Wallace:David:Infinite Jest:Narrator

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

wallace-l 4 June 1996: I'm halfway through my second reading of IJ and am intrigued by the question of Who's Talking. Here some observations:

1. "This should not be rendered in exposition like this, but Mario Incandenza has a severly limited range of verbatim recall." pp. 82

Thus says our narrator during the mosquito bite talk between Mario and Schtitt.Our narrator is filling us in because, I guess, Mario can't remember any of this stuff as well. And don't let's forget that Hal is like totally mnemonic. So: if Mario can't remember it, we can't hear it? And of course Hal wants to help out Mario anyway possible. So Hal is supporting Mario in his effort to remember or document, just as all the other structures in the book that hold up important but unstable entities. Is this book actually a movie that Mario's shot? With Hal as grip? Isn't that a Gravity's Rainbow theory, sort of?

1. "Mario... asked to disenroll from the Winter Hill Special School in Cambridgeport for cheerfully declining to even try to really read, explaining he'd way rather listen and watch." pp.188-189

He don't miss much.

1. "Hal, who personally thinks the term that'd apply here would be suborned...keeps his own counsel at this point and basically goes along to get along." sub 55 referring to p.156

Who says this? Like someone's MST3000-ing the narration. I know there's lots more examples of this, most memorably in the foonote of Hal and Pemulis witnessing the Eschaton debacle.

wallace-l 4 June 1996: Have we considered the possibility that Wallace is pulling a Henry James rather than a Bob Dole? Each piece of evidence points in a different direction, offering yet another "turn of the screw." I was always under the impression that we were looking over Wallace's shoulder as he wrote; even when it is obviously one of the characters writing (e.g., the excerpts from the Eschaton manual), it seems that Wallace is interfering as the transcriber/creator. Particularly telling in this respect, I thought, was the moments when the narrator gives the "sic," mentions that he doesn't know something, or lets us know that he is offering more than the characters know. While you could argue that a character would also not know, it's much more interesting to wonder about the author not knowing. It makes him a kind of character in his own novel. Taking into account his admiration for Barth (at least the early Barth), this would certainly seem a possibility.

Along slightly different lines, an interesting point was made in the February (I think) issue of the Atlantic, in a piece on the work of David Lodge. The reviewer was discussing the beginning of his latest book "Therapy," which begins with the phrase "Right, here goes." This reviewer suggested that the line can be interpreted in two ways: as the narrator beginning an explanation to his shrink or as the author penning the first sentence of the book. The same seems to apply to IJ, which begins "I am here." (at least that's how I remember it beginning). Perhaps the floating narrator is Wallace's way of showing his hand; at the same time, of course, he has a few aces up his sleeve that he makes sure don't see the light of day.

wallace-l 4 June 1996: I think both these ideas are excellent - I especially like how the first gives closure to the book when you read the first chapter as last. Ends so proleteriat - everyone has a story, here's a doozy, you've got one too. The second, though, explains how Gately gets seen as well, though of course the ghost must refer to himself in the third person when he's sitting on the heart monitor etc. Of course, there's no internal reason for us to seek one sole narrator for the book, not with the occasional patois story ("Wardine be cry") and insurance reports and such - maybe Himself only is really telling one story, which is in turn interspersed with all the other colorful stuff inc. Gately like billboards breaking up a long drive.

The Ghost Theory helps explain my p.82 "limited verbatim recall" thing - Dad's watching his sons do what they do best. "He hath borne them on HIS back a thousand times," perhaps. Sure, Himself was a drunk, but I found the end of the professional conversationalist bit truly pathetic. And if we can get away with attributing that kindness to the Stork, and he's the narrator, then maybe we've got another explanation for the empathetic and patient handling of all the hideous eccentricities in these pages.

wallace-l 5 June 1996:

I thought this but then again I also noted the `So man what's your story' line in the intro scene and decided it could all be Hal. That would explain e.g. why Pemulis' maths is reported rather vaguely with appropriate misunderstandings. The sics don't need any special accounting for. Hal woudl report with 100% veracity now wouldn't he but also, being the Moms' son [note the careful placement of the possessive ' there], woudl have to add sics here and there to show that he knows it's not supposed to read like that.

Regarding the problem of Hal's knowledge of Gately's tale, remember that Hal gives evidence that he knows Gately in the intro - he recalls them digging up his father's head. So Hal could also know all about Gately's side of the story. He coudl have talked it all through with DG.

Note also i) that the intro occurs at the end of the Year of Glad over a year after the dope withdrawal (allowing lots of time to sort things out with DG) and that ii) this is Hal's second relapse into demented (or DMZed) uncontrol.

Evidence for i) the year is given as the intro's title. Hal mentions that his ankle has not ached for a whole year now. Hal mentions he has had problems with his marks for the whole of the last year but up until the Bob Hope withdrawal he was a model student. Hal talks about how Wayne would have won last year's Whataburger... presumably events associated with his AFR links and the gravedigging meant that he was hors de combat, exposed as a terrorist, maybe? And presumably too this occured fairly soon after Hal's dope withdrawal since the AFR were pretty hot on the trail of the master by the end of the book.

Evidence for ii) Hal is down in Arizona for a tennis meet when he goes for the interview (is he up for the semi-final in this year's Whataburger?). If a year has passed then the DMZ cannot have taken effect suddenly thanks to the Bob Hope withdrawal. But the similarity with his peculiar facial expressions when he is unsticking Stice suggest that he was in the initial throes of the same sort of attack last year. Hal's reaching the semi-final this year suggests that this latest attack has happened just prior to the interview - I mean, surely he could not have played tennis like an `angel' under the influence. Now, when Hal is being taken into the ambulance on the gurney he recalls being taken into a similar waiting room with a similar attendant psychiatric-type-MD almost exactly a year ago. So, presumably this is a repeat performance of what hit him last year. Also, he knows that he will be sedated, sleep like a baby and wake up refreshed for his semi-final with the blind kid, Dymphna. Maybe Hal accessed some of Pemulis' stolen stash and took the DMZ deliberately so he could be ready for the final? (knowing it woudl not show up in a dope test). Maybe he is just susceptible to the mold at certain times of the year? (if the latter then the timing is somewhat fortituous).

Also, if Hal met Donald Gately' (he calls himDonald', not `Don') shortly before last year's Whataburger thanks to the coercion of a masked John Wayne and the AFR then he and DG would have been able to (and more than likely to in the circumstances, shared terrorist interest, mutual friend in Joelle, emergence of Himself visits etc) exchange their whole life stories by now. So Hal could tell the whole thing to us while he is DMZing his way to the semi-final.