Okay let's talk about my favorite character in Infinite Jest... the P.G.O.A.T. herself, Joelle Van Dyne.
The central question for her is whether or not she was disfigured by the acid. She explicitly tells Gately that the veil she is wearing the veil because she is too beautiful... yet passage after passage about Orin's acid dodging skills and Joelle's lack seem to imply she WAS disfigured.
She says: “In other words you hide your hiding… U.H.I.D. allows members to be open about their essential need for concealment. In other words we don the veil. We don the veil and wear the veil proudly and stand very straight and walk briskly wherever we wish, veiled and hidden, but now completely up-front and unashamed about the fact that how we appear to others affects us deeply, about the fact that we want to be shielded from all sight. U.H.I.D. supports us in our decision to hide openly.” (535)
Doesn't it feel very DFW that after all of this she still isn't open about what she is hiding openly? She still wants to impress Don by beautiful, even though he won't see either way.
I realized this a couple days ago and now I am really fucking sad. How did you guys interpret this little section?
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it is.
I thought it was an allusion to Oedipus
>>7750903
How do you mean?
>>7750866
She was disfigured. The conversation with Gately was just her bullshitting around. She tells the whole story to Steeply at some point near the end of the book.
>>7751034
This.
Also, I'm kinda sad Gately and she didn't get involved.
So I read the first 400 pages and ill never finish this book. Can someone ruin it for me?
>>7751057
the samizdat turns out to be a secret seventh season of Lost
>>7751057
I just marathoned the first 34 pages of it, what did I think about it?
>>7751047
Doesn't she visit him in the hospital and stuff? Their relationship was kinda blooming towards the end of the story.
Idk it's been a while since I read it, might be misremembering
>>7751057Hal's dad made the Entertainment.But that kinda predictable around the 400 mark anyway.
>>7751095
Given the sad and pessimistic, even dystopian, attitude of the book, I can't see it happening. Something they both might have wanted, but I doubt it could have worked.Who knows, Joelle may have actually killed herself not long after the book ended.
>>7751095
Yeah I always considered it implied that her, Hal, and Gately formed a new, real "family". I need to find where I read this, but the breakdown of the modern American family is a major theme I don't see talked about enough.
>>7751115
it's obvious in the first like 20 if you bother reading the footnotes
>>7750866
Ugh, this reminded me, that I'll have to wait for years, until this book is going to be translated to my native language. T-thanks language exclusion
>>7751057
You need to finish. I think you're looking too much into it and too afraid to be superficial. A lot of the "deeper" is fed to your brain despite you having to think too much. Enjoy the story with an aesthetic perspective, the other stuff will come later. That's how Nabokov writes (at least his English works, I haven't read the others). IJ is definitely one of the most heartbreaking books I've ever read. I couldn't help but get too attached to the characters. I can't think of any sadder characters in literary history (other than Gregor Samsa, obvs) than Gately or Mario or even Lateral Alice Moore.
Trust me, anon. Read the book and you'll probably even tear up a few times. Tbqhfam, even the scene where Hal's grandpa is talking about how he fell during a match in his youth but his father gave less than a shit. "...how the drunk and maimed both are dragged forward out of the arena like a boneless Christ, one man under each arm, feet dragging, eyes on the aether." Fucks my shit up, famm.
>>7751297
Also, DFW's prose goes really underappreciated (that's not a word, is it).
>>7751095
They were into each other butI read the ending as implying via the flashback he had that Gately died in the hospital at some undetermined point in time after he and Hal dug up Himself's head but before the Year of Glad segment. He saw the part with him and Hal as a "dream" because it was mentioned that he'd lost his sense of time by that point.
It's somewhat ambiguous though, so you could come up with a different interpretation.
Did Wallace get inspiration for the ending of Infinite Jest in Tony Hoagland's Commercial for a Summer Night? I know he had this collection on one of his syllabuses
>>7751323
Oops, this might actually be newer than IJ
>>7751115
Hamlet spoiler DO NOT OPENhamlet dad was kill
>>7751308
But the hospital was way before the skull
>>7751392
I honestly don't care for Shakespeare, anyway. I've only cared for Macbeth and R&J.
>>7751034
I believed her when she told Gately cause it made sense with her being the face of the pivotal apology scene in the movie.
oh god dfw is such a middle brow piece of shit, how can ppl read that shit
>>7751423
He's middlebrow, yes.
>>7751261
not merely obvious but clearly explicit, not once, but more than 5 times. to be fair, it was hidden in like 20 pages of nonsense.
>>7751279
how good is your english?
what language do you speak? i don't bite and anyone who picks on you should f off.
>>7751297
Honestly I've read how the book ends. I've seen all the charts and graphs. I just felt like there's no point to finishing it. I was infinitely entertained though. I felt like I wasn't getting anything out of reading it. I went and read the once and future king after. Holy fuck that was good. Should be /b's favorite book.
>>7750866
I think she was disfigured. I trust the narrator over her ironically messing around with Gately.
The multiple layers of self consiousness is classic DFW. She is ashamed of her ugliness. She tries not to be ashamed of that shame, but she sometimes fails.
>>7751115
lmaaaao your cover is compromised. You didn't read the book the way DFW wanted. start from the beginning again and read every fucking endnote
