Week 8 (528-619)

Greetings from Disneyland. I'm on vacation, getting to spend a little time curled up with Infinite Jest after weeks of working. In the hopes of trying to get us back to schedule, I am posting the pages for this week, but remember it doesn't matter where you are in the book now, you can always make a contribution to our discussion. As an experiment for this week, instead of putting down talking points, I'm going to put a couple random passages from the reading and I'll ask you to post your reactions and insights based on either the current reading or any of your previous reading. So here we go:

Lenz says the Ennet graduates who often come back and take up living-room space sitting around comparing horror stories about former religious cults they'd tried joining as part of their struggle to try to quit with the drugs and alcohol are not w/o a certain naive charm but are basically naive. Lenz details that robes and mass weddings and head-shavings and pampheleteering in airports and selling flowers on median strips and signing away inheritances and never sleeping and marrying whoever they tell you and then never seeing who you marry are small potatoes in terms of bizarre-cult criterion. Lenz tells Green he knows individuals who've heard shit that would blow Green's mind out his ear-sockets. (559)

And another:

Having no choice now not to fight and things simplify radically, divisions collapse. Gately's just one part of something bigger he can't control. His face in the left hadlight has dropped into it's fight-expression of ferocious good cheer. He says he's responsible for these people on these private grounds tonight and is part of this whether he wants to be or not, and can they talk this out because he doesn't want to fight them. He says twice very distinctly that he does not want to fight them. He's no longer divided enough to think about whether this is true. (612)

Happy reading and be sure to leave any thoughts and comments you have!

Infinite Ephs Week 7--Catch Up Week & Mario

I have gotten a few comments and emails from the people who are still out there reading and it seems that I am not the only one who needs some time to catch up. So I'm not posting any new pages this week (and the schedule will pick up again next week). Also remember that you can always post your thoughts on anything you've read in the book, these bullet points are just meant to get us talking.

To go back a little bit, from pages 312-317 we learn a lot about Mario, the middle of the Incandenza boys. He is severely deformed, but of the characters in the novel seems to be the one with the best heart. So to bring some different threads together here are some things to think about:

• As a result of his deformity, Mario is described as being "pain-resistant" in a novel that is filled with all sorts of pain, both physical and psychic. What does this tell us about Mario's place in the novel?
• Madame Psychosis talks a lot about the deformed, and sees herself as being so beautiful that she hides her face behind a veil. Mario is an avid listener of her radio show--any thoughts about what we are to make of these two?
• Mario is also Hal and Orin's brother, and while his relationship with Orin is almost non-existent, his relationship with Hal is complicated. Mario is the older brother, but Hal is the one taking care of him. What do you have to say about this relationship?
• And finally, Mario is in some ways following his father JOI by continuing to be interested in film making. What can we learn about Mario through his films (Tennis and the Feral Prodigy pgs 172-176) ? Is Mario like us and just an audience to the book's events, looking at everything through a particular lens?

Hope everyone is enjoying the reading. Keep posting (even if it's just to say you're still reading) and I look forward to seeing the different thoughts and experiences reading. Have a great week!

Infinite Ephs Week 6*

I realize that the last post might have turned some people off because of the number of pages, but hopefully people are still hanging in there and focusing more on the reading experience than where they are in the book (I am certainly not as far as I should be). The scheduled reading is *442-527 for anyone keeping up with the schedule. I also don't know if the prompts are helpful at all so this week I'm just going to throw out one thing, but if you get a chance to respond also comment on your experience with the posts and if there is anything that should be done differently. Any all feedback is greatly appreciated, and it's still not too late to join in:

• There is a lot of talk in this book about paying attention, whether it is Don Gately who can switch his attention on and off like a light or people just watching a tennis match. Sometimes it's so difficult to pay attention to everything that's going on in the book (did everyone catch "The Spider" being named as addiction...remember Week 1?) that I feel like Infinite Jest is a book about paying attention. Paying attention to our problems, taking an active stake in our entertainment...but paying attention is hard work. To me this makes perfect sense considering DFW's last, unfinished work ("The Pale King" to Publishers, "The Big One" to him) focuses on boredom. Thoughts?

Hopefully the reading is going well. Be sure to post any of your thoughts or sections from the reading that interest you and we can talk about them. Enjoy!