Decision ‘08

More Questions Than Answers

Last week, after months of hard yet oddly compelling slogging, I finished the massive and remarkable Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace. I had made many prior attempts at completion, but this time I saw it through to the end. Like many readers before me, I felt a perhaps unavoidable letdown upon completion, because (a) the disparate threads just did not come together like they threatened to about 2/3 through the book, and (b) I will genuinely miss reading about Hal, Pemulis, Gately, Joelle, Mario, and the rest.

I won’t be surprised if this gets no responses, given the odds against my, um, select readership and the population of people who made it through all 1,100 pages intersecting, but…(spoiler alert - quit reading if you think you might join the few, the proud):

What happened to Hal? DMZ dosing on toothbrush by Pemulis, voluntary ingestion, the mold, or did he view the Entertainment? If the latter, was the Entertainment in the viewing room at ETA?

Did Gately view the Entertainment, perhaps when visited by the wraith (JOI) in his fever-induced dreams?

Did Joelle and/or Orin live, or did they die under interrogation?

Am I the only one that thinks that Mario has seen/could see the Entertainment to little or no ill effect? I find it hard to believe that he doesn’t at least know about it, given his close collaborative relationship with JOI. And is Mario C.T.’s son?

Who sent the Entertainment to the medical attaché?

What happened to the copy of the Entertainment at Ennet House?

And but so…even if none of my regular readers has the slightest clue what I’m talking about, if you happen to wander by, even years from now, during a Google search, any thoughts on any of the above or anything even to do with the book is greatly, vastly appreciated…

2 Responses to “More Questions Than Answers”

1 trey Says:
October 29th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Is it at all like Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow? I read 5 pages once … couldn’t tell what the heck was going on. So I looked on the web, and everyone had a different opinion of what the heck was going on in those pages. I guess I need something more concrete.

If Infinite Jest is similar, then I think I’ll stick to Philip K. Dick and William Gibson for books that push my limits. Yes, I’m a literary wimp, but work keeps my brain cells active.
2 Mark Says:
October 29th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
He’s been compared to Pynchon, but most critics seem to actually favor Infinite Jest over Gravity’s Rainbow, because character development and plot do mean more to Wallace. There is a big dose of literary pyrotechnics, to be sure, and the book is difficult, with a lot of ‘meta’ messaging…but what kept bringing me back is that the central plot point (or conceit, depending on how you look at it) is nothing short of brilliant, and the execution, though confusing, is often dazzling…