INFINITE JEST: the end (with spoilers)

I've read it for the first time now. Thank you, thank you, Sutpen for all your help here and especially for Aaron's blog that straightens so much out for me. I will read this again, but not now - except for the first 30 pages.

Yeah, the reread is so needed, right? I was enjoying this, but now that I have gotten through the phone conversation Orin and Hal have about the latter finding their father's body, I am gripped, sickened and ravished. Finally what was the worst part of the book for me, the tired urban legends (bum toothbrush et al.) is revealed as a dark come-on, a nihilistic tease. There's so much sadness in this book, and yet so much fascination - like, the story of Orin's punt bookends Hal's story for me - a strange flowering; a parallel flourishing youth story. I don't know if any of that makes sense - Infinite Jest is shedding new light on how impressionistically and synaesthetically I read. But it's heartfelt comment, which adjective is also the first I'd use to describe the book.

3:
"Heartfelt." Yeah, I agree, but I do my best to avoid well-used words like that one when I describe the book to friends. Of course "heartfelt," taken literally, captures IJ perfectly, but virtually no one can hear that word properly anymore. This is part of why I have such a hard time talking about Wallace with people who haven't read his stuff. Wallace's writing has been subjected to so much cliched BS from reviewers and critics who are much more concerned with staking out territory in the critical community than writing honestly about books that I end up creeping people out in an attempt to do justice to Wallace's astounding sincerity.

>4 Sutpen: heh. I agree 100%, although I think that's the best reason to insist on words like that--both to challenge ourselves to present them in ways where they can be understood, and to our interlocutors to really listen and understand, in, um, a heartfelt manner. In either case, to find uncharted territory in words whenever possible. Maybe it's a bit much to expect of people, but of course I had no concerns about being misunderstood in this forum.

Does Ennet House remind anyone else of Mann's International Sanatorium Berghof?

"heartfelt" - it's there, but it's heavily coated in a lot of other stuff. I see it as a room with a large heart in there, but the room is not nice to look at, it's disturbing (in a captivating way) to the eyes. It's messy, things look haphazardly placed, there's some strange pictures on the wall, and you can't be sure how sanitary everything is. It's only once you begin to see how things work a bit that you begin to see how carefully everything is placed, and that you find things that are touching.

Hi, just finished IJ for the first time and immediately went online to find out more about it.

Have read through the above conversation with great interest and, similar to dchaikin, was starting to wory about how much I'd missed! However, with more reflection, I don't think it's necessary to worry about it - the book's too complex to 'get' first time round.

Just wanted to add one little thing (which may be wrong, or indeed so obvious that no-one's even bothered to say it) - in the original post by dchaikin, question 2 is "2. Why was Orin screaming "Do it to her!"? (page 972)"

Now to me this is a reference to the end of Orwell's 1984 - and the "her" may be either Avril or JvD? Or the 'swiss hand model' maybe?

What do you think?

>7 michael1885: definitely a 1984 reference, and the offhand and unfollowedup way in which it's thrown out there at the end makes it almost more awful than Orwell's ponderosity. I remember having had the idea that it referred to Joelle, but now I have no idea why.

Thanks for that MM - I was pretty sure it was and then wondered if the fact that no-one else had said so on here in reply to the original question meant that saying so would mean I had missed something entirely!

This book messes with your head... and reading the incredibly smart and interesting thoughts of the people who know it better than I do messes with my intellectual self-esteem! ;-)

Maybe I need to re-read 1984. I cheated and looked it up wikipedia:

During political re-education, Winston admits to and confesses his crimes and to crimes he did not commit, implicating others and his beloved Julia. In the second stage of re-education for reintegration, O'Brien makes Winston understand he is "rotting away". Countering that the Party cannot win, Winston admits: "I have not betrayed Julia". O'Brien understands that despite his criminal confession and implication of Julia, Winston has not betrayed her in that he "had not stopped loving her; his feeling toward her had remained the same".

One night in his cell Winston suddenly awakens, screaming: "Julia! Julia! Julia, my love! Julia!", whereupon O'Brien rushes in, not to interrogate but to send him to Room 101, the Miniluv's most feared room where resides the worst thing in the world. There, the prisoner's greatest fear is forced on them; the final step in political re-education: acceptance. Winston's primal fear of rats is imposed upon him as a wire cage holding hungry rats that will be fitted to his face. When the rats are about to devour his face, he frantically shouts: "Do it to Julia!" - in his moment of fear, ultimately relinquishing his love for Julia. The torture ends and Winston is reintegrated to society, brainwashed to accept the Party's doctrine and to love Big Brother.

oh...!!...Orin's experience is a direct parallel to this.

So, does this mark Orin's breaking point, where he becomes complicit with AFR? I mean he has the movie, so they have finally tortured a confession out of him and accessed the movie?

And "her"...still some options there.

10:

"So, does this mark Orin's breaking point, where he becomes complicit with AFR?"

Yes, I'd say so.

"And 'her'...still some options there."

Yeah. I had assumed it was Avril because Orin has such a grudge against her, but it looks like the 1984 connection (I've never read it) would point more to Joelle. But then I can't think of any reason why Orin would refer to her at that point. Am I forgetting something?

Aren't they still trying to find Joelle? Does this imply "I don't know where the movie is; find her and torture her and she'll tell you!"? Although dchaikin upthread indicates that Orin has the movie? Is it the master copy? did I miss that somehow? I was getting up early at that point. I thought it was in Himself's head.

Aha. I went back and read the thread and am now more sussed out. Well, is Orin trying to play the AFR? Trying to pretend he doesn't have the master and Joelle would know where it is? Because the Orin-torture scene takes place before they descend on ETA, right? Not that I'm in any way happy with this theory.

I'm afraid to follow an idea too far because I don't where I've made the wrong turn...

But...

- from the posts above, I believe Orin has the movie and is passing out un-copyable (??) copies
- from the 1984 thing, I believe Orin has surrendered completely. He will hand over the movie.
- "Do it to her" means mainly that Orin has surrendered, the "her" isn't critical here

I think we all agree there. But, still, who is "her." My thoughts:

1. & 2. her as the reporter or hand model - no to both because they have nothing to betray

3. her as Avril - this deserves some thought. Orin is hung-up on his mom, this is yucky, but real and why he prefers moms in general. It's possible that Avril is Orin's true love, as much as he may hate her. It's not clear to me what Avril's involvement is with the plot (and what Pemulis may or may not know about that), but there seems to be something. She may be worth betraying.

4. Her as JvD. The obvious one assuming this is Orin's true love. And JvD must have some great secrets, she might have the ultimate key to some mysteries about the movie. The thing is I'm not 100% sure Orin sees JvD as a true love, he is more in love with himself than JvD. And, I'm not sure AFR needs anything from JvD, once they have the movie.

plus, "her" needs to be understood as a specific person, which implies "her" is in the room...

I'm partial to Avril.

14:

I'm not convinced that the person he's referring to is in the room. But if the person *is* in the room, I agree that the most likely suspect would be Avril, and that would probably support the theories that 1) Avril is working with/sympathetic to the Quebec Separatists, or even 2) that Avril is actually Luria P.

I agree with everything else you said.

Avril is actually Luria P.

Yes! And so John Wayne is working with the AFR too, right? And the question becomes, how far back does this go? We're, what, 10 years after Interdependence Day, something like that? What stage is Himself at in his film career when he and Avril marry? What does she suspect about the Entertainment all along? Ack, so many questions! I want to sit down and start reading again right now. But, but ... I've never read Anna Karenina. I've never read Middlemarch. I've never seen the sun rise over Kilimanjaro. Also, I'm at work.

16:

My recall is a little rusty, but as I remember it, the main problem with Avril being Luria P is that Orin seems to have sex with Luria P and...I mean, I know everyone buys Steeply's disguise and that seems kind of improbable, but would Orin *really* not recognize his own mother? I agree that Orin having sex with Avril would sort of make sense, but why the heck would the narrative not give the merest hint that he knew it was her? Just to fool the reader?

Like I said, my recall is a little rusty. I've got a .pdf that I can check later.

"Orin seems to have sex with Luria P"

Ok, how to word this. If Luria P and Avril are two separate people, then I don't recall this (If they are the same person, then wording for this gets messy.)—unless Luria P is the hand model....

I thought I had it figured out that L P was the hand model. I don't remember why I thought this. I need to re-read as well.

Salon Infinite Jest reread, 2011?

#21 I'm seriously thinking about reading again next year.

A reread is inevitable. but maybe not next year for me. I want to read some more DFW that's been on my TBR for ages. I'm particularly interested in Interviews with hideous men.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Haven't read that either. Or The Broom of the System. Or Oblivion: Stories. And then ... next year DFWs unfinished novel, The Pale King will be released.

Why not do a read here (a hardcore read of Infinite Jest with page-by-page, if not paragraph-by-paragraph, analysis and commentary? For those who are interested ...

I'm in.

I want to say yes, but if the publication date stays the same, I may be spending my time with The Pale King next summer.