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Wallace:David:Infinite Jest:Pending Questions

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

pynchon-l 1 April 1996: 1. What's with the preponderance of people without skulls and people with artificial frameworks where skulls should be? I casually count Marathe's wife, somebody's sister in an earlier aside (was nightly assaulted by Dad and forced into a Rita Hayworth mask), and a soon-to-matriculate tennis player who requires a nasty rolling rack for her unfortunate skull. Echoes also in the poor boy who's head is still in the TP (teleputer) post-Eschaton debacle and the hand-cage around the teddy bear's head in the not-NA meeting. The Stork erased his map in a similarly head-caged manner. Interesting that in a book whose title is originally addressed to a jester's skull so many should be without. Subtext: we all need artificial structure because our real one doesn't work too well? Is booze such a structure? High-resin Bob Hope?

  1. Somebody asked in the last two weeks where the "center" of the book is. By my count its quite precisely around pp.491-503 and pp. 508-511. The first details a childhood memory of (presumably) Himself's Dad keeling over dead while fixing a squeaky mattress in a saturated blue room while Mom doesn't respond, which death leads indirectly to an optics breakthrough for the young genius; the second describes the insane blue-with-clouds wallpaper and many other bluenesses in the ETA Head's waiting room. "Hal loathes sky-and-cloud wallpaper because it makes him feel high-altitude and disoriented and sometimes plummeting." Of course, all this central blueness is echoed on my dustcover, as I assume it is on yours. So: is it blueness somehow? Symbolizing "highness" and falling? Also associated with death-in-blase-company (Himself's Dad dead in a pool of drool in the middle of skyblue shag), like death-in-pleasant-company, like death-in-entertainment, like the Entertainment itself?

wallace-l 24 April 1996: 1. When Hal disasterously tries to get help at Ennet House he speaks with a staff person called (I think) Jeanette which kinda cold-shoulders him. After Hal has left the author lets us know that Jeanette "will later remember this boy in the light of subsequent events". What events would that be? It sounds like something fairly earth-shattering or of national importance, not something as mundane as Gately and Hal later meeting at Orin's funeral or something like that. If it entails Hal being involved in the attempted prevention of a dissemination of the Entertainment, why would Jeanette hear about this? And if Hal becomes a known figure then why isn't this mentioned in the beginning of the book when he is seeking to be admitted at the college? I haven't seen any mention of this point in the discussion and thought I'd bring it up.

  1. It seems to me as if everybody was pretty spaced out the morning when Hal wakes up early and finds Stice glued to the window. Why else would people not call a doctor or something to try and unglue Stice? Leaving the task to the janitors seems awefully negligent.

  2. Perhaps the person on the bench outside in the snow, being snowed over was Mourincourt (or whatever her name was), the canadian prorector who was missing. The only time we saw her was on that bench (this is a pretty lame speculation I know).

  3. Are there any hints to what becomes of Gately and Joelle after the book ends (apart from the speculative quest of Hal and Gately to get Hal's father's head)? The last we see Joelle she is walking to Ennet house in the snow, right? Why would Unspecified Services let her go after the technical interview (which didn't seem all that third-degree)?

  4. What is the deal with Lyle? If he can leave his body and travel in the world of wraiths then why doesn't he warn Hal etc. of the impending doom? Or has he perhaps himself become a wraith when he cat-licks Gately's forehead?

  5. Does anybody see anybody see any special importance in the section which closes the book, with the addicted thug being (presumably) forcefed the "entertainment" of cranio-facial-pain advertisements, all this while everybody else parties on drugs and his "friend" Gately is stoned out of his skull? Perhaps an allusion to the passivity of modern society to the brain-washing type inanity of television/mass media being inflicted on a large part of it? (I guess it can be read in a 1000 ways.)

  6. What happened to Kate Gompert? Did she end up as a subject of the AFR's "digital" experiment like Lenz? Was something mentioned on this somewhere?

wallace-l 31 May 1996: Just got through IJ, and I've got a couple a thoughts/questions. First, when Gately wakes up at the end, does that mean that the entire thing was just a dream, or just that Wallace used a rather smooth transition between times? Second, does the beach where Gately wakes up at the last sentence or so have any relevance to the rest of the story that I missed or forgot? What about Hal? I happen to think that his toothbrush was drugged with DMZ, but that leaves the question--who did it? I think it was related to the theft of Pemulis's stash, which in turn was related to the poltriegeist, which I'm not sure, but think was Himself's ghost. But why would Himself do a thing like that? Also, the AFR didn't get the master (they were interrogating Orin about it), but then Hal&orin didn't get it in Gately's vision, so who did? Also, did Jolle really get kicked out of Ennet house, and how? Finally, what's the Madame P./DMZ/IJ connection? They're obviously closely related. IJ was fatally entertaining. I guess that DMZ was also. Madame P. also thought Himself was joking about IJ being fatal. So, was she only pretending to be joking about fatal beauty? Madame P. seems to link much of the book. Is her veil then a symbol of the fundamental mystery behind it all?

wallace-l 25 Nov 1996: what's with the suggestion that there are teenagers dancing in circles and carrying torches down on the desert floor, during the long night that Steeply and Marathe spend on the mountain? A-and what's it got to do with the rest of the novel?

and the same day: Also, does Orin die?

December 8, 2003: p. 17 paperback edition: Hal refers to the O.E.D. VI as being the current version of the Oxford English Dictionary. O.E.D. II pubbed in 1989. The O.E.D. III's projected pub date is 2030 (in the early 90s, the projected pub date was 2001-2002). It seems to take approximately 40 years to edit and produce an edition of the OED. Can we safely assume that naming the current OED version VI to be a miscalculation on the author's part? Even if Wallace were assuming a 12 year cycle, that would make the Year of Glad approximately 2037. Does that seem right? I wasn't thinking it was that far ahead. -Marie Mundaca

Try this re: ST years. Gatley refers to smoking his first duBois at age 9, while watching the LA post-Rodney King riots; the King video is dated 1991. That puts Gately's DOB no later than 1982. Gately is 28, or 29 in YDAU (he is self-described as a full-fledged drug addict (not exact words) at age 29 (although he may be referring to as of his sobriety date, 421 days previous)). -- Kevin Brunkhorst

Jan 1, 2004: Further dictionary research finds that Hal references reading the OED Condensed, and further references Volume Six, page 1387. I'm not sure if he's referencing the OED Compact (with the magnifying glass) , or the Shorter OED, the 2-volume set. I think it's the shorter, judging by the page number. As of 1993 the OED Shorter was up to edition 4 (or 5, if you count the revision as an edition). So, that's mre realistic that I thought. Regardless, I still think he's jumping the gun with the edition numbers. - Marie Mundaca

May 27th, 2004: The opening interview states "The brother is in the bloody NFL for God's sake." (p.14) So it would seem Orin is alive and well and the glass jar scene was interrogation and just like Joelle, he was released. Kate Gompert knew what was in the film although it differed from what Joelle said was in it. However, Joelle never knew what was used in the final version and Kate Gompert seems to be the kind of character who talks just to hear her own voice to she could be elaborating on what's contained. Could the guy on the bench be the ghost of James? Stice is involved with the wraith activities, not only being one of the victims of having his stuff moved around but when his head gets stuck to the window, he offers to show Hal something supernatural in exchange of helping him get free. He also has seen the wraith himself. I think the end of subsidized time is supposed to be around 2002 and the year of glad is around 2012. I cannot find a path that leads me to believe the AFR got the master (or the rumored reversal cartridge). It seems the story could go either in the direction of the AFR getting the info they need at the ETA event to lead them to the tape or Joelle contacting the family and roping Gately in to retrieve the tape. The AFR were always pretty ruthless in past scenes so I'm not sure they'd let Orin live. It was Steeply who had Joelle for questioning, not the AFR - he warned her she's in a lot of danger and her role ends with her heading back to the Ennet house to warn Pat of the AFR and to remove the wheelchair ramps. Over and out... S