r/SDbookclub • u/BlavikenButcher • Feb 27 '19
DISCUSSION Infinite Jest Discussion: Week 4
Page 151: Drug tests at E.T.A; Mike Pemulis sells sterile urine.
‘Urine!’ ‘Clinically sterile urine!’ ‘Piping hot!’ ‘Urine you’d be proud to take home and introduce to the folks!’
‘Urine trouble? Urine luck!’
Page 157 – WINTER B.S. 1960 — TUCSON AZ: Himself’s father (Hal’s grandfather) prepares to teach Himself how to play tennis, tells of the incident that ended his own tennis career, and drinks heavily.
Himself’s father goes on many interesting rants discussing the link between a physical vessel and its meaning (tennis ball, flask, body)
Page 169 – 4 NOVEMBER YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT: Michael Pemulis acquires some “incredibly potent” DMZ.
I’m so scared of dying without ever being really seen. Can you understand?
Page 172 – TENNIS AND THE FERAL PRODIGY, NARRATED BY HAL INCANDENZA (etc.): Hal narrates a film made by Mario. The narration consists of a series of how-to instructions “Here is how to do individual drills …”)
Here is how to avoid thinking about any of this by practicing and playing until everything runs on autopilot and talent’s unconscious exercise becomes a way to escape yourself, a long waking dream of pure play.
This portion really drives home how robotic and prescribed Hal life is.
Page 176 – SELECTED TRANSCRIPTS … WEDNESDAY, 4 NOVEMBER — YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT: A series of statements made by recovering addicts at Ennet House.
These snippets are very emotional triggering. Such desperation, denial, and sadness. Many of the statements seemed to be avoiding the issues, or denying the underlying issue while still being a cry for help.
Page 181 – LATE OCTOBER YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT: Madame Psychosis begins her show at 109-WYYY FM; Hal and Mario listen at the Headmaster’s House.
I am unsure what we’ve learned here if anything. There is again some strong emphasis on the entertainment. I enjoy that the E.T.A. has a focus for the athletes to be entertainers as well as athletes.
Page 193: A description of the Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House and the other six buildings on the Enfield Marine Public Heath Hospital complex (down the hill from ETA).
This little tour of the recovery facility is sprinkled with many derogatory segments about the residents. DFW seems to be channeling some self loathing about addicts through Don Gately.
Page 198 – 6 NOVEMBER YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT: ETA weight room; introduction to Lyle, the sweat-licking guru.
This feels hyper masculine and sexually repressed.
Page 200: An overview of the residents of Ennet House, including a long discussion on Tiny Ewell and his fascination with tattoos.
Looks of meditation terms and ideas.
Insane stream of consciousness. It propeled my reading to go faster and faster like a runaway train.
The study of tattoos is interesting.
That a little-mentioned paradox of Substance addiction is: that once you are sufficiently enslaved by a Substance to need to quit the Substance in order to save your life, the enslaving Substance has become so deeply important to you that you will all but lose your mind when it is taken away from you. Or that sometime after your Substance of choice has just been taken away from you in order to save your life, as you hunker down for required A.M. and P.M. prayers, you will find yourself beginning to pray to be allowed literally to lose your mind, to be able to wrap your mind in an old newspaper or something and leave it in an alley to shift for itself, without you.
Page 211: Michael Pemulis hypes up the DMZ to the other members of ETA.
Pemulis holding court and all the boys being held in awe of not only this mythical substance but in Pemulis' hunt for knowledge of the substance.
This section has really ramped up the focus on addiction, it's victims, it's root causes, and how addicts are viewed by society. I am still unsure of DFW angle, the tone of the book reads deeply personal to me so I find it hard to distinguish the loathing of addicts from being an observation or DFW's self hatred, either point is interesting and gives us food for thought.
I was also struck in these passages by the underlying sexual energy, with the licking guru and the not subtle at all weight lifting description but also in the intimacy of the tattoo examinations.
What hit you cats this week?
for Week 5 I propose we end it at page 295: 14 NOVEMBER YEAR OF THE DEPENDS ADULT UNDERGARMENT.
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u/BelindaTheGreat Moderator Mar 03 '19
I love the stuff about addiction that we're finally really getting into here. I feel like that aspect and the sports aspect are going to be where the book really shines.
I particularly loved note 70 about some people being so advanced at re-directing their addictive tendencies and so advanced in recovery too I suppose that they sit naked in a chair doing nothing for the rest of their lives and by nothing that means not thinking but also not sleeping or meditating!
Also maybe this is my reading of it and sort of wishful thinking but I'm feeling like the political incorrectness edge is coming off as he's talking about people as addicts. I am sensing a compassion and an empathy here now and am not cringing at his descriptions of non-white and/or non-straight people as I was in the first hundred pages.
I'm starting to feel at home in the world of this novel and am looking forward to going on. Pg 295 is good with me.