Infinite Jest Book Club Notes #3 of 8: Pages 219 - 342

In the interest of posterity, I'm attempting to move all the notes that were written on the Infinite Jest message board last year. This will serve to preserve something that I spent a ton of time on, plus can act as a digital guide for anyone who decided to attempt to read my favorite book of all time after 2023 (or as a guide for myself when I eventually reread it).

Please see the new Infinite Jest tag for other posts as they go up. Before you read, double-check that you are on the right blog post; the pages are at the top, and I don't want you to be spoiled.

Pages 219-240: All Joelle, All the Time

— At what point did you realize that Joelle was Madame Psychosis? Pretty savvy how it's not outright stated but gradually revealed. I also appreciate in retrospect the thing from two weeks ago, about how Madame's voice reminded Mario of his father for some reason... well, here's the reason. Joelle dated Orin and was artistically involved with Jim.

— I appreciate how the present action of the chapter takes place at a party. It connects to a line that always stood out to me in the Bruce Green section from forever ago: "And for a while, life was one big party." Interesting how "party" in both cases means something dark/sinister.

— Incredibly dark that the stated purpose of this chapter / the stated purpose of Joelle van Dyne's presence at the party is that she is here to kill herself. There is no beating around the bush here. It is her intention, and we watch her step-by-step attempt to complete the deed.

— I appreciate the structure of this long passage. It jumps around in time, with memories of Orin and Jim floating in and out of consciousness as she observes the party. Definitely a "life flashes before your eyes" sort of thing, even though the flashes are more drawn out.

— I know we talk about nomenclature a decent amount, and so it's probably notable that Joelle just simple calls JOI/Himself by his first name: "Jim." Feels more personal, and says a lot about their relationship. (Especially due to the fact that apparently her nickname for her own father is "own personal daddy.")

— Interesting how some of the plot is advanced in the margins as well: Joelle passes a cardboard public service announcement about the Entertainment; there's a fight between an American and a Canadian as to whether the ecological disaster is called "Great Concavity" or "Great Convexity"; there's random-ass lists of the years of Subsidized Time and Steeply's CV, showing that "life flashing before your eyes" doesn't necessarily have to be your life; party-goers are talking about the rumors of the dangerous movie, which is dramatic irony because we've seen its power firsthand.

— Joelle talks about "Jim's final film" and her role in it multiple times. Can we assume at this point that this is the deadly film a.k.a. the Entertainment? Should we be asking questions about what about Joelle van Dyne is so alluring that people literally can't stop watching? Is there any connection between the allure of that film and the fact that her radio program had such a devoted following?

— Lots of "doors" and "cages" mentioned in a metaphorical sense, excited to here your thoughts on that (e.g. that she had to close a door to try to commit suicide, but the door wouldn't stay closed).

— Once she takes the fatal hit, DFW really goes wild with the language. I can't say that I understand too much of that final paragraph—"bladed vessels aloft in the night" and so on—but I gotta say, I read this part out loud (reading to the baby), and man, it sounds goddamn poetic. There's a breathless desperation to the words that I never would've felt had I just read it in my head. This might mark one of the few times I'm jealous of anyone listening to the audio version.

Pages 240-270: Enfield Geography, Microwaved Grief, and Schacht at the PTA

ENFIELD

• This is a short section, but it serves its purpose: setting the scene both literally (here is the industrial town most of the plot takes place in) and figuratively (lots of little tidbits, including descriptions of fans keeping something gaseous away from Boston, descriptions of dumpsters that are flung to far-off Concavities, mentions of a bunch of other locations that we'll see or hear about eventually).
• I love how the narrator inserts himself in subtle ways. E.g. instead of saying "To the southwest," it says, "To I think it must be the southwest." Little touches like this make DFW easy and fun to read.
• "The decaying grounds of Enfield Marine." Literally, and maybe also figurative...?

HAL AND ORIN ON THE PHONE

• Can't just be a normal conversation, it has to be a conversation constantly interrupted by Hal talking about his goddamn toenails. And it can't just be about the toenails, the Incandenza brothers bond over the idea of "being in the zone" in tennis specifically.
• *** "What are you doing going to the post office? You hate snail mail."
• Orin's obsessions with his "subjects" is just about the saddest thing ever.
• So the Wheelchair assassins are following Orin. And Steeply is attempting to make a connection. This is months after Steeply and Marathe's mountainside convo. Are they attempting to find out about Orin's father's Infinite Jest movie through Orin, or what?
• Related: Hal jokes about talking to Helen Steeply about his wheelchair "fans." Ironically, this would probably be a good thing for Steeply to know about!
• THINGS THAT ARE CONFUSING, pt. 1: What were Hal and Orin referring to when they were talking about Charles Tavis: "And Dad knew they were...?" "Very close? I don't know, O." "You don't know?!"
• THINGS THAT ARE CONFUSING, pt. 2: What's up with Orin's confusion about Jim's sobriety timeline? He's implying that Joelle told him that Jim was sober around the time of his death. And Orin also implies that it's really conspicuous that Jim had left a half-full bottle of Wild Turkey next to the scene of the suicide.
• The big question, I think, after this passage, should finally be: Why does Orin hate Avril so much? What happened there?!
• The anecdote about Hal in grief therapy is pretty funny on the surface. But I was also thinking about whether he's telling the complete truth here, or if he's using a stupid anecdote about "winning" grief therapy to cover up some real-life actual hardcore grief.
• One of the many IJ quotes that are stuck in my head for the rest of my life for some reason: "To the library, and step on it."

PORT WASHINGTON TENNIS ACADEMY TOURNAMENT

• Teddy Schacht isn't the most important character in the novel, as far as the plot goes, but this whole section ends up being pretty crucial in terms of theme, and his POV is so important, because it zooms the camera back a little bit, and really puts the spotlight on Hal's subterranean activities, and what that all means. FUCK, I love this section so much.
• I love how DFW is like "all this tennis stuff isn't really interesting unless you play," and then he forces his audience who I assume is mostly made up of non-players to read like 10,000 more words about tennis.
• Some clarification on the skills and lifestyles of Hal and John Wayne, still more or less from the POV of Teddy Schacht, who is going to leave tennis behind, and is considered a peer by his elders at ETA.
• There's the whole idea of Schacht being a "tourist" when it comes to drugs, and believing that Hal has a psychic credit-card bill in the mail for smoking so much and becoming an on-court phenom at the same time... interesting stuff.

Footnote 90

SAM: Geoffrey Day is described as one of the thinking ones that are difficult in recovery. In the footnote, he is aware of the tactics being used on him and he calls them out. Day must outsmart the program. 

That reminded me of Hal a few chapters back trying to study grief to be done with therapy. Further still, I recall the effort someone (Pemulis?) expended to plagiarize the paper. Or even the systematic scheme to cheat the drug tests. 

Seems like a common theme of doing a lot of work to avoid the actual work.

Also great Don Gately aside recalling his past: "Can you remember where you were headed before I broke i— interrupted??

JOE: Great call with comparing Day to Hal. Fun fact: Jim Struck was the student who was methodically plagiarizing his paper, and the source he was plagiarizing from was written by none other than Geoffrey Day.

Pages 270-299: Gately farting on the couch, a quick scene on the bus, and Orin discovers the egg-shaped ball

EARLY MORNING AT ENNETT HOUSE

• I love the reframing of being annoyed at people as "teacher of patience and tolerance." I thought about that a lot during my first semester, when I purposefully made friends with someone whom I knew I was going to utterly despise if they weren't my friend. I think it's good advice.
• I'm always appreciating how humble Gately is in all these scenes (the ones that take place in sobriety, anyway). Like when he describes himself as "probably mostly still clueless," it makes me know that he's a good person who's trying his best.
• The whole thing about Gately missing Talwin in the AM hours, still, after more than a year, and the fear that he'll NEVER get over the grief of "losing [his] best friend"... man, that shit sticks with you.
• Shoutout to handless and footless Burt F.S., who lost his extremities after getting assaulted and left for dead in the snow... an incident we first heard of from yrstruly's perspective.
• Something to think about: "There's a difference between abstinence v. recovery, Gately knows." Reminds me of a previous line, something along the lines of "sobriety doesn't automatically mean sainthood."
• Lots of references to fans blowing toxic fumes north, I think we're pretty close to getting an explanation on the Great Concavity.
• I love the punchline of Gately farting. All kinds of humor in this story.

BUS HOME FROM PTA

• Not much here besides some character sketches and adolescent humor (e.g. the pamphlet about Keith Freer having sex). This quick one reminded me of the similarly quick scene in the weight room a few weeks ago. Feels nice to just chill with the tennis kids for a bit. 

ORIN AND FOOTBALL, ETC.

• I know I say this at least once a week, but this is one of my favorite passages in the book.
• Still keeping an eye on where the relationship between Orin and Avril breaks down. As of his leaving for college, they are still on good terms (probably). 
• I also empathized with Orin's choice to go to college close to home but still separate from home, which is pretty much what I did when I attended La Salle, ~25 min from my parents' house.
• Lots of great stuff about Charles Tavis (including the description of him as "Avril's half- or adopted-brother"??), like the absolutely WILD tangent / POV shift in which all of a sudden we're at a public speech and C.T. is rambling about Jim and Orin. Amazing.
• Interesting that they describe a college scholarship as a "defeat," as the tennis kids see it.
• WHAT is the deal with Charles and Mario? What is their relationship? Why is C.T. scared of Mario?
• So is Joelle wearing a veil because she is so beautiful that no one will talk to her otherwise?
• I love the structure of this novel in that we can seamlessly switch back and forth between plots and have it all line up thematically. To wit: Orin's luck in finding a football niche is framed by AA's belief that our destiny is out of our control (and the footnote even brings Gately back into it, to say that Gately is confused by this idea).
• Amazing line: "Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trenchcoated out of an alley with some sort of Psst that you usually can't even hear because you're in such a rush to or from something important you've tried to engineer."
• One of my favorite mini-scenes in the entire book is Schtitt et al. watching Orin play football, and Schtitt realizing that the thing that he considered Orin's tennis flaw ended up being the same thing that made him achieve greatness in football (and then consequentially Schtitt feeling scared for Orin's future). I love the idea that this isn't just numbers for Schtitt, that it runs deeper than that.
• What do we make of the idea of Orin loving football punts and their "denial of silence"? Or how about watching himself on Joelle's videos?
• Or how about the fact that punting "scrubs his insides clean," allows him not to think for ten seconds? Is that good, not to think, or is it dangerous?

Pages 299-312: Poor Tony Krause / The Separatist Movement

TONY'S SEIZURE

• I think it's important that the prefix "Poor" is always affixed to Tony Krause's name. I don't think it's necessarily patronizing or sarcasm either, at least not intentionally. To me, it speaks to the idea of empathy for even the "loathsome urban specimen." That not even Tony Krause, the ultimate villain in a yrstruly story filled with villains, deserves THIS. "This" being Withdrawal, and an existence that involves liquid diarrhea on the subway. I didn't look too much into this because I'm easing off the doomscrolling, but I think there was something in NY recently in which a guy murdered a homeless man who was acting up on the subway? And people were cheering this on? Pretty bleak shit. DFW does a good job at building empathy for Tony Krause here, is my point, and that we can all stand to have a little empathy for even those people in the world who would literally steal a human heart in a purse if it meant one more hit of dope.
• Probably also not an accident that "Withdrawal" is always spelled with a capital letter in this section, indicating that it's almost a religious or spiritual experience, to withdrawal to this extent. Or maybe more so like a mythical experience, like it's something that Krause has always heard about but is just now experiencing for the first time. It sounds fucking TERRIFYING, especially in the words crafted by DFW. That whole run-on sentence about "what 'shiver' truly means," and the whole thing with the orange bird, were like a fucking horror movie.
• OBLIQUE CALLBACK #1: Krause mentions the "Antitoi Brothers" being his one last hope in terms of people who might still have sympathy for him. The Antitoi Brothers were the guys who sold the DMZ to Pemulis.
• OBLIQUE CALLBACK #2: Krause mentions that Emil wants to kill him, but that Emil had "simply dematerialized from the street-scene." We've seen that Emil is a resident at Ennett House, so that explains the disappearance. What's not made clear is whether Emil is "yrstruly" or a completely separate character in their social circle. Any thoughts?
• THEME ALERT: the idea that substance abuse affects how one perceives time itself
• So what do we think the point of Poor Tony Krause is in this narrative? I'm thinking it has something to do with showing what rock bottom looks like without the possibility of redemption through sobriety (not yet, at least). Note that Krause doesn't mention sobriety or the idea of AA or anything even remotely close to that throughout this entire experience. Nothing about "I need to change" or whatever. Just cold hard acceptance of Withdrawal and a total commitment to finding the next high.
• JOE K*** HAS NO ANSWERS FOR YOU: "Zuckung"???? 

HAL AND ORIN FINALLY HAVE THEIR SEPARATIST CHAT

• But that chat happens completely in the footnotes. First, we have pretty fucking hilarious main text section. Evidence A of hilarity: the excerpt of Schacht's "double-binds" test, with the complicated question, the punchline answer ("mail fraud"), and the insistence on keeping everything GENDER NEUTRAL!!!! 
• Evidence B of hilarity: the character shading of fake-toupee boy Jim Troeltsch, and his endless search for synonyms for the word "beat."
• Evidence C of hilarity: the names of all the classes that the prorectors teach. Best one? I'm torn between "Introduction to Athletic Spreadsheets" and "The Toothless Predator: Breast-Feeding as Sexual Assault."

Okay, now the footnoted meat of the text: Hal is taking a class called "Separatism and Return: Quebecois History from Frontenac Through the Age of Interdependence," and he's struggling. To highlight how confusing the subject is, DFW footnotes seventeen pages of a conversation that Hal has with Orin on the phone, a few hours after that day's class.

Probably worth spelling out in ELI5 terms what the fuck they are even talking about, right? Took me a few reads to truly grasp it, mainly because there is just SO MUCH superfluous shit floating around in those pages, plus totally adjacent stuff like Hal/Orin's relationship's strain and Pemulis trying to get Hal's weed. Okay, here we go:

Orin is asking (for a reason which will be discussed in the next paragraph) about Quebecois separatists, i.e. those citizens of Quebec who want to separate and exist at their own nation. He says that there were various Quebecois terrorist cells who were originally anti-Canada, and did everything they could to separate from Canada. However, when U.S. President Johnny Gentle instituted "interdependence"—i.e. when U.S., Canada, and Mexico became one country known as O.N.A.N. (Organization of North American Nations)—those same Quebecois terrorist cells switched their target from Canada to the U.S., and additionally pledged allegiance to Canada, their former enemy. Orin is asking: why?

Orin then presents a theory: Quebecois separatists still want to be their own nation, and they want to attack the US and PRETEND that they are doing so in the name of Canada (and 80% of Canadians are against interdependence anyway), so that way the US will get pissed, and punish Canada. So that would force Canada's hand, i.e. Canada would be like "hey, listen, Quebec is not acting on our behalf, despite what they say, and to prove it, we're going to expel them from Canada," which is what the Quebecois separatists wanted all along! (Plus: the Great Concavity is mostly in Quebec anyway, and so Canada can kill two birds by "removing" the Concavity from Canada by sending it with the independent Quebec, is the separatist's theory.)

All of this is probably not "important" per se, but it's helpful to understand the Quebec shit, since it's happening as a backdrop to our story!

• Okay, so the other thing that's happening here is that Hal and Orin are arguing about Avril. Hal is like, why the fuck are you asking ME about Canada stuff when OUR MOTHER has duel citizenship? And Orin completely ignores him. The Q remains: what happened between Orin and Avril? Why is Avril pretending that nothing happened (note the correspondence, with Avril's deluge of Incandenza in-jokes, and Orin's cruel fake auto-reply, purposefully filled with as many grammatical errors as he could fit)? Why is Orin pretending that Avril doesn't even exist? Is there something that Hal doesn't know?
• Oh, and let's not forget about the Helen Steeply thing (who we've established is actually Hugh Steeply in an apparently good disguise). Orin keeps saying that "things are different now" with Helen (who is, if you'll also recall, the Moment profiler who was doing a story on Orin and is currently en route to ETA to get additional information from Hal). Hal assumes this means that Helen didn't want to fuck Orin and now Orin is in love and trying extra hard to fuck her and is using this Separatist stuff to get in her pants. This is the first time I actually have a different read on it. I've always assumed that Hal was right, but what if it's something more? What if by "she has completely different levels," Orin means that Helen revealed herself to be a Hugh Steeply, and that he is an FBI agent, and that the handicapped people following Orin are actual Quebecois terrorists, and that Orin is in danger? Thoughts on this theory?
• Credence to that theory: before Pemulis cuts the phone connection, Orin brings back the idea of "samizdat" in connection to the Separatist stuff, which, as you'll recall, is what Steeply and Marathe were calling Infinite Jest, the film that made the attaché et al. lose their minds. So the big Q here is not only what Helen/Hugh told Orin about all this, but also why Orin seems so concerned. Thoughts?

SAM: I don't know if it's true, but I like your theory that Orin is probing Hal for information on Quebec because he has been clued in by Steeply. Although Orin is certainly passionate about going to all lengths to sleep with someone, his curiosity here seems genuine. He needs to know about Quebec, rather than he wants to know.

Also I just bought this sick hat in Canada:

Pages 312-342: Eschaton!! (Plus Mario's birth, and more Marathe/Steeply)

FIRST: MARIO IS BORN

• What does "first" mean in the opening line "The first birth of the Incandenzas' second child..."? Anyone have any idea? I've never understood it. Maybe Mario is born, and then is "born again" when he is healthy enough to leave the hospital?
• Footnote 114 says that the Year of Glad is the "last year of Subsidized Time." What does THAT mean?
• I feel like we talk about Mario enough before, but it was nice that his physical challenges were described as "character-building." Mario really does have a sort of strength that many of these other characters around him lack.
• Orin was quite the bully as a kid, huh? Do we think he's still like that in any way?
• I like how there is a callback to Mario's long eyelashes, the same ones that Bernadette was attracted to.
• What's up with Mario and Charles? They are described as having the same hair...? Hmmm........?
• What's up with Mario and James? Why is Mario the only son whom James can seem to connect with? What about Mario's relationship to Charles would affect how James feels about him?
• I like when the narrator in the footnotes is informal and says a couple times "I overshot the point that I should've mentioned such and such." I feel like I've used that device in album reviews before.
• Footnote 118 says that, even though Mario is cool with like everyone in town, inside and outside of the school, he's not really all that tight with the Ennett House folks. Why the exception? Is it just for plot reasons (i.e. that if everyone at Ennett knew Mario, then the Ennett crew and the ETA crew would be mingling a lot more than they are now)? Or something else?
• The end of this section is so fucking touching, with Hal and Mario's relationship being as tight as it is.

INTERLUDE: MARATHE AND STEEPLY STILL ON THE CLIFF

This is a quick section, but probably an important one, thematically at least. The central argument: Marathe is saying that if Americans were given the choice to watch the Entertainment or not, even if they knew that the Entertainment meant death, they would still choose to watch it, because Americans were never taught to choose anything other than their own selfish happiness. Steeply counterargues that the "being taught to choose" that Marathe is talking about is basically just brainwash, and that freedom to choose is the most important thing in the world, since not being able to choose is a prison.

Interesting that both sides are arguing that the other side's viewpoint does not allow for choice. Steeply is saying that Marathe's "learning to choose unselfishly" is not actually a choice. Marathe is saying that Steeply's "choosing one's own happiness" is not actually a choice.

So who's right? What do you think? If you, as an American, were given a choice, to watch the best film you've ever seen, a film that would give you infinite pleasure up until the moment that you died, would you watch it? Do you think the majority of Americans would watch it? I think that I would not, but I think that a lot of Americans would. Interested to hear what you think though.

LET'S ALL PLAY ESCHATON

First: This is supposed to be funny. I hope you found it as funny as I did. It might be one of the funniest sections of the book.

Second: It's okay if you didn't get it, and thus didn't find it to be as funny as it actually is. There is a lot of obtuse and weird and confusing bullshit packed into this section. All those acronyms!!! And then the calculus bullshit that Pemulis is attempting to explain! It's a lot.

Third: This Eschaton section should tell you that it is okay to not understand literally every single thing in this novel. Just try to hang on as tight as you can and follow the plot to the best of your ability and it'll all work out. I couldn't tell you what 99% of the acronyms stood for, and I have no fucking clue what Pemulis is talking about in that footnote, with the Mean Value and all that. It's okay! What's important is that these TWELVE-YEAR-OLD kids are playing an insane math/geopolitics game on a tennis court, and it devolves so completely that they just end up fist-fighting anyway.

The fact that Pemulis is the one describing the game should tip you that you shouldn't take any of this seriously. Plus, consider the fact that it's made clear that Hal is transcribing all that math stuff, and that it's made known that Hal and Pemulis are really fucking high when they are talking about it. The one graph is titled "HALSADICK"! Hal implies that his penis is a meter long! Hal [sic]s the shit out of every other word Pemulis says! This is some rich stuff. It's also been told to me that the math stuff is wrong anyway, as in DFW got it all wrong, probably on purpose, and so, no, you don't have to take that part seriously.

And the narrator (whoever it is—Pemulis? Pemulis-via-Hal? DFW?) does a great job at mixing the language between high-minded science/math/political shit and more blue-collar vernacular. Otis P. Lord is called a "calculus phenom" unironically, for christ's sake. And how about the mention of "SACPOP, nonnegotiable interests, EM-pulse-immunity..." and then follow up with "You should've seen Michael Pemulis just about eat the whole world alive"!

There are like two straight pages of descriptions of real-world scenarios involving nuclear warheads and DEFCON 5 and political heads of state having quorums and statistics and acronyms, and yet if you were watching these scenarios play out, you'd see twelve-year-olds hitting a tennis ball at a pile of gym socks.

I mean, just reading about the Eschaton melee would be enough to make this section an all-timer, but then on top of that you have the older kids watching from the other side of the chainlink fence. Pemulis getting angry and jumping up and down like a cartoon character. Jim Struck passing out drunk. It's all pretty funny. Plus, there's the ICONIC line (sincerely probably in the top five if you asked the Infinite Jest losers like me) of: "11/8 is an E.T.A. day of mandatory total R&R, though the public intoxicants are a bit much."

Step back from the hilarity to see the horror, as well: Hal has made it clear thus far how much he values the privacy of his drug abuse, and yet here he is, smoking pot in public (in front of his little buddies, no less). Is this a rock-bottom-type scenario for Hal? Time will tell. But his little buddies are getting injured on his watch, while he's too high to even speak, so something's gotta come of this (plus, who is watching from that green sedan?). 

I can relate to Hal so much in this scenario, even though I've never smoked pot in my life. The idea of just always taking it a step or two too far, and the haunting realization afterward that you fucked up in an intangible way, if not tangible. The red beanie is on and the top is spinning, not just for the game, but for Hal, who is in some deep shit. That psychic credit card bill that Schacht was talking about? Feels like it arrived, no?

Anyways, not to distract anyone from the grand old time this chapter is. That's just one level, the scariness of "indulging too much." The rest of the levels are fucking comedy gold, and I was dying reading this shit yet again. Ann Kittenplan, clearly on drugs, beating the shit out of Ingersoll... Axford knowing exactly how to wind Pemulis up... Pemulis getting revenge on Penn's older brother in ways that are too horrific for the narrator to even describe... the argument about what is "real" and what is "a map of what's real" and how that breaks Hal's brain... "LaMont Chu is throwing up in the Indian Ocean"... the catastrophic conclusion of the computer crashing onto Lord's head... the fact that the game master is surnamed "Lord"... just all of it, man, all of it is amazing.

I love this fucking book.

Here's the video for "Calamity Song" by the Decemberists, 2011:

On the one hand, there are so many details they got wrong here, which is frustrating.

On the other hand, the fact that this even fucking exists, the fact that an indie rock band based their video after a scene from fucking Infinite Jest, is incredible, and such a joy, and just fucking wild, to be honest. I am so glad this exists.

Sidenote: the video was directed by Michael Schur, who owns the rights to an Infinite Jest adaptation, were someone to attempt it beyond this music video. What do you say, gang, should we give it a go?