Infinite Jest
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{{Infobox Book | name = Infinite Jest | title_orig = | translator = | image = Image:Infinite jest cover.jpg | author = David Foster Wallace | cover_artist = | country = United States | language = English | series = None | subject = None | genre = Hysterical realism, Satire | publisher = Little, Brown | release_date = February 1, 1996 | media_type = Print (Hardcover) | pages = 1079 | size_weight = 9.5 x 6.6 x 2.4 in., 3.4 lbs. | isbn = ISBN 0316920045 | preceded_by = | followed_by = }} Infinite Jest (1996) is a critically acclaimed novel written by David Foster Wallace. An extremely complex and intricately written work (including 388 endnotes), it is set in a semi-parodic future version of North America. In this world, North America is one unified state composed of the United States, Canada, and Mexico, known as the Organization of North American Nations (O.N.A.N). Corporations purchase the naming rights to the calendar year, hence, for example: "The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment". Furthermore, much of what used to be the Northeastern United States has become a massive hazardous waste dumping site known as "The Great Concavity".
The novel touches on themes as diverse as tennis; substance addiction and recovery programs; child abuse; advertising and popular entertainment; film and film theory; and Quebec separatism.
The plot device unifying these disparate themes is a film cartridge, referred to in the novel as "the Entertainment", but titled Infinite Jest by its auteur. Only a smiley face identifies the cartridge. The film is so "entertaining" to its unwitting viewers that they become lifeless, with no interest in anything other than endless viewings of the film.
The novel derives its name, at least in part, from a line in Hamlet, in which Hamlet refers to Yorick, the court jester. " Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow/ of infinite jest" . This is alluded to many times, since James Incandenza's film company is called "Poor Yorick Productions". See also Shakespeare-based titles.
Contents |
Characters
The Incandenza family
- Avril Incandenza, née Mondragon, is the domineering mother of the Incandenza children and wife to James. A beautiful Québécoise, she becomes a major figure at the Enfield Tennis Academy after the death of her husband. She begins, or perhaps continues, a relationship with Charles Tavis, the new head of the academy and her half brother. Her sexual relations are a matter of some discussion, while maintaining a vague, yet certain sexual relation with John "No Relation" Wayne and perhaps even Orin. Her nickname among the family is The Moms. The Moms' behavior is also characterized, among other things, with a fear of doors and overhead lighting and an obsessive-compulsive need to watch over ETA and her two children living at ETA (Hal and Mario). It is also noteworthy that Avril and Orin are no longer in contact with each other.
- Hal Incandenza is the youngest of the Incandenza children and is arguably the protagonist of the story, with events mainly centered around his time at the Enfield Tennis Academy. As prodigiously intelligent and talented as the other members of his family, Hal is nonetheless insecure about his own abilities (and eventually his own mental state) and has a difficult relationship with both his parents. He reads the Oxford English Dictionary and often corrects the grammar of his friends and family (much like his mother). As the chronological end of the novel nears, Hal's mental state progresses into an almost complete alienation from the people and things around him, culminating in the "seizures" that take place in the Year of Glad. In this regard, strong parallels can be drawn between him and the title character of Hamlet.
- Dr. James O. Incandenza is the founder of the Enfield Tennis Academy and a filmmaker. He is the creator of the Entertainment (aka Infinite Jest or the samizdat). He had a strong degree of attachment to Joelle Van Dyne, using her in many of his films; the precise nature of this relationship (particularly whether or not it is platonic) remains uncertain. It is proposed that he can create and view the Entertainment without becoming entranced because at the time of its creation he is already insane. He appears in the book mainly either in flashbacks or as a ghost, having committed suicide by placing his head in a microwave oven. His nickname among the family is Himself.
- Mario Incandenza is the intermediate child of the Incandenzas, although there is some insinuation in the novel that in fact he may be the child of Charles Tavis rather than James. Severely deformed since birth, he is nonetheless perennially cheerful. He is also a budding auteur, having served as Himself's camera and directorial assistant, and later inheriting the prodigious studio equipment and film lab built by Dr. Incandenza within the grounds of the Enfield Tennis Academy. The prototypical relationship between Hal and him has been reversed, in that Hal (the younger of the two) plays the role of a supportive elder brother. Hal's nickname for Mario is Booboo.
- Orin Incandenza is the eldest son of the Incandenzas. He is a serial womaniser who plays professional football as a kicker for the Arizona Cardinals and is estranged from all members of the family except Hal. He met and fell in love with Joelle Van Dyne (introducing her to his father), but later lost his attraction to her. After Joelle his conquests have all been mothers and this may be related to his intense hatred of his own mother.
The Enfield Tennis Academy
- Michael Pemulis (aka The Peemster, Penis-less) - Pemulis, a working class kid from a Southie family, is Hal's best friend. Pemulis is a prankster and the school's resident drug procurer. He is also a mathematical genius. This, combined with his limited but ultraprecise lobbing, made him the school's first Eschaton master. Eschaton, a computer-aided turn-based nuclear wargame, requires that players be adept both at matters of game theory and at pegging targets with tennis balls. Pemulis is thus the archetypal Eschaton player. Although the novel takes place long after Pemulis' Eschaton days (the game is played by twelve- to fourteen-year-olds), Pemulis is still regarded as one of the game's all-time greats, and a final court of appeal in game matters. It's worth noting that he's very adept at the art of revenge--no one ever calls him Penis-less anymore. Not after what happened to the kid who started the rumor. Also has a brother among the Boston Drag Queens who was repeatedly anally raped by their father in Allston.
- Ortho "The Darkness" Stice - Another of Hal's close friends. He only endorses brands that have black-colored products, and is thus clad at all times entirely in black. He achieves a narrow loss to Hal Incandenza 2/3 through the book, and becomes a more significant character as his ability to deny selfhood is realized.
- John "No Relation" Wayne - Wayne is the top ranked player at the school, and was discovered by James Incandenza during the filming of one of his arguably pretentious art films (some might just find the films uniquely, funnily eccentric) which revolved around interviewing different men named John Wayne from around the US. Frighteningly efficient, controlled, and almost machine-like on the court. While Wayne plays a major role in the novel, his voice is never heard.
The Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House (Sic)
- Don Gately is a former thief and Demerol addict and current counselor in residence at the Ennet House. He is one of the central characters in the book, second only to Hal.
- Joelle Van Dyne, aka Madame Psychosis on the radio (her on-air name, a play on metempsychosis) ; aka the Prettiest Girl of All Time (or PGOAT), as called by Orin. She wears a veil, a la the Elephant Man, to hide her face. Whether she does this because she is Hideously and Improbably Deformed, or offputtingly beautiful, or previously offputtingly beautiful but now H.A.I.D., is open to the reader's interpretation.
- Kate Gompert Suffers from extreme unipolar depression. Cannabinoid addict. She was named after someone Wallace knew; the eponym sued DFW and his publisher.
- Pat Montesian - Ennet House manager.
- Ken Erdedy Cannabinoid addict from first few chapters of the book.
- Bruce Green
- Randy Lenz - resident scumbag. Is removed for trapping animals in garbage bags and setting them on fire. Later he begins slitting the throats of neighborhood dogs, thus starting the brawl with the Canadians where Gately is shot. Also relapses (general narcotics) prior to this event.
- Tiny Ewell
- Doony Glynn
- Wade McDade
- Geoffrey Day
- Calvin Thrust
- Emil Minty - Perhaps named for the actor who portrayed the 'Feral Child' in the Road Warrior.
Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents
Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents (AFR) or, in English, the Wheelchair Assassins, is a Quebecois separatist group. Many such groups exist at the time of the book, when America has coerced Canada and Mexico into joining the Organization of North American Nations (ONAN), but AFR is the most deadly and extremist. While other separatist groups will settle for mere nationhood, AFR wants Canada to pull out of ONAN and to refuse America's forced annexation of its polluted northernmost strip. This is why the Antitoi brothers, despite also being separatists, suffer such gruesome fates at the hands of AFR: they are members of the FLQ whose goals AFR finds unacceptably moderate. The AFR seeks the master copy of IJ as a terrorist weapon to achieve its anti-imperialist goals. AFR grew from a childhood game in which miners' sons lined up on a train track and tried to be the last one to jump in front of an oncoming train, a game in which many were killed and maimed. But despite being legless, the AFR is brutal and merciless. See n. 304, p. 1057, for the book's most thorough description of AFR motives, goals, and methods.
Only one miner's son has (disgracefully) failed to jump, and he may be the prosaic John Wayne's father, as they share the same last name. Quebcois Avril's liasion with Wayne, and with the half-Canadian attache Don Gately accidentally kills, suggest she may have ties to AFR as well.
Subsidized time
In the book's future, advertising's relentess search for new markets has created a world where, by ONAN's dictate, years are referred to only by their corporate sponsor.
- Year of the Whopper
- Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad
- Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar
- Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken
- Year of the Whisper-Quiet Maytag Dishmaster
- Year of the Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office, Or Mobile (sic)
- Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland
- Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment
- Year of Glad
Most of the action in Infinite Jest takes place in the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, or Y.D.A.U., which is probably Gregorian 2009, taking the Year of the Yushityu... (the lengthily titled 6th Subsidized Year) as 2007. Critic Stephen Burn, in his book on Infinite Jest, argues convincingly that Y.D.A.U. corresponds to 2009: the MIT Language Riots took place in 1997 (n. 24) and those riots occurred 12 years prior to Y.D.A.U. (n. 60).
It is also possible that Y.D.A.U. is 2008, as Matty Pemulis turns 23 in Y.D.A.U. (p. 682). Matty's (and Mike's) father came over in 1989 when Matty was "three or four" (p. 683). If Matty had been three and four in 1989, he was born in 1985, which mean he turns 23 in 2008.
It's possible that Wallace deliberately kept the time of IJ somewhat fluid or simply couldn't be completely consistent throughout the book's 1000+ pages.
More on the setting of the story
Readers familiar with Brighton, Massachusetts, will recognize that Enfield is largely a stand-in for Brighton. The pictures of Enfield and neighboring Allston that Wallace paints, however, seem to serve simply as points of contrast for the largely idyllic life of students at ETA. The name possibly references the former real-life Enfield, one of four towns in central Massachusetts now submerged under the Quabbin Reservoir.
Literature
Surveys
- Marshall Boswell, Understanding David Foster Wallace. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003. ISBN 1570035172
- Iannis Goerlandt and Luc Herman, "David Foster Wallace." Post-war Literatures in English: A Lexicon of Contemporary Authors 56 (2004), 1-16; A1-2, B1-2.
In-depth studies
- Tom LeClair, "The Prodigious Fiction of Richard Powers, William Vollmann, and David Foster Wallace." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 38.1 (1996), 12-37.
- Frank Louis Cioffi, "An Anguish Becomes Thing: Narrative as Performance in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest." Narrative 8.2 (2000), 161-181.
- Catherine Nichols, "Dialogizing Postmodern Carnival: David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 43.1 (2001), 3-16.
- Stephen Burn, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: A Reader's Guide. New York, London: Continuum, 2003 (= Continuum Contemporaries) ISBN 082641477X
Interviews
- Laura Miller, "The Salon Interview: David Foster Wallace." Salon 9 (1996). [1]
- Michael Goldfarb, "David Foster Wallace." Radio interview for The Connection (25 June 2004). (full audio interview)