationship is extremely intimate I feel, in how JOI incorporates her into his work, which I feel is very sacred to him.
In regards to the Great Concavity/Convexity, I agree with your idea that it's some sort of landfill seems most appealing. When I think of a landfill, I think of something that never quite goes away, no matter what you do to it, and that's basically how it's described. However, I don't see why they argue about it then, because I always tend to associate landfills with convexity...we'll figure it out eventually.
One thing from that section I'd just like to make a note on, the story about putting ipecac in the brandy and everyone projectile vomiting was absolutely hysterical. Maybe I just had a great mental picture, but I thought it was fantastic.
In regards to David Foster Wallace enjoying messing with our minds, I agree one hundred percent. The entire book he sets up juxtapositions between comedy and tragedy (C and Poor Tony, fork in hand), and the reader is left to decide what is hilarious and heart-wrenching. By doing this, I think it not only makes the reading more interesting, but also more frustrating. Sometimes, I feel amused by what he does, but I'd say I'm still a bit frustrated every once in a while. And about Helen being Orin's Helen, that would be just be ridiculous.
I must admit that thinking again about Mario's first sexual experience is quite hilarious in the context of his deformity. In reference to DFW's style of messing with the reader happens throughout the novel. Not only has DFW forced the reader to reevaluate every scene in which Mario has appeared, ultimately I believe it fits Mario's character. That is to say, I feel as though Mario's grotesque qualities fit the character that DFW has been developing (and does make his first and only sexual experience all the more comical).
Anyways back to what I was originally saying DFW has been screwing with the reader's head throughout the novel, particularly through his footnotes (seeing as how he first mentioned Van Dyne's admittance to Ennet House through a footnote and does not readdress this until fifty or so pages later) I must admit that thinking again about Mario's first sexual experience is quite hilarious in the context of his deformity. In reference to DFW's style of messing with the reader happens throughout the novel. Not only has DFW forced the reader to reevaluate every scene in which Mario has appeared, ultimately I believe it fits Mario's character. That is to say, I feel as though Mario's grotesque qualities fit the character that DFW has been developing (and does make his first and only sexual experience all the more comical).
Anyways back to what I was originally saying DFW has been screwing with the reader's head throughout the novel, particularly through his footnotes (seeing as how he first mentioned Van Dyne's admittance to Ennet House through a footnote and does not readdress her admittance until almost this until fifty or so pages later. This left me in a state of shock seeing that she did not actually die and completing if what I thought happened in previous stories which only eluded to ending actually occurred). In a seminar/limited reading sections, the footnotes also disturb the reader, particularly because some are completely extraneous and are a waste of time to look up (unless it is a particular passage where pausing in reading actually allows you to analyze what you have been reading), whereas other are pages in of themselves. I find this to particularly nerve racking seeing that I have added an additional 5-10 minutes while already attempting to finish the reading under a tight schedule.
DFW has been stressing in this section (please note I am only on pg 390 or so currently and have a fear that something drastic takes place in last forty pages of the reading), of something being being stressed so much that it becomes grotesque and an inhibiter. Though in Don Gately’s realization that AA does work on him, it has been stressed throught the subjects lives, yet it is grotesque in the being and not in the end. This is an inverse relationships to the other additions/temples in the book, because they have committed themselves to AA,thereby making it an actually temple (according to Marathe)?
Actually, I thought the fact that Mario was deformed changed his character. DFW sort of correlates that with Mario's appearance as a savant whereas before my impression of him had been as just oblivious. Now he's a lot like Lyle.
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