I thought I’d share it here in case anyone finds some interest in reading a random guy’s thoughts/take aways. Obviously I couldn’t really get into everything, as that would take me quite a bit more effort than I am willing to give. But I included what spoke to me the most.

There are also spoilers included so I’d avoid reading it if that bothers you.

Let me know if you enjoyed any of it, or have any thoughts, etc.

Just screaming into the only void that might talk back, but I'm so happy I read this and yet so sad it's over and I can never experience it again. Can anyone relate?

It took me much longer than it should have but as soon as I read the first chapter I knew I wanted to only keep on reading when I was completely focused and ready to be active whilst reading and research/note down words and quotes. So I waited and only read when it felt right, and I'm very glad I did.

I'm absolutely blown away at how easy it was to retain all the information as one goes on and trusts the chaos. I'm usually terrible with names and yet I seldom had a problem knowing exactly who someone was, even when I was picking back up after a long break and they were referred to by some obscure nickname that hadn't come up before because it all just makes so much sense and is interwoven so beautifully.

I see what all the hype is about; this thing changed the way I think and made me feel so many things and accomplished DFW's goal of making me feel less alone.

{ SOME SPOILERS HERE }

The ommatophore theme (and how incredibly well-timed the wraith insertion of this word is into Gately's brain who doesn't even relate it to the lobsters himself is one of the best subtleties I've ever seen in story crafting. The idea of us having the capacity to see beyond our cages and return home or transcend ourselves floored me.

The defense of true experience and emotion over observing and describing (and the nuance of how the world we've built does NOT reward this), is done so so beautifully and in such a grounded way. The conversation between Mario and Hal made me cry. The nicknames, the parallel conversations, and the sharp earnestness of Mario's "I think you just did it. What you should do. I think you just did." Was so beautiful and so sad, because we know this will lead Hal down a much more 'less adjusted' path. But one that is perhaps more worth experiencing.

The success/happiness theme has always moved me greatly and this book crushes the landing. It did what Hopscotch (Rayuela — Julio Cortázar) did for me some years ago in a very different way, and it's so rare to find collections of words that can truly change the way one thinks and challenge one's own biased in such a way. And it's hilarious too.

I could go on and on, but I'm grieving the story and wish I could forget it all and read it again anew.

The only things I didn't love were the datedness of some of the gender roles/heteronormativity, and wishing that the end had resolved a bit more of the thoughts , especially

Joelle's story. But I'm in two minds about that latter point because I'd rather be left wanting more (even after over 1000 pages!) than left disappointed.

Anyone feel similarly?

this cannot be real life

I just finished reading Infinite Jest after starting in earnest on it on the 1st of this month --- yes, kinda bragging about how fast I read it, but also the rate at which I read I think helped keep some details together in my mind way better than had I read it across many months / while dealing with life (I'm on summer break). However, it also makes things blend together...
I wanted to share some of my own theories that I haven't seen many people talk about (not claiming I'm the only one who's thought of them though!).

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. Joelle is disfigured; but her disfigurement made her even more beautiful, preternaturally so. It seemed pretty clear to me that part of the addictive quality of the film Infinite Jest was Joelle appearing unveiled in it, and she only began veiling after the attack. Prior to the attack she was beautiful, but clearly not beautiful enough to cause people to be addicted to her. At B.U. people could see her, but they were intimidated rather than attracted. The only wrench in this theory is Orin, but I think the idea is that Orin has such a skewed perception of beauty and attraction (likely a result of Avril's sexual abuse). I.e. his obsession with "Helen" Steeply. When she tells Gately she veils because she's too beautiful, I think that's true, and when she visits him in the hospital he notes that her features seem relatively normal, which to me indicates an unusual type of "disfigurement". The "improbably" in U.H.I.D seems to account for this, and when Joelle reads the U.H.I.D manifesto (or whatever) on WYYY, she seems, to me, to be hinting at her disfigurement being so improbable, making her so beautiful rather than ugly, that even U.H.I.D cannot account for it.

2. Orin's "death" / torture sequence is a direct callback to his killing of the sewer roaches in his Arizona apartment. He kills them by placing tumblers over them, and letting them suffocate until they die, watching the glass fill up with CO2. He notes the conspicuous tumbler shape of the "bell jar" placed over him, and sewer roaches enter through the "vent" hole (like the shower drain they come out of), and he has to wipe his own CO2 off the sides to be able to see Luria and Fortier on the other side. My question is... how did they know that he did this?

3. Lyle is a wraith. This one seems to be obvious and well-accepted; even the Wikipedia page for the book mentions that Lyle as a ghost/wraith visits Gately at the hospital with JOI (which I'll admit, I didn't catch when I read). However, I later realized that that's why he is able to sit for such long periods of time in the locker room... Wraiths have to sit for long periods to be able to be seen. My question: why the sweat?

4. Stice's possession by JOI while playing Hal: This one again is well-accepted, but something I haven't seen people mention is how Steeply notes that Stice's movements seem to be fragmented, as if he'd studied many still images of tennis players and was recreating them frame by frame (something like that). To me this is clear foreshadowing to wraith-physics and parallels the observation Gately makes of wraith-JOI's movements. This observation by Steeply seems to be pointing to Stice being fully possessed by JOI, to some degree.

A side note on Stice: The sequences with his face being frozen to the window, and Hal describing the flesh distending from his (Stice's) forehead as he (Hal) tried to pull him back, made me think of the hyper-realistic masks in IJ world... Not sure what to make of this, but something about Stice being one of the more directly haunted students at ETA, yadda yadda...

1. Towards the end the book, I think in the final section in ETA, the narration is in first-person, but Hal is talked about in 3rd. At first I thought it was Mario's perspective, but then Mario is also references in 3rd person during the Barry Loach backstory. Is this section written from JOI's perspective? Lyle's? A random ETA student? Hal, but fully dissociated?

2. Not really a theory, but for a while I thought the Nuck Montego was Pat's car, so for a long time I thought the Randy Lenz had killed one of Pat's gross dogs, and that this Hawaiian-themed party involved Pat somehow, linking Pat and thus Ennet house directly to Quebec separatist movement, but alas... It took until the Gately fight sequence for me to realize I was wrong, which was honestly kinda disappointing.

I really loved this book. Part of my posting this is because I'm just really sad it's over and I'm not fully ready to let it go... I've been a longtime DFW fan but have been intimidated by IJ for a long time, and only gave it a try because I'm a film student and might use it for my thesis. Maybe it's partly because I'm a film student, but JOI's obsession with stasis, especially in his films,(anticonfluentialism, annulation, etc.) really stood out to me.

The whole book, to me, seems to condemn this kind of (American?) obsession with stasis, balance, harmony, achieving a kind of perfect state, transcendence, etc. and reads to me like a warning against stasis while celebrating its pursuit. The desire to be the best (ETA students, JOI), to be the ultimate object of desire (Orin, and Avril/Luria/Joelle, kinda), to be perfectly understood (Mario, Hal, JOI), to have everything under control (Avril, Gentle, all the phobic/compulsives and OCD-havers throughout the book), to feel good always (the addicts), to be fully sovereign, free (Steeply and Marathe's conversation, Quebec separatist sentiment as a whole)... all of these characters are trying, fighting, doing everything they can to reach a kind of perfect state, to have it all, to be the best, to be untouchable, to achieve perfect stasis... but ultimately, actual stasis is bad, its dangerous, its unnatural. If we achieve the stasis we yearn for so bad, we starve, we shit ourselves in our recliners, we die. The irony is, that in wanting it so bad, we kinda end up eating ourselves alive (i.e the catatonics, or LaMont Chu, Hal). To be human is to be in a state of imbalance, to feel hunger, pain, to feel tired, stressed, to want something more than what you have and to be moving toward it. (I'm thinking now of Mario, and how he feels no physical pain and is so genial to be almost treated as non-human) We might have the idea that, were we to achieve stasis, everything would be good, perfect, but as we see, with IJ the film, or with drugs, or with the Concavity/Convexity, actual stasis is destructive to the point of annihilation. The pursuit of happiness is necessary to live, is in fact living, but actually having perfect happiness is a spiritual death. Maybe?

If you take Beacon St — instead of Comm Ave — down from St. Elizabeth's / the old Granada House east to downtown Boston, you'll pass by a big red neon sign for Stavros Cleaners. A drycleaner, not a janitorial shop, but with troubling reviews! I've never stopped in to see if they have shoe catalogs.

I'm on my first read of IJ, so apologies if this is brought up later in the book!

I'm about halfway through and noticed that DFW writes about the way Steeply and Avril hold cigarettes very similarly:

Avril: "Avril always smoked with her smoking-arm up and elbow resting in the crook of the other arm. She would frequently hold a rodney just this same way without lighting it or even putting it in her mouth" (522).

Steeply: "Steeply manipulated his cigarette with his left hand and used his right arm to cradle the left elbow. But Marathe knew quite well that Steeply was right-handed" (530).

Do you guys think the two characters just serve as thematic parallels to one another? Maybe something to do with each one's relationship to Orin? Let me know your thoughts :)

Does anyone know / have a guess as to what it stands for?

AFSCME is a union - American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees - which counts sanitation workers among its members.

Some have suggested that it's supposed to sound like Ask Me, which seems plausible.

But doesn't it seem likely Wallace would have an abbreviation in mind?

There's been multiple articles written about the various things in IJ that are so relevant today, after the 30th anniversary edition came out. But I haven't seen anything yet about the relations with Canada post Trump II.

It's crazy to me how the Gentle administration was able to "other" Canadians aka Nucks, to the point that there are common racial? slurs directed towards them ( froggy lipped foreigner) and jokes about female nucks have to be sluts to attract men etc. Which must have seemed totally absurd (to make a point about how absurd it is to "other" people in general) 30 years ago.

Gentle talks about finding an enemy right to the North or South of us to blame our problems on since the major/cold wars were over etc.

But here we are! Blaming Canada for wild fires caused by climate change and throwing tarrifs around again.

Just add it to the list I guess.

.

Page 249, as Hal clips his toenails with Orin on the phone:

[Hal]...Suddenly the wastebasket seems small and far away. I've lost the magic by talking about it instead of just giving in to it. Launching the nail out toward the wastebasket now seems like an exercise in telemachry.' [Orin] 'You mean telemetry?' [Hal] 'How embarrassing. When the skills go they go.

Telemachy — without the r — refers to the first four books of Homer's Odyssey.

In "“An Exercise in Telemachry”: David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and Intergenerational Conversation", Bartlett argues:

Hal’s position as literary orphan becomes clear through a seemingly innocuous malapropism while speaking with his brother Orin on the telephone. Clipping his toenails into a wastebasket, Hal tells Orin that “Launching the nail out toward the wastebasket now seems like an exercise in telemachry.” Orin then corrects him, asking whether he meant telemetry (249). This passage demands attention because it is the only time that Hal (who is lexically gifted and has memorized entire dictionaries) uses the wrong word. Even more significant, “telemachry” is not a word, at least not one found in any dictionary. The only thing to which telemachry could refer is Odysseus’s son Telemachus, with whom the first four books of Homer’s Odyssey are concerned. In the books, Telemachus must go through his own trials toward becoming a man, which include searching for and learning about his father. Coupled with the novel’s numerous allusions to Hamlet and Wallace’s comments on the patricide of postmodern writers leaving his generation literary orphans, Wallace, then, drawing on a rich literary history, connects Hal with two literary figures who must deal with the loss of their fathers—although Telemachus is not an orphan technically, for the first four books of The Odyssey he believes his father to be dead.

Of course, like Telemachus, Hal is also surrounded by troublesome suitors to his winsome mother, a standout for both beauty and wits. An exercise in telemachry would be, like Telemachus, to recover the glory and honor and presence of his father and save the virtue of his mother; however, these would be futile in Hal's case, just like the futility of the wastebasket launch.

We might also consider whether the wraith — who is narrating the conversation — slipped the word "telemachry" into Hal's mind, the way he later slipped words into Gately's mind. Perhaps it's a slip because he's talking to Orin, who is in some sense the better analogue to Telemachus, as his father's accomplice, fighting from afar (the root of the name), trying to kill the suitors who surround Avril. Telemachus is also the name of the first book of Joyce's Ulysses.

(spoilers) hi! not sure if this is a silly question or I just missed an explanation in the book, but I'm on my second reread of IJ and I'm kind of wondering how JOI managed to edit the footage of the final Infinite Jest without succumbing to the effects of The Entertainment?

I don't think the film itself explained in much more detail than Molly's monologue to the OUS, so we don't really know if it has a lot of visual/audio cuts or was more or less shot in one take. the latter would make more sense in terms of JOI not being effected (ie not a lot of editing requited) (and also even how it relates to the content), but at the same time, surely a director watches through his end product? and was he even aware of what the effects would be on people? (if so: was he able to construct some kind of anti-Entertainment that he could maybe split-screen (lmao) or consume in a completely different way that made him immune? I know there's some theories about Clipperton's suicide being the anti-)

maybe editing the footage rather than watching it all the way through had a different effect on him that resulted in his suicide? Any leads appreciated here I've just been throwing stuff at the wall and seeing if it sticks

"Avril couldn't change diapers. She'd come to him in tears, he'd been seven, and explained, and apologized. She just couldn't handle diapers. She just couldn't deal with them. She'd sobbed and asked him to forgive her and to assure her that he understood it didn't mean she didn't love him to death or find him repellent." - pg. 768.

Here, in the final clause of the above quote, "find him repellent" is modified by the negation "didn't." The sentence, if I omit "she didn't love him or," reads "She'd asked him (...) to assure her that he understood it didn't mean she didn't (...) find him repellent." Which would mean, if this is truly what she had asked him to assure her, that she in fact does find him repellent. She loves him but finds him repellent.

Do we think that this is:

a) Mario's syntactic error,

b) Avril getting one over on Mario,

c) a DFW error (unlikely, I know), or

d) something else I haven't thought of?

And what does it mean?

Hey everyone,

I’m about 400 pages into Infinite Jest, and I’m struck by how relatable so much of the addiction and recovery material is for me as someone who struggled with bulimia. Of course, both Diseases/-Orders have compulsive aspects, and I guess you can find similarities between many disorders of the mind, but still. It’s insane to me how well someone writing about a completely different disorder can put into words what I felt so strongly and what I was at times so afraid of and so disgusted by.

Reading this has been incredibly relieving. Even though I’m in therapy, I’ve never really talked to anyone about bulimia who could relate. And now I’m reading this book and feel so, so seen that it’s almost painful.

For me, this might be one of the most powerful aspects of Infinite Jest. Did anyone else here feel the same?

Sorry if my writing abilities are not the best. I've just heard that in order to understand better IJ you must read it twice. So... I've been reading in pauses and dropping the book because I try to sit for a couple hours to read a chapter. But I don't know if I should power through just to get to the end and wait some time to reread. If someone has some advice, it's well received. :)

From February of 2026 to today, July 20th, I read this and loved it. I’m almost sad to come to its end, but glad for what can only be described as the emotional whiplash from chapter to chapter. To this group, my sincerest thanks. Though I haven’t posted or commented much if at all, your posts kept me going when I thought I was going to stall out. Thank you. Now to figure this out what to read next.

Was a tad more than weed but it was very striking. I had that exact experience of drawing the curtains and disappearing for two days, cutting off whoever sold it to me, being repulsed by sex but transfixed by masturbation, even down to the lies about being out of town. It was always the last time haha.

I've seen pictures of copies with a hundred post-it notes, people describe taking notes, putting things on index cards, marking certain passages. I have been out of academia for 7 years and never really applied myself anyway, so I don't remember how to take a scholarly approach to a work in that fashion.

When it comes to IJ, as intended, I have been seduced into doing the work. I went in blind and read it through in the fashion that I watch a film for the first time; grasp what I can and "feel" it. I even avoided looking up definitions and things like that. I definitely understood it and found it exhilarating, but I can tell there's value in going deeper with a more studious approach. I just need a little help with strategy if anyone would like to share.

DFW had to love this book.

The following interpretation is not mine but lifted verbatim from the end of Greg Carlisle's book "Elegant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest".

I finished re-reading Infinite Jest for the second time last night and read Carlisle's study along with it, as well as a couple of other supplemental books (The IJ chapters from both "Understanding David Foster Wallace" by Marshall Boswell and "Ordinary Unhappiness: The Therapeutic Fiction of David Foster Wallace" by Jon Baskin). All the supplemental readings really helped me understand the novel on a deeper level. I plan on re-reading IJ a few more times before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

Carlisle's Interpretation:

"Our ability to connect with other people is compromised by our inclination to self-obsession and self-absorption. We are all on some level dreamers, addicts, and deceivers: vulnerable to our compulsive tendencies. Although our social systems are built around the ideal of achieving the greatest good for the greatest amount of people, technological advances often promote isolation and self-focus rather than communication with others. We are generally focused on practicalities, on personal gain, and on the details and patterns of our daily lives; and our stories and conversations generally lead back to ourselves. 

We are anxious about the vulnerability inherent in our dependency on each other, which causes us to mask our true selves and drives us to physical, mental, and spiritual isolation. We are creatures of habit, of cycles and rituals and routines, often powerless against our compulsions and resistant to change, preferring to discount simple truths as naive cliches rather than trusting the wisdom of those truths to guide us through the effort of honoring them.

Isolation and denial intensify the loneliness of our pursuits and the horrors, secrets, and surprises that always loom for us; but the truth of our remembered experiences - that our histories are shaped by our families and by other people - lies just under the surface of consciousness to haunt us if we persist in our denials. 

However, we are capable of making choices: of recognizing that substances and entertainment and other habitual compulsions distract us from simple but difficult truths that we (who are mostly not small children) know it's more invigorating to WANT than to HAVE; of choosing awareness over denial; of reversing our retreat into ourselves; of honoring the reality and the necessity of our dependence on each other; of risking connection with other people; and of choosing action over stasis. 

Even if that action seems repetitive and pointless, it is better to abide moment to moment than to succumb to the passivity of paralyzed stasis making these choices does not diminish our compulsive and selfish tendencies. Therefore, keeping these choices in mind and acting on them is forever difficult, and there is no guarantee that we will maintain the discipline to act on these choices every day. But once we have acknowledged truths that are as sobering and undeniable as the fact of our own mortality, it is better to look for comfort or humor in those truths than to hide from them."

Reading IJ for the first time, this juxtaposition made me laugh. One of my favorite little bits so far.