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/lit/ - Literature

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File: 46 KB, 700x434, InfiniteJest2.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1061180 No.1061180 [Reply] [Original]

So I finished Infinite Jest last night. Was seriously disappointed w/ the ending at first. Then I realized it wasn't so much the ending that disappointed me as much as it was the fact that the book was over.

Shit made me THINK. I can't say that it was always an enjoyable read. There were parts that were hard to get through, but I am so glad I read it.

So why does /lit/ think Hal went bonkers?

>> No.1061192

OP here,

I assumed, when he ate the mold, that that was the problem. Unless my brain shut off for a few pages (not out of the question), the book made it seem as though it was Bob Hope w/d that did him in. About 1/2 hour after I finished, I started to wonder if maybe he'd seen The Entertainment....

>> No.1061202

I constantly hear about this book, would there perhaps be something shorter and available online that I could read that is somewhat similar to Infinite Jest? I just want to pound through something tonight.

>> No.1061230

read his commencement speech, I think its called "Th is Water" and should be available online. Fucking incredible, makes me want to actually read Infinite Jest...

>> No.1061232

>>1061202
hehe, shit took me two months to read.

david foster wallace has plenty of shorts published.

Lemme see what I find real quick:
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/03/09/090309fi_fiction_wallace

I haven't read this and am not ready to cloud the thoughts I'm still forming on IJ, but it's a posthumous short story by the same author. After reading IJ, I have no choice but to label this man an insane genius. Like fucking Einstein genius.

>> No.1061235

>>1061232
Thanks, I shall commence with the late night pounding

>> No.1061240
File: 36 KB, 300x207, dfwmain_300x207.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1061240

He looks like that one guy from Leverage...

>> No.1061248

>>1061240
produced by Dave Wallace or something too, always thought that was weird

>> No.1061262

>>1061248

I am unable to confirm this. Link?

>> No.1061306

I know it's late (early in Europe) and whothefuck knows wat time it is in Australia, but, come on. I mean I mean like, like SOMEONE has got to want to talk about DFW right now. now. i need to talk about it now

>> No.1061311

Normally, I'd do a tittie bump at this point, but I don't think that's allowed here, given the talcum blue background...

>> No.1061319

I'm bumpin' this right before bed in hopes that it'll still be alive when I wake.

>> No.1061326

This is one of the slowest fucking boards, you moron.

Also IJ was 2/10 on the scale of "hard to read" books and was pretty meh.

>> No.1061417

>>1061326

It just took me an hour to read a 35 page chapter. IJ is not an "easy read." You're an asshole too, get over yourself.

I'm 283 pages in OP. It's pretty good right now. I think I'm sort of starting to see how this is all connected. I happened to go back and read some of the footnotes. That helped immensely when I realized that certain vignettes were Incandeza's films. One thing that fucked with me however is the early part written in half-ebonics about Darlene. What the hell is that about and will it come up again?

>> No.1061432

>>1061417

It's not easy to read, but it's not hard to read. The whole thing is pretty straightforward.

>> No.1061453

>>1061417
Wallace originally wrote a longer version to fill out the structure he envisioned for the storyline. He was a mathematician and wanted to use some fractal. One of his revisers recommended a good portion of the book be cut out, so that was done. Hence a few of the weird tangents.

>> No.1061456

>>1061180
the ghost at ETA was james incandenza
he stole hal's toothbrush and gave him the DMZ to stop him becoming a figurant

>> No.1061471

>>1061456
Holy fuck, that'd never clicked. Fuck.

>> No.1061482

4CHAN IS

INFINITE JEST

>> No.1061602

Bumping by saying I somehow discovered Infinite Jest through an interview with Zadie Smith.
And that I just realized DFW made me subconsciously change my major from liberal arts to mathematics.

>> No.1061631

i postponed reading it, i'm at the AA speaker meetings park just after that fucking annoying eschaton game. i kinda lost interest i have to say will probably pick it up again when i finish the book i'm currently reading.

>> No.1061649

to OP, if you're still around.

I think the other option was if that one other blackmailing friend of his put the DMZ in his toothpaste, or otherwise spiked him with it somehow.

It's been a few years since I read the book, but I'll prob be up for a while and would be down to talk about what I remember.

I never understood the theory about the mold from when he was a kid. How would eating it all those years ago affect him at that time? Did the book explain something that would have caused it to kick into his system somehow?

>> No.1061677

>>1061649

yeah if i recall correctly there was some conceivable explanation where something he did later could have triggered the reaction in the mold many years later. It's been a while since i read it too so i can't remember the specifics.

A couple of things i've wondered about it:
1) Pemulis' bullshit use of the mean value theorem to determine the "missile" allotment in Eschaton. I know Wallace knew a bit of maths and there's no way he'd fuck up like that, so the only explanation i have is that Pemulis is trying to stay important by being the only one who knows how Eschaton works, because he's clearly not going to cut it as a tennis player.
2) Close to the end there's a scene in an AA meeting where someone named "Mike" is talking, something about how his family kicked him out and got a restraining order or some shit like that (like i said, it's been a while). Anyway, there's no apparent connection to anyone in the story, so all i can come up with is that that's Pemulis a few years after he's kicked out.

>> No.1061681

>>1061677

remember how pemulis could hit a coin on the other side of the tennis court 2 out of 3 times and he's supposed to have the best lob ever and the game relies heavily on lobs[1]

footnotes

[1] the reason the staff at eta don't officially ban the students from playing this game is how much it improves their lobs

>> No.1061694

Thanks for the spoiler bro

>> No.1061989

>>1061456
found IJ in html form (complete w/ hotlinks to the endnotes).

ctrl-F "toothbrush" leads to a lot of 'guard your tootbrush at Ennet House' stuff and then to the scene where Stice's forehead is stuck to the window.

"I grabbed my toothbrush and NASA glass from the vent's protrusion; since the Betel Caper,352 only the worst kind of naïf leaves his toothbrush unattended around E.T.A. 'Keep an eye on Stice and my NASA glass right there, Jim, if you would.'

352Reference to January-February Y.D.A.U., when person or persons unknown went around coating selected toothbrushes of the Boys and Girls 16's with what was finally pinpointed as betel-nut extract, causing panic and internecine finger-pointing and result­ing in serial oxidation-treatment visits to Dr. E. Zegarelli, D.D.S., by half a dozen E.T.A.s until the brush-tamperings ceased as suddenly as they'd begun; and now nine months later no one still has the slightest idea re perpetrator or point."

Erowid says Betel is just a mild stimulant commonly used in Asia.

I had assumed, when the ceiling tiles were moved, that that was deLint et al getting Mike's stash:

"From someplace under Nwangi's chair were brought out two pharmaceutical scales, several jeweller's loupes, the tow truck's supply of empty sterile Visine bottles, and plus every bottle from Troeltsch's bedside table, which clearly Troeltsch had eaten some enormous wedge of putrid deal-cutting cheese."

>> No.1061998

>>1061677
I thought the exact same thing too when I first read it. I've still been trying to figure it out. But that Mike has an Italian accent and a sister. Pemulis is very Irish and I don't think he had a sister. There are also almost always headings when the time period changes, and there wasn't one.

>> No.1062007

>>1061989
continued:

So maybe, Jim I's ghost lives in the heating ducts and when the heat makes noise it's really the ghost moving around? And since The NASA glass and tootbrush were sitting in the vent duct, he just dropped the DMZ in there? And Hal, being in a bad place mentally due to the Bob Hope w/d had a terrible DMZ experience that left him completely withdrawn and unable to communicate w/ the world?

I don't think the whole laying in VR#6 and being in tune w/ everything horizontal is enough to constitute a DMZ trip, but maybe...

Maybe, when laying there and requesting Mike get CT cartridges for him, he accidentally watched the Entertainment that Himself's ghost had put there? So it's like all 3 things, being the weed, the DMZ and the Entertainment, happened to him?

I really want to think Hal watched the Entertainment somehow...

>> No.1062022

>>1062007
but every other instance of someone watching the entertainment has them freezing up and not being able to move, talk, anything.

>> No.1062043 [DELETED] 

OP again, still, and more.

I think maybe the Infinte Jest is that the book never ends. It's sort of maybe a recursive loop(s)

Like the book "ends" with Gately on the beach which I think is his rock bottom moment resulting in his entering rehab, which is prettymuch the beginning of the book.

And the book begins w/ Hal's applying to college which should come after the book has ended..

i dunno.

>> No.1062048

>>1062043
>>1062043
Delete that post real quick bro, that's like the best spoiler (also, it took you that long to figure that out?)

>> No.1062050

>>1062022
He had Mike fast forwarding and whatnot. If the player wasn't on loop and he only saw a part of it...

Also, recall that there were experiments where people were shown the movie ONCE and then told to watch it again they must remove a finger. They did remove a finger, but they were able to understand the rules and one even cheated, 'selling' another's fingers for another viewing.

I don't think viewing the entire thing ONCE leaves you comatose, let alone part of it. Again, this is contingent on the CT viewer not set to loop...

>> No.1062051

>>1062043
Me again, but in case you didn't get it you should pay attention to the narration perspective.

>> No.1062054
File: 7 KB, 521x451, sierpinski.clear.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1062054

I an interview DFW said the structure of the book is based on a Sierpinski triangle.

>> No.1062056

>>1062048
deleted it. who reads a thread about a book they haven't read, though?

I mean like what are we supposed to talk about here if not the books themselves?

>> No.1062057

>>1062050
I think that it still does because it's the feeling it produces, not what you're seeing. If they're aware enough to cut off their own fingers they'd be aware enough to cut off somebody else's. First and foremost, they care about watching it again so it may be easier to sell somebody else's than their own at that point. I personally didn't look into that one too much, maybe you're right though. Literally every other time in the book that somebody has seen the entertainment they haven't come out (except the first chapter we'll assume)

>> No.1062058

>>1062056
I agree but spoiler tags and all that are there for a reason. I think we can also talk about parts of the book without spoiling it. Even for people who have finished, there are so many little mysteries that it's more fun to be directed towards something rather than outright told.

>> No.1062067

>>1062058

For someone who is half way through, do you have anything I should look out for?

>> No.1062079

>>1062067
There are literally dozens of things to look out for, so that's hard to say. Where exactly are you?

>> No.1062083

>>1062079

http://faculty.sunydutchess.edu/oneill/Infinite.htm

>The Statue of Liberty's product is changed every Jan 1.

Just read that.

>> No.1062090

>>1062083
Oh you're only like a third of the way through. Yeah I can't really remember without spoiling stuff. Are you reading the entire thing online?

>> No.1062091

Anybody else notice a strong similarity between a woman in the final scene and another woman in Gately's life?

>> No.1062097

>>1062090

no I just use that site to recap

>> No.1062112 [DELETED] 

>>1062091
do you mean {spoiler]PH-J[/spoiler] and, well, I have no idea...

>> No.1062114

>>1062091
do you mean PH-J and, well, I have no idea...

>> No.1062115 [DELETED] 

>>1062112
Nice spoiler bro. Her and [PM] is who I was referring to. The eery "I know you" feeling, the past addiction, everybody mentioning she's attractive, and above all, [the leg].

>> No.1062117

>>1061417
right about 300 pages in is when I decided I was going to finish it and not just take it back to the library.

>> No.1062120

>>1062114
Yeah I meant her and PM. The past addiction, attractiveness, the family issues, Gately mentioning that he feels like he knows her, and above all the leg.

>> No.1062161

bump

>> No.1062227

>>1062161
I'm lost in:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2209687931#!/group.php?gid=2209687931&v=app_2373072738

right now.

>> No.1062233

I loved that book. Reading the last scene with Gately still makes me cry.

>> No.1062262

OP here, I'm definitely going to have to read this book a gain in a few months.

I've spent the afternoon researching it and while I doubt that there is an absolute answer to many of the debates, I am now aware that I missed (or forgot) quite a bit, especially in the beginning when I was learning to adapt to the then frustrating prose/diction/w/e of DFW

>> No.1062266

>>1061180

OP, or any others who are wondering about Hal's craziness:

My thought has always been that Hal saw the Entertainment. Himself made it in attempt to communicate to his son the experience he never could. So if Hal did indeed see it, that could have potentially put him into some kind of aphasia state, mirroring his father's belief that he could not talk.

>> No.1062278

>>1062266
That was the interpretation I initially had. Then I reread every single part with JO in it and realized that he doesn't speak to Hal once in the book (correct me if I'm wrong here). I thought it was brilliant writing w/r/t the JO scenes because the first one was just his father's monologue. It wasn't obvious that it was actually in the first person. Then much later the bed-squeak (also the squeak parallels made me came) scene it was first person. And then out of fucking nowhere the book was in the first person. I almost shat my pants the first time Hal said "I". So with all of that I figured that the entertainment is narrated by JO and that the narrative shift represents Hal watching it and finally "communicating" with his father. Of course that creates a mobious strip of narrative structure -- the entire book could've theoretically been in the entertainment. Which would lend more credence to the IJ joke. Every plot line nearly terminates and then the book ends. And then you immediately start reading it again and you're like Oh! There's a clue! and then you keep going and going, searching for more clues so you find out what happened. Then you get to the end again. ad nauseum.

>> No.1062281

>>1062278
tl;dr JO is an omniscient narrator throughout the book, then Hal sees the entertainment and is fully engulfed by his perspective. So at no point is Hal actually narrating was my initial theory on this.

>> No.1062284

I've never even read the book and this thread makes my head explode.

>> No.1062304

That does make a compelling point for why the narrator knows to call Himself and Lyle 'wraiths,' and not 'ghosts' or 'apparitions.'

But I don't see Himself as the narrator. That kind of trick seems very un-IJ. Wallace said his idea with the book was to do "realism, without any of that arch, meta, pomo stuff." So I sort of question his framing the whole novel from within the mind of a dead man. He liked surrealism in a Lynchian kind of way; where one thing is so wrong and so uncanny that you can't let it go (the bed moving, Gately's floating black triangle, etc.) Having the whole thing narrated by someone who wasn't involved in the past events (Gately's prior addiction, Matty's childhood, Poor Tony) doesn't seem justifiable

>> No.1062325

>>1062304
I don't really think it's too "out there". There are already some supernatural forces at play. It doesn't make much of a difference who the third-person parts are narrated by anyways (obviously it's an omniscient narrator regardless) but I still do think it's curious that JO's backstory is the only one in the first person until the sudden change in Hal's story. Because the entertainment is described as less of a passive watching experience than an active, holographic, sort of experience I think it makes sense. The Entertainment was created by JO to simulate an entire reality, I think it would make sense if that was the reality that Hal took on. (and perhaps was permanently damaged when removed; ignoring DMZ possibilities)

>> No.1062880

bump

>> No.1062906

I'm sorry but the whole "oh hey I'm reading the Wikipedia article right now gais" needs to stop.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by Hal going crazy OP. Hal's withdrawal during operation Abandon All Hope makes it clear his mind is not functioning as it did before. Additionally it's clear DFW despises ETA and thinks everyone inside is crazy (see the first Silverblatt interview). This said I have to assume Hal losing the will to compete and play tennis as his drifting into the difficult realm of adulthood. At one point Hal says that he realized the staff at ETA and all the students parents were trying to get the children to devote themselves to something before the real question of what they're really accomplishing with their lives set in. I have to assume that this is the maturing of Hal and perhaps what you'd label his "insanity" as he begins to feel anhedonia.

I'm not sure what else to tell you.

And there's no way in Hell Hal saw IJ.

>> No.1062915

>>1062906

No criticism; but what, then, do you make of Hal in the Year of Glad scene remembering digging up his father's skull with Gately? That part has made me wonder. I assume its JNR Wayne watching them.

>> No.1063498

>>1062906
by Hal going crazy I meant the way he was at his college interview in the beginning of the book. You know, unable to speak and convulsing and being taken in an ambulance, etc.

It's almost as if you've forgotten how the book began...

>> No.1063534

I thought everybody was just imagining that he was going bonkers.

>> No.1063535

I think we're ate the point in our discussion group that we should break up, go back to our desks, and wait for the teacher to explain the book to us.

>> No.1063553

>>1062906
Not OP
>I'm sorry but the whole "oh hey I'm reading the Wikipedia article right now gais" needs to stop.
Who are you even referring to?

>And there's no way in Hell Hal saw IJ.
How would you figure this out? Seriously, I'd love to hear the argument.

You wouldn't need to assume that Hal lost the will to play tennis, he said it explicitly. It wasn't until after he stopped toking on the Hope that he really felt strongly that way. And yeah as others have said the going crazy I'd assume is a reference to the kafkaesque beginning. I'm the guy from earlier that was arguing that Hal maybe had seen the entertainment; the beginning would make sense from my standpoint because JO never heard Hal say a word the entire book and then finally nobody else did either. I still think it was a shift primarily from Hal to JO's perspective.

If you have something constructive to add/contradict me I really would love to hear it.

>> No.1063555

>>1062915
Well it says pretty clearly that John Wayne is with them, being lookout. (?)

>> No.1063563

>>1063553
>>1062227

>> No.1063568

I thought James' ghost was supposed to be a reference to Hamlet, a story which much of the book corresponds.

>> No.1063570

>>1063568
Yeah it sort of was. The more obvious reference was the digging his skull up. (Alas, poor Yorick! etc.)

>> No.1063579

>>1063570
>>1063568
As far as I remember the big Hamlet reference was digging up the skull, and most of the movies that were made had references to it as well (Alas Poor Yorick productions or what have you). I think there is maybe one or two lines in the main text that references it as well but I can't remember anything else.

>> No.1063584

>>1063579
Well I think the entire story has some thematic elements. Mostly in Hamlet it's sort of ambiguous as to whether or not he himself is insane rather than just working with the supernatural. A similar question is presented with both Hal and the Stork.

>> No.1063586

>>1063579

One of the first lines in the book too is:

I am in here

The opening line of Hamlet is:

Who's there?

There are other connections too (obviously the skull and the father's ghost visiting his son in his sleep), but I don't quite remember them all.

>> No.1063587

I am truly impressed w/ the memory most of you seem to have

>> No.1063593

>>1063587
IJ will take your life, man.

>> No.1063601

>>1063593
isn't that part of the deal?

don't usually do this but captcha was:
first forchan

>> No.1063607

>>1063601
Yeah I guess it is. I can't think of any good Faustian deals from the book off the top of my head to continue this literary masturbation though.

>> No.1063609

One of the things I honestly enjoyed about IJ was the references. If you get a reference, that's great, it really enhances your experiences and understanding of the book. If you don't get it, you don't even notice that it was a reference to something.

>> No.1064462

I wonder if the unabridged version answers these questions or leaves them up in the air as well?

Not that there IS some unabridged version you can run out and purchase, just saying the one before the editor got ahold of it...

>> No.1064498

>>1064462
There exists a pre-first edition copy. I'm not sure what the differences are, but some kid was writing a thesis on DFW and his prof happened to know him and they got in touch. DFW sent him a full manuscript i think maybe 6 months before it was published. He wrote an essay online about it, I saw it awhile ago.

>> No.1064596
File: 1.07 MB, 1024x1335, dfw resize.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1064596

google handed me this little poem DFW wrote as a child. Not really relevant but w/e

note the misuse of 'there.'

>> No.1064602

>>1064596
I think we've become obsessed

>> No.1065813

>>1064602
nah just thought was neat

>> No.1067258 [SPOILER] 
File: 321 KB, 1152x864, IJ fail.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1067258

well, this was a failure I think it needs to be 3-D. Marathe needs to be touching too many larger triangles, for example...

>> No.1067263

>There shits were made of real strong wood.

fucking vikings.