Apologies if this has already been covered/litigated but I’m on my ninth readthrough and have been playing with this idea of JOI’s suicide having been potentially brought about by prolonged exposure to The Entertainmet during its production process. We know, for instance, that JOI committed suicide “during post-production,” which could potentially mean the film is technically an unfinished product but does definitely mean the product we see was the last one JOI ever set eyes on. Did this final product drive him to eliminate his map instead of turn him into one of the typical victims of the film?

What’s more, Marlon Bain tells Steeply two separate times in endnote 269 that he believed JOI’s last film was “driving Dr. Inc insane” and “driving him to a breakdown,” which sounds kinda like someone being exposed for a long time to something like mold or some other substance until it finally does them in.

DFW keenly places this a stone’s throw away from Steeply talking about how his own father eventually died of a “transmural infarction” tied to hereditary heart issues after years of obsessing over M.A.S.H wherein he neglected his life totally and was a shell of himself.

DFW is definitely pointing to neglect of one’s life in both cases as being a fatal flaw for both men, but I’m curious: was JOI a bit of a Patient Zero in terms of The Entertainment? In the lab tests that the US military ran to study the film’s process of lethality (from Steeply’s recounting), would JOI have been an exceptional test subject?

If you look at the wall after you can see the faint reverse image of the thing which fell, a thing so obvious it doesn’t even have to be described.

Evidence:

- Stars a wirey drug addict with a signature yachting cap in a grimey post-industrial city.

- That's it.

Maybe this is a case of "boss baby vibes" but but there's some overlap between Disco Elysium and Jest; namely focus on addiction, modern alienation, and suprise magical realist elements towards the end.

Maybe this is just me wanting closure in Michael Pemulis's story. I know he was an asshole but his fate is pretty bleak at the end of the story and would love to see how he manages to sink or swim in metro Boston.

The book switching to the first person when Hal sobers up is just genius.

I just finished this book and I thought it was amazing (my roommate tells me I have recency bias but I loved this book from chapter 1, so I feel like it’s been long enough) so I thought I would share on here. It took me about 3.5 months to read. I first heard about this book on some YouTuber’s most controversial/hardest reads videos. I was immediately intrigued by a book with impressive length and depth, also being a white educated college age male, it was my right of passage to lecture my girlfriend on infinite jest, or whatever.

I also felt like I was mislead by the warnings and prefaces that I read before starting this book. I did a good amount of research to see if I’d like it and if it was worth my time. I heard that this book ‘doesn’t tie up its loose ends, so don’t expect to be satisfied by the ending’ and also ‘the stories are disconnected’. I have to disagree to those folks who have said this this. While yea the ending does not have a where are they now? for all the characters like at the end of sandlot or something. I think thematically, both characters who get the most page time (Hal and Don) have satisfying enough arcs, although ambiguous, that I am not disappointed. I did think that Gately died from his infection, and was confused after reading chapter one again, so it changes the canon a bit for me? Hal in the hospital in chapter one now presumably sober is thinking about how he will crush Dymphna in the next match up, seemingly with his motivation back, but if not, clearly getting better, in my mind at least, (with his I AM ALIVE, LOOK AT ME monologue being a much different stance than his numb depressed old self.) , and having been forced to confront a lot of his past through sobriety like did Gately. Which I have to say is just beautiful on paper, I loved reading these parts.

Anyways if yo read through this then thank you, I would love you hear any thoughts people might have.

SPOILER FOR SUNDAY NYT CROSSWORD

It's well-known that Wallace was prone to errors. And to be clear, it's insanely impressive to me that he was able to keep things quite organized (at least "quite organized" even if he messed up here and there) regarding such a complicated and labyrinthine book. I've often wondered how much Microsoft Word might've helped him to stay organized; if he didn't use MS Word then I have no clue how he didn't make tons and tons of errors all over the place.

I recall a discussion where multiple solutions were proposed but one (and maybe more than one) of them had "issues"...things that didn't quite fit. I think that it's important to allow for some "wiggle room" because DFW might've simply messed up...the "solution" proposed might be exactly the one that he had in mind even if it's not a "perfect fit".

Years ago, I posted a theory that Avril Incandenza and Luria P. aren’t actually the same person, as some theories suggest, but are instead mother and daughter. I’ve recently revisited this idea and noticed a few additional connections that make me think there might be something to it.

My theory is that Luria was Avril’s first child, born from an unplanned pregnancy when Avril was young, and subsequently given up for adoption. Avril knows Luria is her daughter, but has kept their relationship secret from the Incandenza family.

1. AVRIL and LURIA are near anagrams — with one fascinating historical detail

AVRIL and LURIA contain the same four letters, with the only difference being V and U.

But historically, U and V were originally the same letter in the Latin alphabet, only becoming consistently distinguished much later. If you treat U and V as interchangeable, AVRIL and LURIA become exact anagrams.

2. Avril’s pregnancy with Mario could be a clue

DFW describes Avril as showing remarkably few outward signs of pregnancy with Mario. If Avril became pregnant as a teenager, she could have concealed the pregnancy and given the child up for adoption. If CT was the father, Avril would a strong reason to fear the consequences of public knowledge.

3. Orin’s relationship with Luria brings everything full circle

If Luria is Avril’s daughter, Orin unknowingly becomes sexually involved with his maternal half-sister. If C.T. is Luria’s father, Orin’s relationship would also echo the suspected relationship between Avril and her own stepbrother. Orin’s habit of tracing the circular infinity pattern on his “subjects” backs could be symbolic of him repeating his mother’s sexual patterns.

4. Avril’s obsessive motherhood might be rooted in guilt

Avril presents herself as an extraordinarily devoted mother, yet her relationships with her children are characterized by secrecy, control, and emotional dysfunction. Her compulsions, sexual behavior, and intense involvement in her children’s lives could be driven by unresolved guilt from abandoning her first child.

5. Georges Perec:

Luria P.’s surname references Georges Perec. Perec wrote A Void, an entire novel without the letter E. The absent letter has often been interpreted in connection with the loss of his parents during childhood.

I’m reading the part where Gately is visited by the ghost of JOI. The wraith is described as having a “sunken chest.” I’ve never seen my genetic condition (pectus excavatum) mentioned in literature before or ascribed to a character. It is associated with Marfan syndrome, the hallmarks of which are tall and slender build, unusually long arms and legs, and vision problems requiring glasses. I do wonder if the author had this in mind when writing JOI

Here's one thing that might be a bit of a "bombshell":

https://www.reddit.com/r/InfiniteJest/comments/1x6x4lx/theres_an_interview_in_which_dfw_says_that/ph111us/

I haven't seen this discussed elsewhere, but in my opinion, the book itself is meant to be diegetic, meaning that the text we read is supposed to exist inside the world of IJ, having been created (presumably by some surviving agency) after the events in an effort to make sense of what happened.

So the novel itself is the bullseye at which the converging plots point.

Read as a dossier or government report, it accounts for the various narrators, the footnotes, the lack of conclusion, subjectivity, and gaps in action; think Mario's play or JOI's filmography. It's an accounting or a reconning of what led up to the war, the dissolution of O.N.A.N., and end of subsidized time. For the imagined in-world reader, knowledge of those events is presupposed. They already know what happened, to the point of it being obvious. For us, the out-of-world reader, it's a book obsessed with how meaning is made, full of obscure history.

I would be curious to know more about this notion that's conveyed in the text that I just pasted; that's super interesting. I remember reading somewhere a discussion about who the narrator actually is in the novel. I think (I might be wrong) that someone suggested that the endnotes are Hal writing but that the main text might be Hal's father.

What is the real significance of having a "diegetic" text? Or having the narrator be Hal's father but with endnotes in which Hal provides commentary on top of his father's text? I always want to know what the "significance" or the "point" or the "message" is as opposed to something just being a hidden thing that's "neat" or "cool".

Also, there are 3 main "addiciton" stories in the novel, as described here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/InfiniteJest/comments/1x6x4lx/theres_an_interview_in_which_dfw_says_that/

James Incandenza had been addicted to making ever-more priapisitic entertainment cartridges for his own self-gratification. Joelle had made him quitting drinking "her condition for letting him put her in what he was doing," so he'd told her that he had. As far as Joelle knew, he had quit. Joelle "said he said he'd do anything." As an alcoholic, he hadn't been able to quit though. Marathe, Steeply, the U.S.O.U.S. and A.F.R. are only in the novel because they're trying find the copyable master cartridge of that last cartridge he'd made of her, which had turned out to be lethally addicting. Addicts harm other people, not just themselves. Hal's addiction to marijuana had kept him from helping his Little Buddies during Eschaton, and Gately's addiction to Dilaudid had kept him from helping Fackelmann, and eventually to killing DuPlessis.

I can see the parallel that is being drawn between these 3 stories of addition, but I still am always looking for the "message" or whatever.

One thing that jumps out at me: What is the "message" or "symbolism" or "significance" of the terrorists' quest to get the priapistic entertinament cartridge? Is there any "symbolism" or whatever to that or is it just an aspect of the plot that has no deeper "message" to it? They're seeking to get this thing that has a huge amount of power as a terrorist weapon. And you can unpack the motivations that gave birth to this thing...as described here, but I'm not sure how this fits in with the concept of the terrorists seeking to obtain this thing:

James Incandenza had been addicted to making ever-more priapisitic entertainment cartridges for his own self-gratification. Joelle had made him quitting drinking "her condition for letting him put her in what he was doing," so he'd told her that he had. As far as Joelle knew, he had quit. Joelle "said he said he'd do anything." As an alcoholic, he hadn't been able to quit though. Marathe, Steeply, the U.S.O.U.S. and A.F.R. are only in the novel because they're trying find the copyable master cartridge of that last cartridge he'd made of her, which had turned out to be lethally addicting.

Can yall tell he's my fav

I can't find the interview, but I distinctly remember that DFW said something to the effect of: "If the lines in the novel's plot don't converge off-screen for the reader then the novel has failed for the reader." Maybe someone can find the interview in question. Was he being serious and honest, though? This novel seems to resist any resolution of its puzzles...hard to square that level of resistance with the comment that he made in that interview.

I read IJ first quite a few years ago. Some time later, I read James Joyce's Ulysses, and immediately some parallels between the works jumped out at me.

• "Metempsychosis" is mentioned a few times in Ulysses, including in an early scene where Molly Bloom asks Leopold how to pronounce it and what it means. Obviously, the phrase is used as a character name (and I think also referenced a few times in its own right) in IJ.
• Both books have a preoccupation with Hamlet.
  
• The style of IJ is reminiscent of Ulysses, where the different episodes of the book are written in very different styles; where the action is sometimes purposely obscurantist; the action described is fantastical and doesn't actually happen.
  

Can you think of other similarities between the books?

I don't know why it took me so long, but I finally got around to reading Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton (Ethan From sans e in the novel[a Gately-as-narrator mis-remembrance]). I didn't realize that the book was just a hundred pages, which makes Gately's inability to finish it all the more tragic, not "...even the Classic Comics version." Being an English major in college and never having encountered it, I'd always assumed it was minor literature (no disrespect to Edith Wharton), but now having experienced both its physical brevity and truncated narrative, my heart breaks anew for Gately that he lost his attachment to organized ball over what should have been within his grasp were it not for substances. Ethan Frome is called a novel, though in reality it feels like a long short story. DFW's choice here was clever. Ethan Frome, from my reading, is all about the tragic losses destiny metes out to individuals trapped by circumstance, which, no doubt, Gately might have identified with had he managed to read it.

I wonder about what that particular scene (with the fridge) was all about (in terms of the symbolism or message or meaning that one might extract from it).

See here a reference to this incident regarding the mold being found in the fridge:

https://www.reddit.com/r/InfiniteJest/comments/1c8592s/do_we_ever_find_out_what_the_tunnel_club_finds_in/

I know some of them come into the room where Hal is watching Blood Sister because Pemulis wants to speak with him about something foul the Tunnel Club found in the tunnels, but do we ever learn what it is?

I’m on my second read of the book, and I didn’t remember how much DFW leaned into the autumnal descriptions. The language he uses is beautiful and makes me want to live inside the book. I don’t think IJ comes up on lists of best fall books, but it should.

I have unintentionally adopted “standing on one foot and then the other” when I really need to go to the bathroom but have to wait in line.

Just finished reading for the first time, have been very thankful for this community’s diligence (along with the Swartz blog) in doing the legwork to reveal a satisfying resolution.

My questions are in regards to a detail in the final pages I have been unable to find being discussed:

Did Fackleman die by the Entertainment?

I have already returned the book to the library (it was criminally overdue) so I am unable to quote it word for word but what I recall happening is:

Fackleman is given Narcan to stay alert and has his eyes sewn open

He is being administered eye drops ala Clockwork Orange

The “collegiate looking guy” puts on a pair of sunglasses that blind him (it’s pointed out that the eye drops are not accurately going in Fack’s eyes)

The two Asian guys bring in mirrored boxes (this isn’t said specifically I think Gately something like “they show the room”) and places one on Gately’s head in which he passes out shortly after

It seems the general consensus is that Gately is accurately recalling his rock bottom, and that he’s not hallucinating these details

Am I wrong in assuming these measures of protection (the sunglasses and the mirrored boxes) are because C’s crew are going to show Fack the entertainment?

And if they did, how did they have a copy? I know two Quebecians are present in the crew, were they connected to the F.L.Q?

It seems to me when assuming that Orin is the distributor of the entertainment (which has a lot of textual evidence), that it doesn’t fit the chronology for there to be a tape available for C’s crew to use. Does Gately’s rock bottom occur after he kills the Quebec diplomat?

Entirely possible I’m missing a detail, but interested to get others thoughts on this

Actually I have no idea if I’m half way through the filmography endnote but surely I am…

It’s going on for quite a while.

I absolutely love this book.

fun with teeth was a real banger

This is, of course, assuming this adaptation would be a work of any worthy quality.

I can’t tell you how much I can picture David Dastmalchian as Tavis. Really a match I think with an extra peculiar, hard to quite describe kind of eccentricity.

Matt Johnson (The Dirties, Operation Avalanche, BlackBerry) as Hugh/Helen Steeply. On a side note I can actually also picture Johnson portraying DFW himself elsewhere.)