Week Five

Wherein we traverse 47 endnotes (!), get some perspective on Orin and JvD’s relationship, shudder in a bathroom stall with Poor Tony Krause, brush up on our Quebecois separatist history, understand the extent of Mario’s disfigurements, check in with Marathe and Steeply, and play a game of Eschaton.

Recap

Orin Incandenza, All American
We learn more about Orin’s transition from tennis to football, and his relationship with P.G.O.A.T. Joelle van Dyne (aka Madame Psychosis). The way that Avril plays Orin to go to Boston U. is a very clear view into their distorted relationship. Orin describes Avril as “a contortionist with other peoples bodies.”

Ugh – I just think CT is a mealy-mouthed usurper.  If James Sr. sounded like Foghorn Leghorn, CT’s long screed about not expecting any ‘thank yous’ reminds me of…maybe Rick from Rick and Morty??

We move very quickly in this section from Orin’ full ride to Boston U, his transfer from tennis to trying out for football because of a certain baton twirler, the moment of fate that reveals his true talent at punting, the courtship of JvD (who approached him), their moving in together, her budding drug addiction, finally to her later film work with JOI. It’s a very dense, and narratively traditional, excepting the 11 endnotes that are peppered throughout. Endnote 134 tells us that on November 8, YDAU Joelle van Dyne entered Ennett House, one day after her attempted de-mapping.

It’s November 14, YDAU, the last day of Poor Tony Krause’s life.
There is only one endnote in Por Tony’s  section, so there is very little to break the grotesque description of Tony’s withdrawl and resulting seizure on the subway, though the one endnote on “Then he had a seizure” (p. 305) jumps us out of the frame, just to learn the scientific definition of a seizure, before we jump back into the subway car. This section is so moving, so heart-breaking. We also learn it was Tony indeed who stole the heart in the purse, know that he also has a connection to the Antitoi Bros, and by context know that yrstrly is Emil Minty.  The German word Zuckung, which means convulsion, is somehow put in his head. Poor Tony Krause.

While ETA has rigorous academics, the prorector’s classes are a bit…off.
We get another peek into ETA which starts from the perspective of Ted Schacht, and then seamlessly moves into Hal’s POV. I would take all of these prorector classes.

Through another “why isn’t this just part of the book?” endnote, we are party to the phone message from Orin, the letter from Avril and Orin’s form letter response. and Hal and Orin’s phone call about why Quebec would make an abrupt right face and fight O.N.A.N. ‘for” Canada, and mention of Steeply’s questions about the samizdat, as well as twelve subnotes to the endnote.

Poor Mario Incandenza…
The description of all of Mario’s birth defects just goes on and on. The section opens with the odd sentence “The first birth of the Incandenza’s second son was a surprise” (emphasis mine). We also learn that optics have played a role in the history of the Incandenzas going way back (his great-grandfather invented xray specs), and an odd endnote (e. 114) shifts time by announcing that the Year of Glad was indeed the last year of subsidized time, assuming a historic perspective from the author.

Back to the ledge with Marathe and Steeply
This conversation seems to basically re-summarize the 18 page endnote phone conversation of Orin and Hal. Do we really learn anything new from this section?

Eschaton!
Twenty-one pages are dedicated to the description of a game of Eschaton gone horribly, horribly wrong. It’s a huge section that just whipped by for me.

The dense, detailed Eschaton section is in turns so cinematic and so numbingly academic. I love it. But Hal sure is acting strange, and we are kept at a distance from his thoughts that we aren’t accustomed to. He seems to be struggling to articulate his ideas, the narrative voice just scratches the surface, and never dives deeper, and near the end, Hal feels at his face to see if he is wincing (p. 342), a gesture we saw in the opening section of the book in the Year of Glad.

It’s November 8, YDAU. Have we started to lose Hal already? It’s another great piece that really fills out the ETA universe, with detailed descriptions of the students and the game.  It’s also Interdependence Day and there is a stranger in a green car watching the game.

Endnotes!
This section was pure joy for me to read as it was a prime example of DFW’s playful fuckery w/r/t the endnote structures. We are tossed all around in terms of voice, time, perspective. It’s a complete, beautiful mess. I was tickled by Pemulis’ narrative on the Mean-value formula, as told to and later transcribed by Hal, who interrupts editorially. It assumes Pemulis/Hal are indeed writing this to someone – are they speaking directly to us? Endnote 127 seems to be written entirely by Pemulis, who can’t help himself by adding a “P.S. Wolf-spiders Ruleth the Land.” Also, what on earth did Pemulis do to the mirror to torment M.H. Penn?

• I love the description of Avril and CT colliding in the hallway as they avoided Orin and Mario, respectively (e. 98)
• I know who Andrea Dworkin is, but is Pizzatola anyone I should have head of? No google results found (e.105)
• There are also the two “overshot the chance to add….” endnote addendums. I can’t articulate why that is funny to me.

Reflections

As I mentioned in our last group meeting, I am fascinated by Orin, the hale and handsome eldest Incandenza. Orin, the tennis player with a terrific lob, wooed by colleges, courted by a beautiful cheerleader. Orin the punter, effortlessly finding his place in O.N.A.N’s (nee America’s) most prestigious sport. He exudes wholesome, conformist, almost banal ideals. But Orin is the odd one out. Within the Incandenza clan he is very much the other. His form letters to his mother, his lack of knowledge about his father’s death – Orin has put significant space between himself and his family. (Hal has a lot of very pointed thoughts on this – mostly about Orin’s sexual proclivities and how they may or may not relate to his mother).

In juxtaposition, the details of Mario’s otherness read like a medical textbook was put through a Burroughs-esque cut-up technique. Yet he is a welcome confidante for Schtitt, has carried the torch (or lens) of his father’s craft, and stays close to Hal by being his bunkmate. Mario is not seen as an outsider at all. In the world of Infinite Jest, as in the U.H.I.D, all are welcome.

Poor Tony Krause. Poor, poor Tony Krause. Isolated, drug sick, “gender-dysmorphic” Tony. His own body becomes the Other as he detoxes in the Armenian library washroom stall. During the complete breakdown of his corporeal self, culminating in a subway seizure, (“watching his tumid limbs tear-ass around the car’s interior like undone balloons” – p. 305) Tony is back in his childhood, worried that his “red-handed Poppa could see up his dress, what was hidden” (p. 306), having lived a life that is true to his own self, but decidedly in the realm of otherness as far as his father is concerned.