Characters
Hal Incandenza, Apparent Monster.
The Three Deans of the University of Arizona: Head, Hand, and Heart.
Coach White.
Aubrey deLint.
Mysterious Young Hispanic Woman.
Characters Mentioned
The Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus.
God, God.
The Anti-Christ, Not-God.
Søren Kierkegaard, Philosopher.
Albert Camus, Philosopher.
Dennis Gabor, Physicist.
Thomas Hobbes, Dark Mirror.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mirror.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosopher.
Scene: the Dean's office at the University of Arizona.
While trying to express his inner self (his subjective self, Kierkegaard might say), Hal is seen as a raving, monstrous lunatic and subdued by the Deans of the University. One of the first philosophers mentioned in his defense of his intelligence is Kierkegaard which is probably important. Hal's trying to relate the person he is on the inside that differs from the person they see from the outside: "a boy who plays tennis." The objective truth of him is less important than the subjective truth of him. And his own inner subjective truth cannot be understood by the inner subjective truth of the others as it's walled off by their objective Deannesses and his objective Boy Who Plays Tennis. It's a chasm that we as interior beings can rarely, if, arguably, ever, find our way across, one to another. Kierkegaard maintains that ones subjective truth is more important than their objective truth. Could this be a statement of Infinite Jest as a whole? Not that it expresses David Foster Wallace's subjective truth — that would be impossible as we'd just see him as a raving lunatic ala Hal — but the reader's subjective truth and their relationship to the book. Is Wallace immediately telling the reader that they don't need to "understand" the novel; they simply need to experience it and let their subjective self react and feel to Wallace's best attempt at his own subjective self? Is this why the experience of reading this book feels so much more important than understanding it?
Just glancing through the themes of Kierkegaard's works on his Wikipedia page, one cannot help but imagine it as a list of themes of Infinite Jest. Alienation which Hal felt as a child when his father couldn't communicate with him and his mother who viewed him as a walking OED, and which Hal continues to feel in the structured halls of institutional life at Enfield Tennis Academy. Even among his peers, he finds he cannot be honest with them about his dope habit, hiding himself in the subterranean tunnel system of vents and storage and Prorector's rooms beneath the Academy. Abstraction which defines the method Hal's father used to try to communicate with his son by making strange and often incomprehensible films. Hal studies these films religiously, trying to view them through the lens of authorial intention in an effort to become closer to his father. Death of which James Incandenza's literally (ha ha! Literature!) haunts the entire book, so much so that his ghost appears to Don Gately near the end and heavily implies that he has the ability to possess others, directing their performances and editing their scripts from beyond the grave. Dread or Anxiety which, I mean, yeah. All over the fucking place. In every character. I should add it as a main character in every scene. Plus all the rest and shit. I have other people to discuss here!
I don't know enough about these philosophers to discuss Hal's assertions here; I can only dig a little at why they may have been mentioned by reading Wikipedia which anybody can do. But do they? I don't know. But I am! I skimmed Camus because I want to get to the next sentence about the Anti-Christ! Here's a bit from Wikipedia that made me think of Wallace and setting this novel so heavily in the Tennis Academy: "Camus later drew parallels between football, human existence, morality, and personal identity. For him, the simplistic morality of football contradicted the complicated morality imposed by authorities such as the state and church." One aspect of Infinite Jest is the geography of Boston and its environs. The Enfield Tennis Academy notably sits upon a hill above the rest of the city, perhaps meant as a city on a hill metaphor, a shining example of possible moral clarity. But the hill was also sheered down to a flat surface so is that commentary that it could have been a beacon to be looked upon but was flattened by human intervention? Anyway, it sits above Ennet House, the drug and alcohol recovery site. I mention this because while both sites are regimented and contain people who don't necessarily want to be there but try to find meaning there anyway, Tennis would be the "simplistic morality of football" while the Ennet House could be the "more complicated morality imposed by authorities."
Amid the smattering of obvious Philosopher mentions, Hal throws in this line about the physicist Dennis Gabor possibly being the Anti-Christ. What the fuck? That's quite the accusation! What did this guy even do that could label him with the title of "Creature That Will Destroy All of Mankind"? What's that? He invented Holograms? Oh fuck. Okay. Yeah, dude's the Anti-Christ of Infinite Jest. Because James Incandenza's experimental use of lenses and his knowledge of light and optics, following Gabor's work, I'm sure, led him to create a special holographic lens which he used to film his final entertainment, Infinite Jest, which, you know, probably brings about the end of the world. So Hal's probably spot on here.
Someone smarter than me should work out how the dichotomy between Hobbes belief in authority driving moral clarity and Rousseau's belief that moral clarity existed only before that guy who first put up a fence existed expresses itself in Infinite Jest. Is this a theme seen in the examination of Enfield Tennis Academy and its Dark Mirror, Ennet House? Or is Rousseau's beliefs in natural moral clarity expressed in characters like Poor Tony and his crew who never experience the structure and authority of a place like Ennet House? Do the teens at Enfield who break every rule in the place have a greater moral clarity than the adults who break their own rules, such as Avril doing sexy cosplay with student John "No Relation" Wayne? I don't know! I'm too stupid for this. Let's move on!
The final philosopher Hal mentions is Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and since Georg couldn't be bothered to add the "e" to his name, I can't be bothered to read about his philosophies. Also because, even when Wikipedia tries to sum them for dolts like me, Wikipedia expressly states how hard his philosophy is to understand. Also he looked at me like this:
Hal Incandenza, Apparent Monster.
The Three Deans of the University of Arizona: Head, Hand, and Heart.
Coach White.
Aubrey deLint.
Mysterious Young Hispanic Woman.
Characters Mentioned
The Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus.
God, God.
The Anti-Christ, Not-God.
Søren Kierkegaard, Philosopher.
Albert Camus, Philosopher.
Dennis Gabor, Physicist.
Thomas Hobbes, Dark Mirror.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mirror.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosopher.
Scene: the Dean's office at the University of Arizona.
While trying to express his inner self (his subjective self, Kierkegaard might say), Hal is seen as a raving, monstrous lunatic and subdued by the Deans of the University. One of the first philosophers mentioned in his defense of his intelligence is Kierkegaard which is probably important. Hal's trying to relate the person he is on the inside that differs from the person they see from the outside: "a boy who plays tennis." The objective truth of him is less important than the subjective truth of him. And his own inner subjective truth cannot be understood by the inner subjective truth of the others as it's walled off by their objective Deannesses and his objective Boy Who Plays Tennis. It's a chasm that we as interior beings can rarely, if, arguably, ever, find our way across, one to another. Kierkegaard maintains that ones subjective truth is more important than their objective truth. Could this be a statement of Infinite Jest as a whole? Not that it expresses David Foster Wallace's subjective truth — that would be impossible as we'd just see him as a raving lunatic ala Hal — but the reader's subjective truth and their relationship to the book. Is Wallace immediately telling the reader that they don't need to "understand" the novel; they simply need to experience it and let their subjective self react and feel to Wallace's best attempt at his own subjective self? Is this why the experience of reading this book feels so much more important than understanding it?
Just glancing through the themes of Kierkegaard's works on his Wikipedia page, one cannot help but imagine it as a list of themes of Infinite Jest. Alienation which Hal felt as a child when his father couldn't communicate with him and his mother who viewed him as a walking OED, and which Hal continues to feel in the structured halls of institutional life at Enfield Tennis Academy. Even among his peers, he finds he cannot be honest with them about his dope habit, hiding himself in the subterranean tunnel system of vents and storage and Prorector's rooms beneath the Academy. Abstraction which defines the method Hal's father used to try to communicate with his son by making strange and often incomprehensible films. Hal studies these films religiously, trying to view them through the lens of authorial intention in an effort to become closer to his father. Death of which James Incandenza's literally (ha ha! Literature!) haunts the entire book, so much so that his ghost appears to Don Gately near the end and heavily implies that he has the ability to possess others, directing their performances and editing their scripts from beyond the grave. Dread or Anxiety which, I mean, yeah. All over the fucking place. In every character. I should add it as a main character in every scene. Plus all the rest and shit. I have other people to discuss here!
I don't know enough about these philosophers to discuss Hal's assertions here; I can only dig a little at why they may have been mentioned by reading Wikipedia which anybody can do. But do they? I don't know. But I am! I skimmed Camus because I want to get to the next sentence about the Anti-Christ! Here's a bit from Wikipedia that made me think of Wallace and setting this novel so heavily in the Tennis Academy: "Camus later drew parallels between football, human existence, morality, and personal identity. For him, the simplistic morality of football contradicted the complicated morality imposed by authorities such as the state and church." One aspect of Infinite Jest is the geography of Boston and its environs. The Enfield Tennis Academy notably sits upon a hill above the rest of the city, perhaps meant as a city on a hill metaphor, a shining example of possible moral clarity. But the hill was also sheered down to a flat surface so is that commentary that it could have been a beacon to be looked upon but was flattened by human intervention? Anyway, it sits above Ennet House, the drug and alcohol recovery site. I mention this because while both sites are regimented and contain people who don't necessarily want to be there but try to find meaning there anyway, Tennis would be the "simplistic morality of football" while the Ennet House could be the "more complicated morality imposed by authorities."
Amid the smattering of obvious Philosopher mentions, Hal throws in this line about the physicist Dennis Gabor possibly being the Anti-Christ. What the fuck? That's quite the accusation! What did this guy even do that could label him with the title of "Creature That Will Destroy All of Mankind"? What's that? He invented Holograms? Oh fuck. Okay. Yeah, dude's the Anti-Christ of Infinite Jest. Because James Incandenza's experimental use of lenses and his knowledge of light and optics, following Gabor's work, I'm sure, led him to create a special holographic lens which he used to film his final entertainment, Infinite Jest, which, you know, probably brings about the end of the world. So Hal's probably spot on here.
Someone smarter than me should work out how the dichotomy between Hobbes belief in authority driving moral clarity and Rousseau's belief that moral clarity existed only before that guy who first put up a fence existed expresses itself in Infinite Jest. Is this a theme seen in the examination of Enfield Tennis Academy and its Dark Mirror, Ennet House? Or is Rousseau's beliefs in natural moral clarity expressed in characters like Poor Tony and his crew who never experience the structure and authority of a place like Ennet House? Do the teens at Enfield who break every rule in the place have a greater moral clarity than the adults who break their own rules, such as Avril doing sexy cosplay with student John "No Relation" Wayne? I don't know! I'm too stupid for this. Let's move on!
The final philosopher Hal mentions is Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and since Georg couldn't be bothered to add the "e" to his name, I can't be bothered to read about his philosophies. Also because, even when Wikipedia tries to sum them for dolts like me, Wikipedia expressly states how hard his philosophy is to understand. Also he looked at me like this:
Eeep! I'm scared!
What I should discuss, briefly because this has gotten out of hand already, is Hal's claim that "transcendence is absorption." Transcendence is defined as "existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level." Absorption is defined as "the act of being absorbed." I mean, "the fact or state of being engrossed in something." The discussion of what it means to be human and what brings meaning to human lives is one that concerns all the philosophers mentioned and, well, all those not mentioned too, really. Wallace's Infinite Jest is his part in that dialectic. One of the themes is this idea that Hal is putting forward: our lives become something more when we have something to be engrossed in. Wallace seems to argue that addiction and obsession actually provide needed meaning to our lives. Sure, they can be destructive! But a maintained obsession or addiction is arguably needed to even give a shit about life at all. James Incandenza's Infinite Jest is the ultimate end point of this idea: something so engrossing that the viewer gives up everything to it. They transcend reality via the absorption of the material and no longer have any need for anything else. In other words, meaning can be dangerous.
Hal ends his unintelligible speech with "Please don't think I don't care," a plaintive and heart-breaking statement. Possibly something a person who commits suicide might want others to think. And even though this is all about Hamlet (though I haven't even mentioned it in this entry), this moment speaks more of Othello's final speech: "I pray you, in your letters, when you shall these unlucky deeds relate, speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, nor set down in malice. Then must you speak of one that loved not wisely but too well; of one not easily jealous but, being wrought, perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, like the base Indian, threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, albeit unused to the melting mood, drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees their medicinable gum." Okay, maybe not all of that, explicitly. But the sense of asking people to please be aware that what they see was not what was intended. The subjective was misconstrued by the objective.
After Hal ends his speech, he is tackled to the floor amid gasps of horror and shock. I don't know if the shocked Hispanic woman who witnesses the end of the melee is somebody who should be recognized from later descriptions of characters (this book makes you paranoid about not recognizing characters in passing!) or if she's just meant to be an independent witness to Hal's monstrosity.
That's enough of that, no?
Piecing Together the November, DAU, to November, Glad, Timeline
The February after the end of the novel, Coach White, via correspondence, recruited Hal to the University of Phoenix tennis program after Hal's graduation from Enfield later that same year (a December graduation, it seems).
Hal ends his unintelligible speech with "Please don't think I don't care," a plaintive and heart-breaking statement. Possibly something a person who commits suicide might want others to think. And even though this is all about Hamlet (though I haven't even mentioned it in this entry), this moment speaks more of Othello's final speech: "I pray you, in your letters, when you shall these unlucky deeds relate, speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, nor set down in malice. Then must you speak of one that loved not wisely but too well; of one not easily jealous but, being wrought, perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, like the base Indian, threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, albeit unused to the melting mood, drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees their medicinable gum." Okay, maybe not all of that, explicitly. But the sense of asking people to please be aware that what they see was not what was intended. The subjective was misconstrued by the objective.
After Hal ends his speech, he is tackled to the floor amid gasps of horror and shock. I don't know if the shocked Hispanic woman who witnesses the end of the melee is somebody who should be recognized from later descriptions of characters (this book makes you paranoid about not recognizing characters in passing!) or if she's just meant to be an independent witness to Hal's monstrosity.
That's enough of that, no?
Piecing Together the November, DAU, to November, Glad, Timeline
The February after the end of the novel, Coach White, via correspondence, recruited Hal to the University of Phoenix tennis program after Hal's graduation from Enfield later that same year (a December graduation, it seems).
