Sipped Ink vol 1 issue 5

Infinite Jest pp243-316

‘Analysis-Paralysis’

What have we learned this week? As the formerly separate entities of Madame Psychosis, Joelle, and the PGOAT started to coalesce I had the fleeting feeling that I was actually making progress with the novel in more than a turn-the-pages-and-parse-the-words kind of way. Before we started all this I posted a link to the Infinite Summer guide to approaching the novel, point three of which is ‘persevere to page 200’ - that has proven to be good advice to my mind; the wheels are turning now, and most of the pieces feel like they’re in position.

My personal highlight of the week is the section dealing with Day’s thoughts on AA. So many elements of Infinite Jest—scattered amongst various characters—are informed by Wallace’s own experience. He was a gifted tennis player, a grammar pedant, he suffered with depression, he chewed tobacco, and he also had substance abuse problems. To some extent Wallace’s experience with addiction and recovery programmes is echoed in Day: initially he felt himself different from the other people in the meetings - too smart, too good a thinker, too analytical to find help within the recovery programme. One of the sentiments along these lines that he gives Day is:

“I’m still afflicted with just enough self-will to decline to live by utter non sequiturs, as opposed to just good old clichés”

But, following some pretty bitter experience, Wallace returned to recovery and learned eventually to appreciate what it offered. He learned, as Day expresses:

“that the clichéd directives are a lot more deep and hard to actually do. To try and live by instead of just say”

Wallace’s heart is on the page all throughout the novel, present in most of its characters in some aspect. Its coming from a place of genuine experience lends it credulity, but we should also take a second to wonder at the bravery it takes to put this all down and face it not just yourself but over and over through the eyes of your readers. Oh, I also love the fact that Wallace slips this in and asks the reader not to cry foul:

“I used sometimes to think. I used to think in long compound sentences with subordinate clauses and even the odd polysyllable. Now I find I needn’t”

There’s plenty of other stuff. We suffered a truly harrowing session with the Old Cold Bird alongside poor Tony Krause; we witnessed Orin’s fall and glorious rise as a pro football player, and we learned a lot about Canadian separatism (thanks endnote 110!). The novel just keeps on giving. And, I have it on good authority from one of our number who is leaps and bounds ahead of schedule, that the best is yet to come.

Here at the end of the first month, as of today’s reading, we’re exactly 33.3% of the way through the novel. I want to thank you again from the heart for joining me in this - I’m enjoying the heck out of reading Infinite Jest this time around, and it’s thanks in no small part to you all.

Enjoy the week’s reading.