a.m.

I'm finally caught up compltely(woo-hoo!). Here's some paragraphs of thoughts , in no particular order:

Unfortunately, the last reading and a half no longer has the surrealist quality that was evident in the first two readings. The events depicted within this last reading are much more coherent and informative, providing many clues regarding the overarching plot. Much of the "weirdness" and paradoxes that come about are much clearly connected with Substance Abuse and thus, for me, a certain enigmatic, magical feeling that the book started off with has been lost. Conversely, I found it though gratifying how the seperate plotlines seem to converge around the Enfield Area and the persona of James Incandenza.

The depiction of AA as the inverse of Disease implies some interesting notions. Don Gately cannot explain and neither does the narrator on why exactly and how exactly AA works. Whereas Substance Abuse initially lead to in a viscious circle of what I labeled communication breakdown, AA works apparently by restoring communication between people. The notion communicated by Gately regarding actually hearing what people had to say, and saying exactly what is on your mind as the major turning points in his recovery are only more evidence that the anti-thesis of Addiction is Communication. It is interesting then to note how all new residents of Ennet House argue against the AA Program by saying that the communication is at fault. They claim it doesn't make sense either logically or grammatically, that it is trite and cliched, whereas the point itself is that Communication needs to be honest(as evidenced by Gately's thoughts on the series of speakers).

Echaton is a continuation of the idea that rules, fundamental axioms, enable a beautiful game of wonderous possibilities. Most of the segment seems as if depicting how the violation of one single axiom within the game (which is absurdly grand) quickly reduces the game to chaos and then to unregualted, unstoppable violence and destruction. At the same time, this segment demonstrates more vividly Hal's addiction to both marijuana and sugar/nicotine(the latter revealed later at the gala) and how it essentially paralyzes him(not unlike Erdedy or Kate or Poor Tony), preventing him from interfering and restoring order. Hal's addiction makes him powerless to both physically (he is stuck over the bucket, unable to spit or move) and thin (his brain locks down on nearly trivial abstractions, deeming them too complex).

Interestingly, footnote 110 details some important character features of Orin and Hal and their relationship. Hal accuses Orin that he blames and hence hurts their mother for their Father's death. Orin accepts this calmly while Hal apologises for losing his temper, but not for his words. It seems then that the issues Orin has with his mother are well-known even if Orin seems to not acknowledge them or seek any resolution. At the same time, Hal's suggestion that Orin projects their mother on his Subjects(as sick as it is) leads us to believe that part of Orin's addiction with sex (explicitly mentioned to have taken the place of drugs for him) is also, as nearly every other one in the novel, due to his failure to communicate honestly.

There is an interesting juxtaposition between the avant-garde counter-confluencial films and ideas of the Mad Stork and the rise of Interlace. The rise of Interlace, as detailed in Hal's paper, was due to advertising wars geared toward the idea of Entertainment of the audience as the supreme virtue. J.O.I.'s films in contrast purposefully made the audience either hyper-involved (The Joke) or hyper-isolated (Medusa vs. the Odalsque), neither of which sought to entertain the audience. Thus, the interesting question of whether James' final movie, Infinte Jest, is in fact the Enteratainment whose dessimination Undisclosed Services wants to curb.