Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest

Author	David Foster Wallace
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	None
Subject	None
Genre	Hysterical realism, Satire, Tragicomedy
Publisher	Little, Brown
Publication date	February 1, 1996
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	1079
ISBN	ISBN 0316920045

Infinite Jest (1996) is a critically acclaimed novel written by David Foster Wallace. This extremely large and complex work takes place in a hypothetical Boston, Massachusetts of the near future. The novel touches on topics as diverse as tennis; substance addiction and recovery programs; child abuse; advertising and popular entertainment; film theory; and Quebecois separatism.

The book's plot centers around a lost film cartridge, referred to in the novel as "the Entertainment", but titled Infinite Jest by its creator James Incandenza. The film is so "entertaining" to its unwitting viewers that they become lifeless, losing all interest in anything other than endless viewings of the film. This cartridge provides the most extreme and central incarnation of the novel's central theme of addiction. The novel takes place largely in the Incandenza family's elite tennis academy in suburban Boston, and a nearby drug treatment halfway house staffed by a reformed burglar. In the novel's future 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, eliminating traditional numerical designations, so advanced is the corporate grasp on daily life; for example: "The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment," or "The Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland." Furthermore, much of what used to be the Northeastern United States and Southeastern Canada has become a massive hazardous waste dumping site known as "The Great Concavity".

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 literary connection is alluded to many times. For example, the film company that distributes James Incandenza's work is called "Poor Yorick Productions". See also Shakespeare-based titles.

Characters

The Incandenza family

• Avril Incandenza, née Mondragon, is the (covertly) 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. After which, she begins, or perhaps continues, a relationship with Charles Tavis, the new head of the academy and her either half or adoptive brother. Her sexual relations are a matter of some speculation/discussion, yet a certain sexual relation with John "No Relation" Wayne is confirmed and one with Orin Incandenza, her own son, is perhaps implied. (Issues of incest permeate the book's text in other segments, too). Her nickname among the family is The Moms. The Moms' behavior is also characterized, among other traits, 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 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 his complete mental breakdown and inability to communicate without screaming by the Year of Glad. In this regard, strong parallels can be drawn between him and the title character of Hamlet. The origin of Hal's condition is unclear, and the cause of his breakdown is fiercely debated amongst fans of the novel. One possible cause is the slow development of a certain fungi that Hal ate as a child into a drug known as DMZ, while an alternate possibility is that Pemulis (or another Academy resident) doped his toothbrush with the same hallucinogen of the other theory.

• 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 his father may be 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 womanizer who plays professional football as a punter 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/lust for 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 the game's all-time great, 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. 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 manages 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, Wayne plays a major role in the novel, though his voice is only heard once during a "Big Buddy" session.

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. Gately is also the burglar who so offends the DA with toothbrush-in-ass antics, and furthermore is the accidental murderer of M. DuPlessis, one of the masterminds behind the Quebecois A.F.R and samizdat conspirators
• 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; aka Lucille Duquette according to Molly Notkin's deposition to the U.S.O.U.S., which may be either knowingly fabricated to get them off Joelle's trail, actually her (Joelle's) real name, or a lie Joelle/Lucille told Notkin who then passes it on as what she thinks is truth to the U.S.O.U.S.. 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 paralyzingly beautiful, or previously offputtingly beautiful but now H.I.D., is open to the reader's interpretation. The PGOAT is the primary figure in Infinite Jest, filmed through wobbly neo-natal lens, which reaches down to the camera as if a bassinet and apologizes profusely, sans veil - which supposedly triggers some sort of addictive pleasure complex in the viewer that makes even partial viewing of the samizdat suicidal. She tries to 'eliminate her own map' in Molly Notkin's bathroom via massive ingestion of freebase cocaine, unsuccessfully, which lands her in Ennet House as a resident. As a resident she develops a strong connection to D. Gately and considers showing him whatever lies under the veil after his heroic actions in the middle of the text.
• Kate Gompert is a cannabinoid addict who suffers from extreme unipolar depression. She was named after someone Wallace knew; the eponym sued DFW and his publisher.
• Pat Montesian - Ennet House manager. She is a recovered addict, stroke victim, and wife of Mars Montesian, a Boston billionaire. There is some suspicion that Mars owns the only non-lethal form of the Entertainment, and that their daughter is hopelessly addicted to it. Pat has a special fondness for Don Gately, possibly due to the fact that he has recovered from his addiction and has also survived being "Entertained". (This information [including the tenuous proposal about Mars and Pat's daughter, who collectively get a total of about 5 lines in the actual novel] would require deep reading into the text).
• Ken Erdedy Cannabinoid addict from first few chapters of the book.
• Bruce Green husband of Mildred Bonk Green, once lived with Tommy Doocey, hare-lipped pot dealer for Erdedy, et. al.; reticent and fondly thought of as stoic by Gately; accompanies Lenz on post-AA meeting walks back to Ennet House and thus unknowingly prevents Lenz from murdering neighborhood pets, which culminates in the climactic fight scene.
• Randy Lenz - resident cokehead scumbag not in the House to recover, but to hide from both the police and a group of drug dealers he managed to get one over on in a tremendous simultaneous con. The compounded stress of this hiding and a wicked case of withdrawal lead him to begin torturing animals, leading to the brutal fight mentioned above. Also relapses (general narcotics) prior to this event.
• Tiny Ewell - a Lawyer with dwarfism; has obsession with others' tattoos (complete with classification system) as well as the corners of made hospital beds
• Doony Glynn - a Boston roofer with REALLY bad luck
• Wade McDade
• Geoffrey Day - pompously verbose E.H. resident in for crashing his Saab into a department store who, pre-rehab, authors the article on the Wheelchair Assassins and their pre-adolescent train jumping which Struck disastrously plagiarizes for Poutrincourt's "Quebecois" class
• Calvin Thrust - Former porn star, star of several of Himself's films
• 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, are 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-experialist 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. Quebecois Avril's liasion with Wayne, and with the half-Canadian attache Don Gately accidentally kills, suggest she may have ties to AFR as well, and there is compelling but vague evidence linking the teacher/prorecter Poutrincourt to the group as well.

Poor Tony Krause (P.T. Krause)

Poor Tony is a Drag Queen formerly associated with Michael Pemulis' older brother, Matty, as well as Randy Lenz. Throughout the novel P.T. is on a harrowing downward spiral of drug use, seizures, who finally he meets his end at the hands of Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents. Poor Tony is actually a bridge between many characters who are associated with the Entertainment, including Don Gately, and there is some supposition (though obscure) that he has experienced the Entertainment in a non-lethally addicting form, though addicting nonetheless. Don Gately has also apparently experienced this form of the entertainment but has no memory of it.

Subsidized time

In the book's future, advertising's relentless search for new markets has created a world where, by ONAN's dictate, years are referred to only by their corporate sponsor.

1. Year of the Whopper
2. Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad
3. Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar
4. Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken
5. Year of the Whisper-Quiet Maytag Dishmaster
6. 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)
7. Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland
8. Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment
9. 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)

External links

• Infinite Jest. Reviews, Articles, & Miscellany
• The Howling Fantods! - David Foster Wallace: News, Info, Links
• Review of the novel
• Infinite Jest Utilities Page
• Infinite Jest Index Page
• Catalog of mathematical errors in Infinite Jest