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Ian "Marvin" Graye's Reviews > Infinite Jest
Infinite Jest
by
by
CRITIQUE:
How Does It Feel?
Most generations produce some authors and novels that try to boldly explore the world, if not the universe, sometimes in its entirety.
“Ulysses�, “The Recognitions�, “Gravity's Rainbow�, “White Noise�, “Infinite Jest� (I so wanted to add “Harry Potter�, “Twilight�, “The Hunger Games�).
Increasingly, as the world and our perception of it have become more diverse and complex, so have the ambition and complexity of these novels.
Not everyone likes them, either.
James Wood has criticized novels such as “Infinite Jest� (“IJ�) for their “Hysterical Realism�.
Inverting an analogy used by Zadie Smith, he argues that the role of writers is to tell us “how it feels�, rather than “how the world works�.
While I believe that David Foster Wallace (DFW) wrote a lot about feeling and how to feel better in and about this world, he was undoubtedly interested in how the world works.
The System and the Broomstick
There is another school of critics that places “IJ� within the category “Systems Novels�.
I’m not a great fan of the critical concept of “Systems Novels�, partly because every novel defines a System of some sorts, it’s just a matter of the size and complexity of the System that differentiates them.
Besides, the term is used by many critics as a pejorative term to deride novels that appeal to me.
It’s probably best to return to Zadie’s original comment about David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers:
“These are guys who know a great deal about the world. They understand macro-microeconomics, the way the Internet works, math, philosophy, but...they're still people who know something about the street, about family, love, sex, whatever. That is an incredibly fruitful combination. If you can get the balance right. And I don't think any of us have quite yet, but hopefully one of us will."
The Psychological Novel
I don’t want to denigrate novels that are preoccupied with how characters feel.
It is a major (perhaps, the greatest) preoccupation of humanity to seek out love and happiness.
However, I do want to say that most “how does it feel� novels are prefaced on a world that was originally, possibly, much different to the world of today.
The outside world (and the world of literature) at the time was concerned with the individual and how the individual met certain challenges.
The individual had to detect, define, wrestle with and overcome the challenges.
To use Aristotle’s analysis, a writer could build a whole (consisting of a beginning, a middle and an end) around the character and how they felt about and dealt with their challenges.
However, the world was very much constructed as a stage for the character and the audience to act upon. In an era of Imperialism, the world was little more than a prop for the Hero’s Journey or the Hero’s Conquest.
I will describe this type of fiction as “Psychological�.
I don’t mean in the sense of understanding how the mind works, but in the sense of describing what is happening in the protagonist’s mind.
This type of novel tells us how the character felt during their Hero’s Journey.
We witness the protagonist exercise their Free Will.
We witness characters exert power and impose themselves successfully on the world.
Everything is very self-centred. The world is centred on each Self.
Each Self is centred and symmetrical and well-ordered.
The protagonists are mentally healthy. The plot is a challenge, but it all ends happily. Sanity prevails. All’s well that ends well.
The Socio-Political Novel
In contrast, the subject matter of a so-called “Systems Novel� is:
� ‘that systematized and disembodied nightmare� of contemporary life, depicting a world in which human beings are formed, informed and deformed by ideological systems that compete, collide and collaborate across a novelistic canvas that can sometimes seem as vast as the world - or even the universe.�
Brian Oard: “The Systems Novel: Some Thoughts Toward a Definition� (citing Fredric Jameson's book, “The Prison-House of Language�)
When the protagonist is totally overcome by the world or the system, then the concerns of the Novel can become Psycho-Pathological.
Where the aim of the author is to protest or draw attention to the underlying reality of this world, then the Novel takes on a Socio-Political dimension.
What I will call the “Socio-Political Novel� sees the world as more than just a stage for the individual to act upon.
It has a “Socio-Political� dimension, that might be bigger and greater than the individual and therefore potentially or probably beyond the control of the individual.
The individual might still be capable of emerging as a Hero. Or the world might make a Victim of the individual, or a Mess.
In other words, within the framework of a particular novel, there might be No More Heroes Any More.
It’s up to the author to choose.
All the World’s a Stage
Nowadays, the protagonists can still act or strut upon the stage, but don’t expect the stage to be level or the character to prevail.
This is a metaphor for modern life.
People still “feel� in this world, but they can feel “powerless�.
This is a feeling that needs to be written about.
It’s a mistake to suggest that we are still in control and our characters will inevitably prevail in all circumstances in Act Three.
To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, the implication is that, not only might there be “no Second Acts in American Lives�, there might be no Third Acts.
We might just dwell in a world First Acts from which we can’t escape or progress.
We might not be able to reach a resolution or perfection.
We might have ceased to be perfectible.
Philosophers have been telling this to us for ages. Only most of our novelists haven’t been paying attention.
Though perhaps the ones who ignore their counsel are mounting a defence (a Self-Defence) and counter-attack.
Why Is It So?
When I hear the question “how do you feel�, I always think of �60 Minutes�-type current affairs.
I always feel that the program somehow misses the point, the real underlying cause of the problem.
Some of the writers who James Wood criticizes for their "Hysterical Realism" want to go beyond "60 Minutes" enquiries and ask "why is it so?"
This appeals to the part of me that wants to solve problems, not just at a micro level, but at a macro level.
But it also reflects my views about how the world has changed.
Not everything in the world is within the control of the individual, strutting on the stage.
This was made apparent a reasonably short time after the publication of “Infinite Jest�.
9/11 and then the GFC showed that there are macro-political and macro-economic forces at play.
It would have been very tempting to focus on the grief at these events.
However, sooner or later, we had to start asking, why did it happen, why is it so, why?
This is the purpose of history, of our story, to prevent the recurrence of a Tragedy as a Farce.
Events like this affect the world of the individual, because they affect society as a whole.
I don't see why they can't come within the province of the writer.
If we restrict ourselves to "how it feels", we run the risk of being like a single cell organism that keeps bumping into something that gives it a strange sensation, yet isn't able to work out "why is it so" and avoid the same life-threatening sensation in the future.
The ability to ask and try to answer the "why is it so" question is part of what makes us uniquely human and different from other organisms.
Hence, we should be able to write about it.
The form of writing is ultimately personal to the author.
Black humour is just one of many legitimate literary responses. However, it is possible to write of this world with total seriousness.
The End of the Systems Novel?
Some critics argue that 9/11 spelt the end of the Systems Novel.
I believe that they are more important than ever.
They are just very hard to write.
In a world where someone can know a little about a lot, a Systems Novel requires knowledge of a lot about a lot.
The Incandescent Mind of David Foster Wallace
DFW wanders through the darkness of the modern world, holding a candle, recording everything he witnesses in minute, helmet-cam detail.
He isn’t just preoccupied by or satisfied with the absurdity and comic potential of the world.
He wants to scrutinise it, diagnose it and cure it.
Out of the minutiae comes meaning and illumination.
It’s up to the reader to sift through the minutiae, to discard the mullock and the fool’s gold, and to find the gold that DFW has placed there for us to find.
His works are incandescent, deeply philosophical, deeply socio-political.
Dare I say it, his message is deep and meaningful.
As is the custom in America and elsewhere, he was brought up and made to feel vaguely ashamed of his depth and the seriousness of his prescription.
This is the Catch 22 he wanted to define: that we lived and worked within a socio-economic system that was very efficient and/or effective at making things for us to consume, but was very bad at making us happy (or actually made us unhappy, in the same way our food makes us fat).
He felt that, to point this out, to declare that the Emperor (and his Subjects) had no clothes (in the spiritual sense), was to risk being declared a traitor to capitalism and society.
Still, somebody had to put up their hand and reveal how it really felt.
The great American fiction could not go on forever.
So, is DFW the one who can tell us how it really feels?
In Which the Author Assembles an Ensemble
So whose feelings are we talking about?
First, there is the Incandenza Family, originally from Boston:
Jim (“Himself�), an educator, founder of the Enfield Tennis Academy and independent film maker (deceased).
Avril (“the Moms�), an educator, formerly married to Jim, now engaged in various affairs, very intelligent, tall and beautiful.
Orin , oldest son, former talented tennis player, now successful football player, serial womanizer, previously engaged to Joelle Van Dyne.
Mario (“Booboo�), middle son, deformed, possibly fathered by Charles Tavis, filmmaker following in Jim’s footsteps.
Hal (“the Inctser�), youngest son, talented tennis player, drug addict and slacker, attempting to gain entry to the University of Arizona.
Other characters include:
Joelle Van Dyne , Orin’s former fiancée, actress in most of Jim’s films (including “Infinite Jest�), radio announcer on MIT Station WYYY (also known as "Madame Psychosis", "the Prettiest Girl of All Time� and “P.G.O.A.T."), former cocaine addict, patient at Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House, member of U.H.I.D. (Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed) and wears a veil to hide possible facial deformities.
Don Gately, a formal Demerol addict and burglar, AA Member and resident counselor at Ennet House.
Remy Marathe , member of a Québécois separatist group, “Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents� (A.F.R.), also known as the “Wheelchair Assassins�.
Hugh/Helen Steeply , an agent with the Office of Unspecified Services (“O.U.S.�, a successor to the FBI) who assumes a transsexual identity, including as a female journalist with “Moment� Magazine, with whom Orin Incandenza becomes obsessed.
The Set Up
Jim made a film “cartridge� called “Infinite Jest� or “The Entertainment� which featured Joelle.
It is believed that no copy has survived Jim’s suicide.
However, copies start turning up, and anybody who watches it becomes obsessed and incapacitated.
The A.F.R. learns about it and wishes to find the Master Copy, so that it can disseminate it to the people of the United States (now part of the Organization of North American Nations (“O.N.A.N.�)).
Its goal is to undermine the US economy and society, to such an extent that the USA will punish Canada unless it allows Quebec to secede.
The A.F.R. thinks it will be able to obtain a copy from a member of the Incandenza Family or Joelle at Ennet House.
The O.U.S. wishes to defend the U.S.A. against the terrorist attack, so begins a race to get access to the Master Copy.
Meanwhile, Hal resolves to try out a powerful drug called DMZ a few days before playing in the Tucson, Arizona WhataBurger Tennis Tournament.
It has all of the hallmarks of a post-modern comic drama.
Does It Matter if the Author Loses the Plot?
One of the elements of “Infinite Jest� that frustrates many readers is its plot (or the apparent lack thereof).
Most of us are comfortable with a plot that unfolds chronologically.
Many of us can handle a plot that jumps around between the present and the past.
However, most of us expect a plot of some description, so that at the end of the novel we can piece together what happened over what timeframe.
It’s tempting to say that “Infinite Jest� has no plot. However, it’s probably more accurate to say that the plot is secondary.
Though, if it’s secondary, it begs the question: to what is it secondary? What is primary?
Plot is a product of fiction or story-telling. It does not occur naturally.
No life reveals a natural order or plot, at least while it is being lived.
Individuals might try to impose an order or a plot or a direction on their own lives, but ultimately there are things that the individual cannot manipulate or control.
The absence of plot thickens, when multiple lives are involved.
The purpose of these assertions is to argue that we should not expect or demand plot in creativity, except perhaps as a condition of entertainment.
Within entertainment, we have become accustomed to witnessing the Hero’s Journey.
We don’t just want things to happen or to occur.
We want to observe the protagonist’s self-discovery, we want to witness things “occur� to the protagonist, not just in terms of happening, but in terms of them “coming to mind�.
We want things to be real and we want the protagonist to realise themselves.
This is the demand of entertainment.
The Moral of the Story
If you return to the origins of literature (e.g., the Bible and similar works), it had a didactic intent.
It was designed to communicate wisdom or a moral (or morals).
Plot and description were adornments designed to make the wisdom or moral more memorable.
In an oral tradition, they helped the wisdom or morals to be communicated down the line and across time.
They illuminated the content, they cast a spell over it, they embodied God’s Spell and became Gospel truth.
The moral of the story is that people remembered.
The moral of the story is what people remembered.
To some extent, “IJ� is a secular bible.
Therefore, there is a sense in which it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t have a plot.
In Which the Characters Bury the Plot
At one level, “IJ� is a novel of character.
In a post-modern novel, there should now be some flexibility in how an author can construct (and build an affinity for) a character or an ensemble of characters.
Readers don’t need detail about a character to be assembled chronologically.
Equally, it needn’t be added by way of plot.
When we meet someone new in real life, we meet them in one moment of time. They don’t come attached to any particular chronology.
We take a snapshot of them, we analyse it and then we build on it over time.
Or eyes move all over the place, north to south, east to west, and back again.
We determine what we perceive and remember.
Bit by bit, we form a picture of the person, and we test and add to it over time.
The same occurs in “IJ�.
Increasingly, I started to think of the process in terms of a sculpture, in which the author fashions a character out of clay. Think of Giacometti.
Initially, the person starts out as a primitive figure.
Slowly, the author adds detail and complexity.
The sequence in which the sculptor sculpts the limbs, the torso and the head makes no difference to the outcome.
The fullness of character accrues over time, as it does in real life.
Then, we start to see the individual in the context of others.
There is something about the sculptor in how DFW fashioned his characters and built them over the course of the novel.
We readers have to work on the assemblage to get the most out of it.
However, our effort means that we relate to DFW’s characters.
It might have taken a while, it might have tested our patience, but by the end of the novel we care about these people and, most importantly, we want to know more about them.
Their lives continued, and we wish that we’d been able to be there with them.
In Which the Author Sets Out Novel Ideas
At another level, “IJ� is primarily a novel of ideas, ideas about political philosophy and psychology.
An explication of these ideas doesn’t need a plot. It simply needs a comprehensible logic.
Here, we have the added benefit of characters.
“IJ� is not an empty exercise in post-modern formalism.
It cares about these characters and the ideas that apply to them.
On Constructing and Deconstructing An Infinite Jest
Just as DFW builds characters, he uses ideas as the building blocks with which to construct knowledge and wisdom.
Again, his technique involves the accumulation of detail.
If we’re prepared to go the distance, he takes us on a journey from ridiculous detail to sublime knowledge and wisdom.
He constructs 1,000 pages; we have to make an effort to reduce it by interpretation and understanding.
He presents his subject matter as found, it’s up to us to distil it (though Jim doesn’t like the word “deconstruct�).
He specialises in “found drama�, drama that appears to be there in the real world, but in fact has been carefully selected and arranged to give the impression of reality.
He passes it on to us for our delectation.
We have to chew, we have to digest, we have to sleep on it.
We have to process, refine, emerge with our own meaning.
How Long Should An Infinite Jest Be?
DFW could have edited it, he could have made the experience shorter, but perhaps when you really get into these people, he would have reduced the pleasure and the fulfillment.
OK, so it could have been shorter, but so what?
Some things are made to last, some things are meant to last a little bit longer, some pleasures are worth prolonging.
...
How Does It Feel?
Most generations produce some authors and novels that try to boldly explore the world, if not the universe, sometimes in its entirety.
“Ulysses�, “The Recognitions�, “Gravity's Rainbow�, “White Noise�, “Infinite Jest� (I so wanted to add “Harry Potter�, “Twilight�, “The Hunger Games�).
Increasingly, as the world and our perception of it have become more diverse and complex, so have the ambition and complexity of these novels.
Not everyone likes them, either.
James Wood has criticized novels such as “Infinite Jest� (“IJ�) for their “Hysterical Realism�.
Inverting an analogy used by Zadie Smith, he argues that the role of writers is to tell us “how it feels�, rather than “how the world works�.
While I believe that David Foster Wallace (DFW) wrote a lot about feeling and how to feel better in and about this world, he was undoubtedly interested in how the world works.
The System and the Broomstick
There is another school of critics that places “IJ� within the category “Systems Novels�.
I’m not a great fan of the critical concept of “Systems Novels�, partly because every novel defines a System of some sorts, it’s just a matter of the size and complexity of the System that differentiates them.
Besides, the term is used by many critics as a pejorative term to deride novels that appeal to me.
It’s probably best to return to Zadie’s original comment about David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers:
“These are guys who know a great deal about the world. They understand macro-microeconomics, the way the Internet works, math, philosophy, but...they're still people who know something about the street, about family, love, sex, whatever. That is an incredibly fruitful combination. If you can get the balance right. And I don't think any of us have quite yet, but hopefully one of us will."
The Psychological Novel
I don’t want to denigrate novels that are preoccupied with how characters feel.
It is a major (perhaps, the greatest) preoccupation of humanity to seek out love and happiness.
However, I do want to say that most “how does it feel� novels are prefaced on a world that was originally, possibly, much different to the world of today.
The outside world (and the world of literature) at the time was concerned with the individual and how the individual met certain challenges.
The individual had to detect, define, wrestle with and overcome the challenges.
To use Aristotle’s analysis, a writer could build a whole (consisting of a beginning, a middle and an end) around the character and how they felt about and dealt with their challenges.
However, the world was very much constructed as a stage for the character and the audience to act upon. In an era of Imperialism, the world was little more than a prop for the Hero’s Journey or the Hero’s Conquest.
I will describe this type of fiction as “Psychological�.
I don’t mean in the sense of understanding how the mind works, but in the sense of describing what is happening in the protagonist’s mind.
This type of novel tells us how the character felt during their Hero’s Journey.
We witness the protagonist exercise their Free Will.
We witness characters exert power and impose themselves successfully on the world.
Everything is very self-centred. The world is centred on each Self.
Each Self is centred and symmetrical and well-ordered.
The protagonists are mentally healthy. The plot is a challenge, but it all ends happily. Sanity prevails. All’s well that ends well.
The Socio-Political Novel
In contrast, the subject matter of a so-called “Systems Novel� is:
� ‘that systematized and disembodied nightmare� of contemporary life, depicting a world in which human beings are formed, informed and deformed by ideological systems that compete, collide and collaborate across a novelistic canvas that can sometimes seem as vast as the world - or even the universe.�
Brian Oard: “The Systems Novel: Some Thoughts Toward a Definition� (citing Fredric Jameson's book, “The Prison-House of Language�)
When the protagonist is totally overcome by the world or the system, then the concerns of the Novel can become Psycho-Pathological.
Where the aim of the author is to protest or draw attention to the underlying reality of this world, then the Novel takes on a Socio-Political dimension.
What I will call the “Socio-Political Novel� sees the world as more than just a stage for the individual to act upon.
It has a “Socio-Political� dimension, that might be bigger and greater than the individual and therefore potentially or probably beyond the control of the individual.
The individual might still be capable of emerging as a Hero. Or the world might make a Victim of the individual, or a Mess.
In other words, within the framework of a particular novel, there might be No More Heroes Any More.
It’s up to the author to choose.
All the World’s a Stage
Nowadays, the protagonists can still act or strut upon the stage, but don’t expect the stage to be level or the character to prevail.
This is a metaphor for modern life.
People still “feel� in this world, but they can feel “powerless�.
This is a feeling that needs to be written about.
It’s a mistake to suggest that we are still in control and our characters will inevitably prevail in all circumstances in Act Three.
To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, the implication is that, not only might there be “no Second Acts in American Lives�, there might be no Third Acts.
We might just dwell in a world First Acts from which we can’t escape or progress.
We might not be able to reach a resolution or perfection.
We might have ceased to be perfectible.
Philosophers have been telling this to us for ages. Only most of our novelists haven’t been paying attention.
Though perhaps the ones who ignore their counsel are mounting a defence (a Self-Defence) and counter-attack.
Why Is It So?
When I hear the question “how do you feel�, I always think of �60 Minutes�-type current affairs.
I always feel that the program somehow misses the point, the real underlying cause of the problem.
Some of the writers who James Wood criticizes for their "Hysterical Realism" want to go beyond "60 Minutes" enquiries and ask "why is it so?"
This appeals to the part of me that wants to solve problems, not just at a micro level, but at a macro level.
But it also reflects my views about how the world has changed.
Not everything in the world is within the control of the individual, strutting on the stage.
This was made apparent a reasonably short time after the publication of “Infinite Jest�.
9/11 and then the GFC showed that there are macro-political and macro-economic forces at play.
It would have been very tempting to focus on the grief at these events.
However, sooner or later, we had to start asking, why did it happen, why is it so, why?
This is the purpose of history, of our story, to prevent the recurrence of a Tragedy as a Farce.
Events like this affect the world of the individual, because they affect society as a whole.
I don't see why they can't come within the province of the writer.
If we restrict ourselves to "how it feels", we run the risk of being like a single cell organism that keeps bumping into something that gives it a strange sensation, yet isn't able to work out "why is it so" and avoid the same life-threatening sensation in the future.
The ability to ask and try to answer the "why is it so" question is part of what makes us uniquely human and different from other organisms.
Hence, we should be able to write about it.
The form of writing is ultimately personal to the author.
Black humour is just one of many legitimate literary responses. However, it is possible to write of this world with total seriousness.
The End of the Systems Novel?
Some critics argue that 9/11 spelt the end of the Systems Novel.
I believe that they are more important than ever.
They are just very hard to write.
In a world where someone can know a little about a lot, a Systems Novel requires knowledge of a lot about a lot.
The Incandescent Mind of David Foster Wallace
DFW wanders through the darkness of the modern world, holding a candle, recording everything he witnesses in minute, helmet-cam detail.
He isn’t just preoccupied by or satisfied with the absurdity and comic potential of the world.
He wants to scrutinise it, diagnose it and cure it.
Out of the minutiae comes meaning and illumination.
It’s up to the reader to sift through the minutiae, to discard the mullock and the fool’s gold, and to find the gold that DFW has placed there for us to find.
His works are incandescent, deeply philosophical, deeply socio-political.
Dare I say it, his message is deep and meaningful.
As is the custom in America and elsewhere, he was brought up and made to feel vaguely ashamed of his depth and the seriousness of his prescription.
This is the Catch 22 he wanted to define: that we lived and worked within a socio-economic system that was very efficient and/or effective at making things for us to consume, but was very bad at making us happy (or actually made us unhappy, in the same way our food makes us fat).
He felt that, to point this out, to declare that the Emperor (and his Subjects) had no clothes (in the spiritual sense), was to risk being declared a traitor to capitalism and society.
Still, somebody had to put up their hand and reveal how it really felt.
The great American fiction could not go on forever.
So, is DFW the one who can tell us how it really feels?
In Which the Author Assembles an Ensemble
So whose feelings are we talking about?
First, there is the Incandenza Family, originally from Boston:
Jim (“Himself�), an educator, founder of the Enfield Tennis Academy and independent film maker (deceased).
Avril (“the Moms�), an educator, formerly married to Jim, now engaged in various affairs, very intelligent, tall and beautiful.
Orin , oldest son, former talented tennis player, now successful football player, serial womanizer, previously engaged to Joelle Van Dyne.
Mario (“Booboo�), middle son, deformed, possibly fathered by Charles Tavis, filmmaker following in Jim’s footsteps.
Hal (“the Inctser�), youngest son, talented tennis player, drug addict and slacker, attempting to gain entry to the University of Arizona.
Other characters include:
Joelle Van Dyne , Orin’s former fiancée, actress in most of Jim’s films (including “Infinite Jest�), radio announcer on MIT Station WYYY (also known as "Madame Psychosis", "the Prettiest Girl of All Time� and “P.G.O.A.T."), former cocaine addict, patient at Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House, member of U.H.I.D. (Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed) and wears a veil to hide possible facial deformities.
Don Gately, a formal Demerol addict and burglar, AA Member and resident counselor at Ennet House.
Remy Marathe , member of a Québécois separatist group, “Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents� (A.F.R.), also known as the “Wheelchair Assassins�.
Hugh/Helen Steeply , an agent with the Office of Unspecified Services (“O.U.S.�, a successor to the FBI) who assumes a transsexual identity, including as a female journalist with “Moment� Magazine, with whom Orin Incandenza becomes obsessed.
The Set Up
Jim made a film “cartridge� called “Infinite Jest� or “The Entertainment� which featured Joelle.
It is believed that no copy has survived Jim’s suicide.
However, copies start turning up, and anybody who watches it becomes obsessed and incapacitated.
The A.F.R. learns about it and wishes to find the Master Copy, so that it can disseminate it to the people of the United States (now part of the Organization of North American Nations (“O.N.A.N.�)).
Its goal is to undermine the US economy and society, to such an extent that the USA will punish Canada unless it allows Quebec to secede.
The A.F.R. thinks it will be able to obtain a copy from a member of the Incandenza Family or Joelle at Ennet House.
The O.U.S. wishes to defend the U.S.A. against the terrorist attack, so begins a race to get access to the Master Copy.
Meanwhile, Hal resolves to try out a powerful drug called DMZ a few days before playing in the Tucson, Arizona WhataBurger Tennis Tournament.
It has all of the hallmarks of a post-modern comic drama.
Does It Matter if the Author Loses the Plot?
One of the elements of “Infinite Jest� that frustrates many readers is its plot (or the apparent lack thereof).
Most of us are comfortable with a plot that unfolds chronologically.
Many of us can handle a plot that jumps around between the present and the past.
However, most of us expect a plot of some description, so that at the end of the novel we can piece together what happened over what timeframe.
It’s tempting to say that “Infinite Jest� has no plot. However, it’s probably more accurate to say that the plot is secondary.
Though, if it’s secondary, it begs the question: to what is it secondary? What is primary?
Plot is a product of fiction or story-telling. It does not occur naturally.
No life reveals a natural order or plot, at least while it is being lived.
Individuals might try to impose an order or a plot or a direction on their own lives, but ultimately there are things that the individual cannot manipulate or control.
The absence of plot thickens, when multiple lives are involved.
The purpose of these assertions is to argue that we should not expect or demand plot in creativity, except perhaps as a condition of entertainment.
Within entertainment, we have become accustomed to witnessing the Hero’s Journey.
We don’t just want things to happen or to occur.
We want to observe the protagonist’s self-discovery, we want to witness things “occur� to the protagonist, not just in terms of happening, but in terms of them “coming to mind�.
We want things to be real and we want the protagonist to realise themselves.
This is the demand of entertainment.
The Moral of the Story
If you return to the origins of literature (e.g., the Bible and similar works), it had a didactic intent.
It was designed to communicate wisdom or a moral (or morals).
Plot and description were adornments designed to make the wisdom or moral more memorable.
In an oral tradition, they helped the wisdom or morals to be communicated down the line and across time.
They illuminated the content, they cast a spell over it, they embodied God’s Spell and became Gospel truth.
The moral of the story is that people remembered.
The moral of the story is what people remembered.
To some extent, “IJ� is a secular bible.
Therefore, there is a sense in which it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t have a plot.
In Which the Characters Bury the Plot
At one level, “IJ� is a novel of character.
In a post-modern novel, there should now be some flexibility in how an author can construct (and build an affinity for) a character or an ensemble of characters.
Readers don’t need detail about a character to be assembled chronologically.
Equally, it needn’t be added by way of plot.
When we meet someone new in real life, we meet them in one moment of time. They don’t come attached to any particular chronology.
We take a snapshot of them, we analyse it and then we build on it over time.
Or eyes move all over the place, north to south, east to west, and back again.
We determine what we perceive and remember.
Bit by bit, we form a picture of the person, and we test and add to it over time.
The same occurs in “IJ�.
Increasingly, I started to think of the process in terms of a sculpture, in which the author fashions a character out of clay. Think of Giacometti.
Initially, the person starts out as a primitive figure.
Slowly, the author adds detail and complexity.
The sequence in which the sculptor sculpts the limbs, the torso and the head makes no difference to the outcome.
The fullness of character accrues over time, as it does in real life.
Then, we start to see the individual in the context of others.
There is something about the sculptor in how DFW fashioned his characters and built them over the course of the novel.
We readers have to work on the assemblage to get the most out of it.
However, our effort means that we relate to DFW’s characters.
It might have taken a while, it might have tested our patience, but by the end of the novel we care about these people and, most importantly, we want to know more about them.
Their lives continued, and we wish that we’d been able to be there with them.
In Which the Author Sets Out Novel Ideas
At another level, “IJ� is primarily a novel of ideas, ideas about political philosophy and psychology.
An explication of these ideas doesn’t need a plot. It simply needs a comprehensible logic.
Here, we have the added benefit of characters.
“IJ� is not an empty exercise in post-modern formalism.
It cares about these characters and the ideas that apply to them.
On Constructing and Deconstructing An Infinite Jest
Just as DFW builds characters, he uses ideas as the building blocks with which to construct knowledge and wisdom.
Again, his technique involves the accumulation of detail.
If we’re prepared to go the distance, he takes us on a journey from ridiculous detail to sublime knowledge and wisdom.
He constructs 1,000 pages; we have to make an effort to reduce it by interpretation and understanding.
He presents his subject matter as found, it’s up to us to distil it (though Jim doesn’t like the word “deconstruct�).
He specialises in “found drama�, drama that appears to be there in the real world, but in fact has been carefully selected and arranged to give the impression of reality.
He passes it on to us for our delectation.
We have to chew, we have to digest, we have to sleep on it.
We have to process, refine, emerge with our own meaning.
How Long Should An Infinite Jest Be?
DFW could have edited it, he could have made the experience shorter, but perhaps when you really get into these people, he would have reduced the pleasure and the fulfillment.
OK, so it could have been shorter, but so what?
Some things are made to last, some things are meant to last a little bit longer, some pleasures are worth prolonging.
...
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/3The Origins of Addiction
A large portion of the plot and the cast revolves around addiction, partly because of its location in Ennet House.
As a result, one of the concerns of the novel is overcoming addiction.
However, it is not judgmental about the causes of addiction.
In the case of Kate Gompert and Himself, they are addicted to substances that ostensibly shelter them from something even worse than the substance.
Kate is hospitalized with clinical depression after attempting suicide for the fourth time.
She is a cannabis addict, but her suicide attempts have accompanied her attempts to stop using dope.
She might be misguided, but she believes she’s OK with dope, just not with withdrawal.
The dope helps her to deal with something even worse.
Similarly, Himself commits suicide after giving up drinking alcohol for 3 ½ months, when Joelle, as a requirement of her appearance in the film of “Infinite Jest�, imposes:
”a condition that the Auteur suspend the ingestion of spirits, which it turned out, M.P. had claimed in deluded hindsight, had been all that was keeping the man's tether ravelled, the ingestion, such that without it he was unable to withstand the psychic pressures that pushed him over the edge into what Madame Psychosis said she and the Auteur had sometimes referred to as quote 'self-erasure.� �
In both cases, the addict is confronting something worse than the substance to which they’ve become addicted.
Obviously, substance abuse is not an effective way to treat the underlying problem.
However, it needs to be understood that drug addiction is a symptom of another problem, and to cure the addiction, the underlying problem needs to be addressed.
There is a hole, which the substance purports to fill, ineffectually.
However, the real problem is the hole, not the fill.
Another word DFW uses to describe the problem is the “cage� with which we surround our Minds and Selves.
We have to determine what is trapping or locking our Selves inside a Cage.
There is a sense in which it is Selfishness.
Infinite Maximalism
Alternative terms for so-called “Systems Novels� are “Encyclopaedic Novels� and “Maximalism�.
“IJ� is a quintessential example of these concepts.
However, there is a way in which it is “maximalist� in another sense, and that is its interest in maxims, slogans, clichés, aphorisms, especially in the context of AA and the 12-Step Program.
The novel is riddled with slogans, almost all of them capitalized, many of them hilarious, a veritable “cliché pool�.
I have gathered most of them here (with the kind permission of Professor Murray Jay Siskind):
http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/2...
It is tempting to treat these slogans as “trite clichés�:
"So then at 46 years of age I came here to learn to live by cliches...'To turn my will and life over to the care of cliches. One day at a time. Easy does it. First things first. Courage is fear that has said its prayers. Ask for help. Thy will not mine be done. It works if you work it. Grow or go. Keep coming back.'"
However, while it might have been part of DFW’s original intention to satirise advertising, 12-Step programs, “banal shibboleths� and “robotic piety�, I think he came to see these maxims as a positive influence, that they were in fact memorable distillations of practical every-day wisdom that allowed people to embrace, remember and implement a solution to their problems.
Wisdom doesn’t die, because it has been encapsulated in an aphorism.
Sometimes we can’t see the wood for the trees, and DFW’s goal was to help us find the wisdom that is sometimes lost in the cliché.
”Something Truly and Thoroughly Felt�
Hal’s middle brother, Mario, is naïve to many of these issues and problems, but intuitively sees much more than the other characters give him credit for.
He sees what he assumes is sadness in someone, and asks his mother:
"How can you tell if someone's sad?...Whether someone's sad?"
Avril responds:
"...you may be picking up in someone a certain very strange type of sadness that appears as a kind of disassociation from itself...you know the idiom 'not yourself' - 'He's not himself today', for example...there are, apparently, persons who are deeply afraid of their own emotions, particularly the painful ones. Grief, regret, sadness. Sadness especially, perhaps. Dolores describes these persons as afraid of obliteration, emotional engulfment. As if something truly and thoroughly felt would have no end or bottom. Would become infinite and engulf them."
It’s interesting that DFW uses the word “infinite� here, as an extreme of a negative emotion (as opposed to an “Infinite Jest�, which presumably is positive).
It’s the fear of infinity, the risk of plummeting into immeasurable sadness and grief that deters us from investigating the root cause of the problem.
As a result, things that might be relatively easy to diagnose and remedy go unresolved.
I think there is also a positive implication in the words “truly and thoroughly felt�.
If we can escape illusory pleasures and embrace our real Selves (and Others) more thoroughly, we might find happiness.
”Hang On to Your Emotions�
Shit happens. We all know that. We just have to deal with it as resiliently as we can.
I don’t want to impose one more cliché on DFW, but perhaps we need to adopt a program of “Awareness, Understanding, Action� in order to deal with our sadness and depression (at least to the extent that it is not primarily a product of a physiological condition).
DFW sees us standing on the edge of a precipice, terrified that we will be dragged down by our emotions.
It takes all of our strength not to jump. It takes all of our strength to remain on top, move away from the precipice and continue life.
We have to treasure our emotions, defend them, nurture them, value them. We have to hang on to our emotions.
It is no solution to “hide your love away� (John Lennon) or, like Joelle, to hide your beauty (under an actual or figurative evil).
Our emotions can be beautiful, if we allow them the freedom to be truly and thoroughly felt.
If we don’t, we might just find that they’re all we’ve got. Without them, we are not human, without them, we are nothing:
”When your imagination has too much to say
When the chill of the night meets the sweat of the day
And you have trouble understanding what other people have to say
You'd better
Hang on to your emotions
“When a demagogue inside your head has taken charge
And by default what you say or do is criticized
And this litany of failures is recited a thousand times
You'd better
Hang on to your emotions
“Could it be you've never felt like that
That your mind's a cage - inside the cage a cat
That spits and scratches all it can get at
And that's you
And your emotions.�
Lou Reed: “Hang on to Your Emotions� (from the album “Set The Twilight Reeling� )
That’s Entertainment
Hal starts the novel (although it is the last event in the sequence of its timeline) to all intents and purposes silent.
As far as we can tell, he communicates normally up until a year before this scene.
Himself dies six years before, yet we know that he was/is concerned about Hal’s silence and withdrawal from the world and Himself.
For all his independent Auteur preoccupations, the last thing he did before his suicide was to make the film “The Entertainment� as a remedy or cure:
”� he spent the whole sober last ninety days of his animate life working tirelessly to contrive a medium via which he and the muted son could simply converse.�
� To concoct something the gifted boy couldn't simply master and move on from to a new plateau. Something the boy would love enough to induce him to open his mouth and come out - even if it was only to ask for more. Games hadn't done it, professionals hadn't done it, impersonation of professionals hadn't done it. His last resort: entertainment. Make something so bloody compelling it would reverse thrust on a young self's fall into the womb of solipsism, an-hedonia, death in life. A magically entertaining toy to dangle at the infant still somewhere alive in the boy, to make its eyes light and toothless mouth open unconsciously, to laugh. To bring him 'out of himself,' as they say. The womb could be used both ways. A way to say I AM SO VERY, VERY SORRY and have it heard. A life-long dream. The scholars and Foundations and disseminators never saw that his most serious wish was: to entertain.�
Or more precisely, to entertain his son.
Himself believed that Hal had been consumed by an Infinite Grief or Sadness, and that he had to counter it with an “Infinite Jest�.
While the essence of the relationship is one of father and son, Shakespeare’s “Hamlet� suggests another relationship.
Himself was trying to adopt the role of Yorick, “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy�, someone who could bear Hal on his back a thousand times during his childhood and now had to supply “flashes of merriment�.
DFW cast himself in the same light. He has borne us for a thousand pages in “IJ�, he has given us serious counsel, but equally importantly flashes of merriment.
Now that he, DFW, is dead, how abhorred in my imagination it is.
Out of Vanity, Vanitas
I think that DFW saw Selfishness and Vanity as the flaws in the glass that are the root cause of depression and unhappiness.
“Hamlet� shows us that life is short and our achievements ephemeral.
To the extent that family and relationships are the secret of emotional health and happiness, we have to make an effort during our lifetime.
It’s too late when we’re dead.
So “Hamlet� and “IJ� both encourage us to find our own happiness, at least partly, in the happiness of others.
Where There’s Heat, There’s Light
Perhaps, our “soul� or “essence� is actually no more than our happiness, and if we can pass a little bit of our happiness on to others, we might have migrated our soul from our body to theirs.
I don’t just say this as an idle jest or flippant speculation.
This migration of the soul is called “metempsychosis�.
Joelle, who is the star of the film “IJ�, is also known as “Madame Psychosis�, which suggests “metempsychosis�.
So it’s arguable that “IJ� was the vehicle for passing onto Hal (and us) a little happiness.
While Himself couldn’t overcome his own demons, he was capable of pleasure and happiness.
The initials of his name are “JOI�, which don’t require much of a stretch to suggest the French word “joie�, which means “joy�.
It’s difficult to imagine DFW, who was so interested in words, dictionaries and etymology, not choosing these initials with a purpose.
Similarly, the surname “Incandenza� suggests “incandescence�, the generation of light as a result of an object being heated.
There’s no question that this family endured some heat in the kitchen (of the microwave variety in the case of Himself), yet DFW is determined that we learn something about happiness from their experience.
It can’t be an accident that DFW used Joelle, a former pep squad member, as the star of his pep talk for Hal and us.
...
/4I’m So Glad
Having come to the end of “IJ�, you have to ask yourself, “was it worth it�, “did it need to be that long�?
For me, it was definitely worth it. I’m glad I finally pulled my finger out and read it.
I liked and identified with its political philosophy. I also found it a good pair with “The Pale King� and you can see how some of the issues that were hinted at in “IJ� (boredom, paying attention, beauty) were explored in greater depth “TPK�.
I don’t mind that the message was sandwiched within a gigantic medium.
There is much about the plot that I haven’t got my head around yet. That doesn’t particularly bother me.
I wanted to push the plot aside, so that I could get to the moral of the story.
It definitely benefited me that I read it in 14 days, including Easter.
You have to get on a roll with it, it’s not a book you can read at seven pages a night.
If you plan to review it, you will definitely revisit pages that you didn’t understand and even wander all over the internet in a quest for ideas and understanding.
So it doesn’t matter that you don’t grasp everything on the first reading. (Most of what I read on the Web was equally grasping.)
Think of the anomalies and conundrums as an element of play, of fun, that complement and counteract the seriousness of the novel.
Like a Rubik’s cube, you can come back to them and have a crack at them another day.
“IJ� will sit on your “read-shelf� inviting you to “Come Back In�, waiting for you to return, like no other book that you’ve read.
In that way, it’s like a Holy Book or an Encyclopaedia or a Dictionary or the World Wide Web.
Once is not enough.
Excellent review, Ian! Thanks for the detailed analysis. You cleared up some of my nagging questions about the novel.
How Long Should An Infinite Jest Be?
DFW could have edited it, he could have made the experience shorter, but perhaps when you really get into these people, he would have reduced the pleasure and the fulfillment.
OK, so it could have been shorter, but so what?
Some things are made to last, some things are meant to last a little bit longer, some pleasures are worth prolonging.
What we end up with is an experience of life that is sublime, refined, pure, intense, dangerous, perhaps even fatal.
Read this novel only if you’re prepared to die some day.
We Can Be Happy
So, what are the ideas?
At the most simplistic level, “IJ� is concerned with happiness and, conversely, unhappiness.
People seek out happiness, but everywhere they find unhappiness.
Why is it so?
DFW examines the roots of unhappiness, so that he can prescribe a cure.
To this extent, it is a deeply philosophical work.
So, DFW, can you tell us how it really feels?
The First Person We Meet
The book commences with a first person narrative by Hal in the Subsidised Year of Glad (the last year of the events recounted in the book):
”I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies. My posture is consciously congruent to the shape of my hard chair.�
Followed by:
”I am in here.�
And:
”I believe I appear neutral, maybe even pleasant, though I've been coached to err on the side of neutrality and not attempt what would feel to me like a pleasant expression or smile.�
All of this is consistent with 18-year old Hal being interviewed for a position at University of Arizona.
The book starts with Hal, himself (not his father, “Himself�).
It starts with “I�, my Self, the launch pad of all personal stories.
However, it quickly becomes apparent that something is wrong.
Previously, they’ve only watched him play tennis (“On court he's gorgeous. Possibly a genius.�)
However, just as Hal detects that he is surrounded by heads and bodies (the two segments or parts of a human being), they are not able to detect him as any more than a head and body which is unable to make human sounds.
We, the readers, know what he is saying, well, thinking, but nobody else hears words, they only hear animal (“only marginally mammalian�) noises . They perceive him as damaged, whereas we can hear him say:
�'There is nothing wrong� I’m in here... I am not what you see and hear.�.
”I'm not a machine. I feel and believe. I have opinions. Some of them are interesting. I could, if you'd let me, talk and talk. Let's talk about anything. I believe the influence of Kierkegaard on Camus is underestimated. I believe Dennis Gabor may very well have been the Antichrist. I believe Hobbes is just Rousseau in a dark mirror. I believe, with Hegel, that transcendence is absorption. I could interface you guys right under the table…I'm not just a creãtus, manufactured, conditioned, bred for a function.’�
It appears that he has had a seizure in the interview, but this might not be the case. This might be his normal condition. His Uncle Charles defends him:
”He has some trouble communicating, he's communicatively challenged, no one's denying that.�
Nevertheless, Hal continues his narrative, apparently unperturbed, apart from being physically wrestled to the floor and taken to the Emergency Room.
So Yo Then Man What’s Your Story?
In the ensuing 1,100 pages, we learn something of Hal’s story, as well as the story of those around him.
Whether we find out what was wrong with him, I can’t say.
If you want and need definitive answers to plot questions, “IJ� might not be the right book for you.
If you’re prepared to give it a go, I can only recommend that you read on patiently, preferably in such large slabs as you can handle, so that you can accumulate knowledge, understanding and wisdom over the course of the novel.
I, My Self
It’s important that the novel starts with “I�.
The Self is the platform for everything else, everything that happens in the world and the novel.
DFW is concerned with the nature of the Self and its relationship with the world.
To the extent that Hal’s Self is “in here�, but unable to communicate with others, there is an element of Solipsism at play (wiki: “the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist�).
Whatever the cause, Hal’s Self dwells inside a cage, a cocoon.
In Himself’s words, he has fallen into “the womb of solipsism, an-hedonia, death in life�.
He is separate from the rest of the world, apparently seeing it, interacting with it, but never sure whether the world is just a figment of his imagination.
The only thing of which he can be certain is that he exists, although in the world of the film “The Matrix�, not even that can be certain nowadays.
My Self and My Desires
Having started with the Self, the Self has needs and wants.
It relates to the rest of the world as the source of satisfaction or satiation of its desires.
To the extent that the world is full of “Objects� and “Others�, we consume them to satiate our desires.
They are the source of our stimulation, pleasure, contentment, satisfaction, sustenance.
We internalize “Objects� and “Others�, we make them part of us, one with us, with our Selves.
This is the way we relate to the world when we are babies.
We are here to please ourselves, satisfy ourselves, content ourselves, make ourselves feel happy, make ourselves feel at home.
“Objects� and “Others� exist, at least in our solipsistic minds, only to please and satisfy us, our Selves.
If we continue this approach to life, we trap ourselves in the Infantile phase of growth.
We remain in the womb of solipsism, which is a source of both primitive comfort and an-hedonia.
Spoilt for Choice
As we get older, we realise that we can’t have everything before our eyes.
We have to make a choice as to what we consume in order to please ourselves.
We have to opt for some things and decline other things.
Originally, we determine our choice.
Everything is theoretically available to us. We could choose anything and everything, if we wanted to (or if we could stomach it).
As we form a family and a society around us, we elevate choice to a pre-eminent socio-political value.
We value Freedom of Choice.
We are not free, unless we have the freedom to choose. If our choice is limited by external means, we are not free.
We not only want to be free from interference or limitation (“Negative Freedom�), but we want to be free to do anything and everything we want (“Positive Freedom�).
DFW implies that these values are extensions of our Infantile, Solipsistic approach to the World.
They are intrinsically individualistic, because they are intrinsically Selfish.
We spoil our Selves by being fixated by Freedom of Choice.
My Body and My Self
As we learn to think, we become conscious of an apparent difference between our Self (our Mind) and our Body).
Our Body is an object that we can manipulate. It will do things that we command, usually in pursuit of our desires, in pursuit of happiness.
The World as An Object, A Vessel
We eventually realise that the World, too, is an Other, separate from our Selves.
Just as we consume aspects of the World, we start to interact with it and impose ourselves on it.
Our Selves, our Minds, command our Bodies to touch and move around Objects.
This is the significance of tennis in “IJ�.
Sport is a vehicle for us to “will� ourselves on the outside world.
We must respect our bodies, but we do this by training it, exercising it, perfecting it.
Our Self-Control then allows us to control the World.
The ten-year old Himself’s father explains tennis to him:
� A tennis ball is the ultimate body, kid...Perfectly round. Even distribution of mass. But empty inside, utterly, a vacuum. Susceptible to whim, spin, to force - used well or poorly. It will reflect your own character. Characterless itself. Pure potential...It's a body. You'll learn to treat it with consideration, son, some might say a kind of love, and it will open for you, do your bidding, be at your beck and soft lover's call.�
My value, my Self-Importance derives from my ability to impact on the World, to make it do my bidding, to make it serve my Will.
It’s not a great leap from this individualistic approach to the Imperialist tendencies of Nations that conquer and “civilize� the World around them.
Imperialism has been driven by Trade, which was ultimately about feeding the desire for both Wealth and things to Consume, both examples of Self-Gratification.
He's Not Himself Today
As we get older, especially in the Modern World, we tend to find that the World is not so easy to manipulate, it won’t open for us, it won’t do our bidding, it’s not at our beck and call.
Whether or not I have simply made the “wrong choice�, it resists us, it fails to satisfy us. Too much of this and we start to question our capacity to be satisfied.
We start to feel there is something wrong with us. I mightn’t “feel myself today�.
I feel sad, then I feel depressed, uneasy, dis-eased, clinically depressed.
I suppress myself, I repress my Self, I hide, I retreat back into the Solipsistic Womb where I was once comfortable and satisfied.
It’s All Too Much
You can see the downward spiral that awaits us, lurking in our path, if we don’t hold ourselves together.
We would dearly love a life where the greatest danger was having “Too Much Fun�.
Instead, “the Fun has long since dropped off the Too Much�, and we are left with a World that is just “Too Much� for us.
We deal with this in different ways.
Some hang on in quiet desperation (that’s the English way, according to Roger Waters).
Some resort to violence, some to self-harm.
Some seek relief or escape in alcohol or drugs.
Some succumb to addiction.
Some to religion, some to fanaticism.
Some to non-stop consumption of entertainment.
The Pursuit of Happiness
DFW acknowledges that much of our sadness and depression is a product of how we go about our pursuit of happiness.
He doesn’t prescribe any definitive solutions.
However, as he does in his last novel “The Pale King�, he explores the issue with an etymological dictionary close by.
He indicates that the word “fanatic� derives from a word meaning a “worshipper at a temple�.
Gradually, the shade of its meaning transformed from enthusiasm to obsession and fury.
There is a suggestion that we should create our own individual temples, because they are a place not just of worship, but of shelter.
It’s the absence of shelter, of safe harbour that is doing us damage in the modern world:
"Someone taught that temples are for fanatics only and took away the temples and promised there was no need for temples. And now there is no shelter. And no map for finding the shelter of a temple. And you all stumble about in the dark, this confusion of permissions. The without-end pursuit of a happiness of which someone let you forget the old things which made happiness possible. How it is you say: 'Anything is going?' [sic � ‘Anything Goes’]"
The temple doesn’t have to be an institutional church or building.
It is just a metaphor for a happy, peaceful, easy space, a place we can make our Selves comfortable.
Similarly, DFW explores the origin of the word “addict�.
The association with narcotics has really only been around since 1910.
� The original sense of addiction involved being bound over, dedicated, either legally or spiritually. To devote one's life, plunge in. I had researched this.�.
Again, when taken to excess, dedication, like fanaticism, becomes a pejorative term.
However, DFW finds something positive in the origins of both words.
...