Infinite Jest

[ratamero]

There's also the U.S.S. Millicent Kent, part of one of my favourite scenes of the book.

[WickedCestus]

I'm really struggling to make it through this book, after being extremely excited to read it. I love DFW's essays, and have watched interview after interview of the guy and think he's great. This is my first foray into his fiction, and it's a bit... off-putting. There are some parts about it I really love but honestly it feels so self-indulgent at times and the anti-consumerist motif seems a tad hamfisted. I know DFW is a funny guy from his essays but a lot of the humour here is just falling flat for me. I enjoy the idea of a scene where a guy answers a phone and trades Beatles quotes with someone for no reason, but on the other hand, what! Probably my main issue with this book is the amount of technical jargon. I don't think it's really necessary to explain the chemical formulas behind every drug taken in the book, as well as constantly referring to strangely named fictitious future-tech and corporations. 

 

I'm just under 100 pages in so take all this with major grains of salt, but I just wanted somewhere to vent about this book. I think I'll grow to like it more as I go but it's taking me a while to get into it (I started it in early January). I'm not trying to be overly negative; there are parts of the book I love. DFW's actual writing style is as always, excellent, and most of the characters are really neat and easy to relate to. (Maybe easier for me though since I'm a white guy of similar class/privilege to DFW.)

 

PS I was about to give up on the book altogether until I found this thread, so thanks guys!

[Danielle]

Page 230. I'm making what is, for me, good time and generally really enjoying the book now.

 

I have no idea if I'm right about this, but I have this theory about where the story will go...

 

Hal will take the crazy-strong acid tabs from the 1970s that Permulis got from the Quebecois terrorists, which will somehow ruin his brain and render him damaged, hence the first chapter breakdown at the college interview, and dovetailing nicely with all the talk of drugs and addiction in the book at large.

 

It's fun to have theories! It's also fun to post in this thread.

[WickedCestus]

About 350 pages in now. Damn, this book is very good. Took me around the 200-page mark to really grab me, but I am thoroughly enjoying myself. Still progressing slowly, because it's a very large book and therefore impossible to bring with me to work/school and read, but I'm trying to find time every night to read at least a few pages. What a book!

[agorman]

Page 200 is definitely when this book clicked for me (at least in the edition I had),  when there are just like 5-6 pages of the things you learn living in a place like the Ennet house. One of my favorite passages.

[WickedCestus]

Finished! Wow! I'm so glad I picked up the book again after almost giving up completely a few months ago. I'd been going pretty slowly since the start of the year, but after my spring semester ended I just went full bore and started reading 50+ pages a day. Once everything (well, most things) started clicking together and I got a better grasp on what was really going on, I started having a great time. Lots of the things I'd love to mention have already been talked about in this thread, but I just wanted to make another strong recommendation that people try out this book and give it a real shot. Amazing imagery and characters with perspectives and stories that will stab you right through the heart.

 

I will admit that at the end, though I had a few clues of what was going on, I was pretty darn baffled until I read the interpretation linked earlier in the thread. While I had a decent idea of the characters' relationships, histories and intentions, the literal events of a lot of the plot escaped me. For whatever reason, I often have a lot of trouble following the plot of stories far less esoteric even than this. I am the sort of person who will just completely miss certain events because I won't remember characters' names, or I won't connect certain plot points, etc, so it makes sense that a lot of the ending

/beginning

wouldn't make much sense to me.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, though it took me longer than it's taken to read a book in a long time. Definitely one of my favourites. 

 

EDIT:

I found this really cool music video that is an interpretation of the Eschaton scene (one of my favourite scenes in the book). 

 

 

[Nappi]

EDIT:

I found this really cool music video that is an interpretation of the Eschaton scene (one of my favourite scenes in the book). 

 

 

Oh wow, I had completely missed this. Really nice interpretation that must seem pretty bizarre to anyone who has not read the book.

[Danielle]

I finished the book last night at 3 am, and holy god, I think it may actually be my favorite novel.

 

I finished it, and of course, immediately re-read the first chapter (something I did like 3 times over the course of the book, as it started to make at least a little more sense to me). There are certainly a few things that still escape me, which I know I'll spend the next week poring over forums and wiki pages and interpretations...

 

mainly, 

 

this line from the first chapter

 

"I think of John NR Wayne, who would've won this year's Whataburger, standing watch in a mask as Donald Gately and I dig up my father's head"

... WUT.

 

I might gush further, about how much obvious love for these people DFW had, for the sad, absurd future-from-the-90s world, which felt so prescient in so many ways, for the pure quality of comedy-gold-turned-depressing that the whole book has. Just an an incredible piece of writing.

[agorman]

This was linked earlier in the forums, but it really helped me understand some of the things I didn't pick up on after reading it.

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend

[Danielle]

This was linked earlier in the forums, but it really helped me understand some of the things I didn't pick up on after reading it.

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend

 

Thank you!

[osmosisch]

The source being someone hounded to their death by the authorities somehow seems super appropriate there :/

[Nappi]

this line from the first chapter

 

"I think of John NR Wayne, who would've won this year's Whataburger, standing watch in a mask as Donald Gately and I dig up my father's head"

... WUT.

 

Yup, that line blew me away (ign.com). This was what I was referring to when I said during one of your streams that there is something in the first chapter that you have almost surely missed.

 

As you have probably figured out already, pretty much everything by David Foster Wallace is worth checking out. I'd start (continue) with the collections of essays Consider the Lobster or A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. His final novel The Pale King is full of beautiful writing and characters and the setting is fascinating in that it so absolutely boring (the IRS). Unfortunately, he never finished the novel and the story is in bits and pieces. Still well worth reading in my opinion.

[Danielle]

Yup, that line blew me away (ign.com). This was what I was referring to when I said during one of your streams that there is something in the first chapter that you have almost surely missed.

 

As you have probably figured out already, pretty much everything by David Foster Wallace is worth checking out. I'd start (continue) with the collections of essays Consider the Lobster or A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. His final novel The Pale King is full of beautiful writing and characters and the setting is fascinating in that it so absolutely boring (the IRS). Unfortunately, he never finished the novel and the story is in bits and pieces. Still well worth reading in my opinion.

 

I'm absolutely planning to continue with DFW's writing. I'm hooked, I think. Which is a weird thing to say, maybe the most appropriate thing to say, after reading IJ.

 

A few other things -- as others have pointed out with the Swartz link, it's incredibly profound and sad that this is Aaron Swartz - THE Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide because of the constant, gov-mandated surveillance on him. Just how tragic and sadly, perfectly it fits the theme is... I'm not sure how to describe it. I'm completely in this IJ mindspace where something like that makes too much sense, and it's upsetting.

 

I also found this link helpful, for a possible interpretation of the ending, and the mathematical structure of the story: http://chloereadinginfinitejest.blogspot.com/2010/05/end-again.html

 

Man, this book. This book.

[feelthedarkness]

Congrats! 

 

Yeah it's meaty, and for me sort of transformative to my interest in modern (as a style) literary fiction. Something worth revisiting through life. 

 

Pale King is an amazing glimpse of might what have been. I think I posted this here or in another thread, but you hear "unfinished book" and you (me) are inclined to think 80% finished, but after ~500 pages I feel like he was maybe 30% there? 

[Nappi]

Pale King is an amazing glimpse of might what have been. I think I posted this here or in another thread, but you hear "unfinished book" and you (me) are inclined to think 80% finished, but after ~500 pages I feel like he was maybe 30% there? 

 

That sounds about right. It feels more like a short story collection where the individual stories are connected by a unified setting. Some of the small sub-arcs are absolutely beautiful, but it is still incredibly sad that we never got to see the novel finalized.

[Danielle]

Now that I've had a day to chew and ponder and really think about aspects of the book outside of the sheer force of finishing/beginning/finishing the book, I wanted to share some thoughts!

 

Orin. I need to talk about Orin. I hated him so much. Like, possibly to an irrational degree. I don't think I've ever truly hated a character in a novel as much as I hated Orin, and it surprised me, because there are a LOT of people who do shitty, terrible things in this book, and even the folks we cheer for have huge, gaping flaws. Like Randy Lenz. Randy Lenz is a fucking monster, but I had at least twinges of sympathy for him. And poor, Poor Tony who I felt for all the way. Even Don Gately, who is an earnest, lovable person, only speaks about black people using racial slurs.

 

But Orin. Orin is the most self-centered, spoiled, mean-spirited, insecure garbage person I've ever seen described on a page. The way he talks about his brother Mario (calling him a -- THIS IS A SHITTY TERM -- "hopeless retard" and even as a child, constantly injuring him), the way he killed his mother's dog, the way he treats women as an adult, for fuck's sake. Yes, he's a sad, hopeless asshole, but I couldn't find anything even remotely interesting or redeeming about him.

 

And of course, he's possibly the biggest monster in the book, sending the master copies of the Entertainment to people he perceives as enemies. So, he's killing people without even the ideology of the AFR, etc.

 

I want to know if others had the same experience with Orin. Are we *meant* to hate him this much? I got the general idea that DFW wrote him as an asshole, but maybe someone the audience was meant to sort of laugh at. This pathetic loser of a pick-up artist who is eternally unhappy. But I was so infuriated by every mention of him that I couldn't even laugh. The only time I smiled at any Orin activity was at the very end, where he's trapped in the glass with roaches. I felt a little bad for finding that funny...

Part of me wonders if I hated him because of just how much his demeanor and self-centered assholery reminded me too painfully of so many boys I went to Catholic high school with. Boys raised with lots of money and the competing forces of Puritan/Catholic guilt and the expectation that women would fall all over themselves for them, which they did (at least in high school), provided they had decent skin and drove appropriately sexy cars. The entire culture of that world still makes me shudder, even with close to 15 years of separation from it.

 

On the other hand, Mike Pemulis reminded me of the kids at school who didn't have as much money, but who were a hell of a lot more down to earth. Pemulis was kind of a dick, but at least he had some substance and loyalty to his friends.  

 

 

[Nappi]

Now that I've had a day to chew and ponder and really think about aspects of the book outside of the sheer force of finishing/beginning/finishing the book, I wanted to share some thoughts!

 

Orin. I need to talk about Orin. I hated him so much. Like, possibly to an irrational degree. I don't think I've ever truly hated a character in a novel as much as I hated Orin, and it surprised me, because there are a LOT of people who do shitty, terrible things in this book, and even the folks we cheer for have huge, gaping flaws. Like Randy Lenz. Randy Lenz is a fucking monster, but I had at least twinges of sympathy for him. And poor, Poor Tony who I felt for all the way. Even Don Gately, who is an earnest, lovable person, only speaks about black people using racial slurs.

 

But Orin. Orin is the most self-centered, spoiled, mean-spirited, insecure garbage person I've ever seen described on a page. The way he talks about his brother Mario (calling him a -- THIS IS A SHITTY TERM -- "hopeless retard" and even as a child, constantly injuring him), the way he killed his mother's dog, the way he treats women as an adult, for fuck's sake. Yes, he's a sad, hopeless asshole, but I couldn't find anything even remotely interesting or redeeming about him.

 

And of course, he's possibly the biggest monster in the book, sending the master copies of the Entertainment to people he perceives as enemies. So, he's killing people without even the ideology of the AFR, etc.

 

I want to know if others had the same experience with Orin. Are we *meant* to hate him this much? I got the general idea that DFW wrote him as an asshole, but maybe someone the audience was meant to sort of laugh at. This pathetic loser of a pick-up artist who is eternally unhappy. But I was so infuriated by every mention of him that I couldn't even laugh. The only time I smiled at any Orin activity was at the very end, where he's trapped in the glass with roaches. I felt a little bad for finding that funny...

Part of me wonders if I hated him because of just how much his demeanor and self-centered assholery reminded me too painfully of so many boys I went to Catholic high school with. Boys raised with lots of money and the competing forces of Puritan/Catholic guilt and the expectation that women would fall all over themselves for them, which they did (at least in high school), provided they had decent skin and drove appropriately sexy cars. The entire culture of that world still makes me shudder, even with close to 15 years of separation from it.

 

On the other hand, Mike Pemulis reminded me of the kids at school who didn't have as much money, but who were a hell of a lot more down to earth. Pemulis was kind of a dick, but at least he had some substance and loyalty to his friends.  

 

 

 

I found Orin quite repulsive, but did not hate him to a degree that you did. Mostly, I just didn't get him or care for him at all. I can certainly see how having had to deal with broadly similar people in the past would amplify the grossness of that character a great deal.

[osmosisch]

I found Orin quite repulsive, but did not hate him to a degree that you did. Mostly, I just didn't get him or care for him at all. I can certainly see how having had to deal with broadly similar people in the past would amplify the grossness of that character a great deal.

Yeah, precisely this. Awful person.

[feelthedarkness]

I agree on his reprehensibility, but I think they're all also shaped by (victims of) Himself. A lot of the book is about the pain being paid down the line, the people who are secondary victims of addiction. 

[d L c]

Long time listener, first time poster

Re: Orin,

I think you are 'meant' to forgive Orin - I think that's the point to Marlon and Kevin Bain.  Marlon insists that Orin is a product of his mother's emotional 'abuse'.  His letter is presented as a joke, with its stuffy tone, constant qualification and obvious projection of his own problems - but he is actually aware of that, he admits it sounds like a self-indulgently broad definition of abuse, that he sounds like a snivelling worm.  Ultimately he has a point: he does have problems, as does Orin, and neither's are particularly their own fault; they're just hard to forgive just because they're particularly slimy or apparently inconsequential problems.  

Which I think is deliberate since depression and addictions too are often treated as non-problems.  Worth comparing Erdedy's introduction where he watches a cockroach with the passage where Orin's hatred of cockroaches (!) is described - both scenes where obviously privileged men are confined to their homes and their aimless, self-destructive habits are described.  It's maybe hard to sympathise with that kind of precious ennui but I can only presume that is the point.  (Why else are the settings a halfway house and a tennis academy if not to compare the problems of their inhabitants?)

I think that's the point in the scene with Kevin Bain and the men's movement, which while funny is oddly-placed as an apparently isolated incident toward the very end.  It's the very beginning of Hal's (and the reader's) path to understanding but he completely fails to ID because he can't get over how superficially icky it is - despite the fact it clearly works for them, they do get something out of it.

 

The same themes feature heavily in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, especially the interviews and The Depressed Person.  But they're much, much bleaker and more scathing, even if more funny, and it's harder to see how it is anything other than the exact kind of nihilistic irony that DFW is supposedly meant to despise.

[feelthedarkness]

these posts and yesterday's podcast really makes me want to reread this! 

[Deadpan]

It feels like I've forgotten more about Infinite Jest than there is to know about most books. It's been a while since I finished it, and while I do remember a lot of stuff from it, sometimes people mention specific scenes or even relatively important characters and I'm just like "never heard of that."

[WickedCestus]

I just finished the book a week ago, and even I sometimes hear people talk about characters and don't remember them. Probably because it took me 4 months to read the book, and I am super bad at remembering names. 

[Mangela Lansbury]

It feels like I've forgotten more about Infinite Jest than there is to know about most books. It's been a while since I finished it, and while I do remember a lot of stuff from it, sometimes people mention specific scenes or even relatively important characters and I'm just like "never heard of that."

I feel the same. I read the book probably about... 9? years ago, and since I've been rereading books I've been moving around with me to see if I want to keep them, maybe it's time. The only problem is that I live in a college town and wandering a college town with Infinite Jest might solicit conversations with undergrads that I don't want, especially since that freelance life leads to me spending a lot of time in coffee shops. I'll probably suck it up and get the ebook, but I don't know how endnotes work with that.

[Nappi]

I feel the same. I read the book probably about... 9? years ago, and since I've been rereading books I've been moving around with me to see if I want to keep them, maybe it's time. The only problem is that I live in a college town and wandering a college town with Infinite Jest might solicit conversations with undergrads that I don't want, especially since that freelance life leads to me spending a lot of time in coffee shops. I'll probably suck it up and get the ebook, but I don't know how endnotes work with that.

 

At least on a touch screen Kindle, the endnotes worked fine. Touching the reference brings you to the endnote and there is link at the end of endnote that brings you back to the main text. It is not the most seamless experience there is but - I'm guessing - neither is jumping between two locations in a physical copy.