This article was downloaded by: [Universidad de Sevilla]

On: 24 August 2014, At: 10:23

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954
Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,
UK
Critique: Studies in
Contemporary Fiction
Publication details, including instructions for
authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vcrt20
"Put the Book Down and Slowly
Walk Away": Irony and David
Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
Iannis Goerlandt
a
a
Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
To cite this article: Iannis Goerlandt (2006) "Put the Book Down and Slowly
Walk Away": Irony and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, Critique: Studies in
Contemporary Fiction, 47:3, 309-328, DOI: 10.3200/CRIT.47.3.309-328
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/CRIT.47.3.309-328
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the
information (the Content) contained in the publications on our platform.
However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no
representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,
or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views
expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and
are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the
Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with
primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any
losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,
and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the
Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.
Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,
sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is
expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

Put the Book Down and Slowly Walk
Away: Irony and David Foster Wallaces
Infinite Jest
IANNIS GOERLANDT
avid Foster Wallace is constantly concerned with irony. It is at the heart
of Infinite Jest and constitutes a major theme of his essays and inter-
views. In his analysis of the trope, Wallace has centered on two
domains in which irony manifests itself, popular culture (E Unibus Pluram)
and literary production (McCaffery interview). Irony seems to him a hatred that
winks and nudges you and pretends its just kidding, that has gone from liber-
ating to enslaving (McCaffery 147). Wallace takes a keen interest in the prob-
lem of literary ethics (A Supposedly Fun Thing 287), in the ways that one
can dwell in an [i]rony-free zone to speak of real stuff (Infinite Jest 369, 592)
and maximally to engage the reader. A literary attempt to reinstall this mutual
understanding between reader and narrator can be found in Octet, in which
completely naked helpless pathetic sincerity (131) is asked of both narrator and
reader. But even in Up, Simba! a commentary on media and politics in the
McCain 2000 election campaign, this interest leaps to the eye.
In this article, I address the particularities of the use of irony in Infinite Jest,
which require examining closely the contents of the novel: How do the charac-
ters present and use irony? A thorough examination of James O. Incandenzas
works, especially his lethal movie Infinite Jest, is crucial. Second, we must
enter the theoretical debate about irony and evaluate the structure of the novel
with regard to its (non)ethical treatment of the reader. My interest lies mainly in
SPRING 2006, VOL. 47, NO. 3 309
D
Copyright 2006 Heldref Publications
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

the importance of the order of fictional patterns and structures (Newton 29) for
ethical positions (Newtons narrational ethics [17]) combined with elements
from his hermeneutic ethics (19). Both approaches can be summarized in a
structural-poetic-performative concept of literature as explicated by Thomas
Wgenbaur. However, I will start with a thematic-mimetic-representational
analysis (Wgenbaur 248) and later bridge the gap by means of Hutcheons con-
cept of discursive communities (89101). I argue that compared with the lethal
Entertainment Infinite Jest the novel Infinite Jest stands in a completely differ-
ent relationship to its audience, and that the lethal Entertainment has two func-
tions with respect to its audience, whereas the novel has only one. Drawing on
certain textual markers elucidated by Derek E. Wayne, I show that the novel
explicitly functionalizes the abstract level of superstructure (Nnning) of poet-
ic texts to counter an ironic reading. I also indicate the consequences that a non-
ironic reading of the title have for both the contents of the novel and the aesthet-
ic experience of the reader.
Irony in Infinite Jest
To avoid confusion over contradictory theoretical positions, we can regard irony
as either a speakers attitude of aloofness or an audiences impression that aloof-
ness is reached through structural manipulation (Hutcheon 4144).
A first example is Orin Incandenzas detached demeanor toward his Subjects.
Marlon K. Baine, whose sister was one of Orins girlfriends, states that [i]t is not
that Orin [. . .] is a liar, but that [he] think[s] he [Orin] has come to regard the truth
as constructed instead of reported (1048n269, emphasis in original). Occasional-
ly, we glimpse what could be a sincere gesture,
2
but Orin mostly regards and
approaches girls as objects, not subjects. Women let themselves be taken in by
Orin because he supplies them with what they want (Nichols 1011). Baine illus-
trates this by discussing Orins fail-safe cross-sectional pick-up Strategy that
involved an opening like Tell me what sort of man you prefer, and then Ill affect
the demeanor of that man, which is, of course, sincerity with a motive
(1048n269, emphasis in original) andin the endultimate detachment. Because
it is a pose, the girls do not receive what they want: the tokens of affection are nei-
ther real nor true but simulated and insincere. Many characters in the novel try to
preserve the core of truth that Orin and others have come to see as constructed.
To grasp the complexity of Infinite Jest, however, one must also know that Baine
works for Saprogenic Greetings, Inc., a firm that deals primarily with saprogenic
communicationGags N Notions, Pre-Packaged Emotions, Jokes and Surpris-
es and Wacky Disguises (664). When discourses are engulfed and treated in a
detached way they are putrefied, which unequivocally is ironic business.
The veterans of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), for whom Don Gately is the
spokesperson, are highly anti-ironic. At one AA meeting an Advanced Basics
310 CRITIQUE
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

guy, [. . .] painfully new but pretending to be at ease (367), speaks at a meeting
to fulfill the twelfth AA step (Giving It Away [344]). He begins, Im told Ive
been given the Gift of Desperation. Im looking for the exchange window. Gate-
ly notices the irony because not only are the lines clearly unspontaneous,
rehearsed, but they also commit the subtle but cardinal Message-offense of
appearing to deprecate the Program rather than the Self (367). Although AA
demands that newcomers surrender and admit that their ego will not save them
from addiction, it is completely out of place to ironically attack the program
rather than ones ego. Gately lays out the axioms of AA communication:
The thing is it has to be the truth to really go over, here. It cant be a calcu-
lated crowd-pleaser, and it has to be the truth unslanted, unfortified. And
maximally unironic. An ironist in a Boston AA meeting is a witch in church.
Irony-free zone. Same with sly disingenuous manipulative pseudo-sincerity.
Sincerity with an ulterior motive is something these tough ravaged people
know and fear, all of them trained to remember the coyly sincere, ironic,
self-presenting fortifications theyd had to construct in order to carry on Out
There, under the ceaseless neon bottle. (369)
On both occasions that Mario Incandenza visits Ennet House Drug and Alcohol
Recovery House, he observes that people are crying and making noise and get-
ting less unhappy, and once he heard somebody say God with a straight face and
nobody looked at them or looked down or smiled in any sort of way where you
could tell they were worried inside. That made him happy because it made the
place real (591, emphasis in original). Mario liked true feelings (190) and
statements that really go over (369). He complains that when [he] brought up
real stuff Hal called him Booboo and acted like hed wet himself and Hal was
going to be very patient about helping him change (592).
It is fruitful to look at how Hal, Pemulis, James, and Gately think about reli-
gion. Mario was correct that some residents of Ennet House could speak about
God with ease. Indeed, AA asks attendees to turn your Diseased will over to the
direction and love of God as you understand Him (443). But for Gately, the
AA understanding of a Higher Power is still somewhat blurred:
[H]e sort of simultaneously confesses and complains that he feels like a rat
thats learned one route in the maze to the cheese and travels that route in a
ratty-type fashion and whatnot. W/ the God thing being the cheese in the
metaphor [. . .]. He says but when he tries to go beyond the very basic rote
automatic get-me-through-this-day-please stuff, when he kneels at other
times and prays or meditates or tries to achieve a Big-Picture spiritual under-
standing of a God as he can understand Him, he feels Nothingnot nothing
but Nothing, an edgeless blankness that somehow feels worse than the sort
of unconsidered atheism he Came In With. (443, emphasis in original)
The contempt James feels for the simplistic God-stuff and covert dogma (689)
and Pemuliss warning that [s]ome got through by they joined NA or a cult or
SPRING 2006, VOL. 47, NO. 3 311
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

some bug-eyed church and went around with ties talking about Jesus or Surren-
dering, but that shits not going to work for [Hal] because [he is] too sharp to ever
buy the God-Squad shit (106566n321) show that they are enormously preju-
diced and not ready to surrender. For Gately may doubt a great deal, but he does
what the Program asks of him, going through the ritualistic daily Please and
Thank You prayers (443, emphasis in original).
Gregory Bateson explains that obliterating the ego can be achieved only by
defining oneself epistemologically in relation to a Higher Power, regardless of
how one sees that Power (332). In that system, prayer is a helpful communica-
tion strategy: The AA use of prayer [. . .] affirms the complementarity of part-
whole relationships by the very simple technique of asking for that relationship.
They ask for those personal characteristics, such as humility, which are in fact
exercised in the very act of prayer (334). Gately can understand the Higher
Power as basically Nothing, but that does not obstruct his getting through the day.
The ironic, detached approach of the E.T.A. members, on the other hand, rein-
stalls the Self and denies Recovery. How can Marios seemingly unironic stance
on life be congruent with his having made an untitled remake of The ONANtiad,
2
his fathers four-hour piece of tendentiously anticonfluential political parody
(38081),
3
which is received ironically? The claymation in Jamess movie was
made in Canada, which leads to the assumption that the original movie was not
a gratuitous metafictional remake of Reconfiguration history but an obsessive
pursuit of an anti-ONAN political statement (989n24). Even Marios version
could be seen as partially pursuing that same goal, because [i]ts pretty obvious
that somebody else in the Incandenza family [James?] had at least an amanuen-
tic hand in the screenplay (381). The remake was definitely not intended to be
ironic, as it was first made for woefully historically underinformed children.
The film became, however, part of the gala but rather ironic annual celebration
of [Continental Interdependence] Day, at which it proved to be way more pop-
ular with E.T.A.s adults and adolescents than with its originally intended audi-
ence (380). At the screening of the film
everyone glycemically mature enough to sit still and watch the cartridge is
having a rousing good time, [. . .] occasionally heckling or cheering ironi-
cally [. . .]. There is much cracking wise and baritone mimicry of a Presi-
dent roundly disliked for over two terms now. Only [. . .] a handful of [. . .]
Canadian students sit unhatted, chewing stolidly, faces blurred and distant.
This American penchant for absolution via irony is foreign to them. (385)
The American audience thus ironizes the instructive and critical film; they know
the parody is correct in its hyperbolic and grotesque representation of history, but
by cheering and cracking wise they detach themselves from their nation with-
out actually changing anything about the condition in which they live. The Cana-
dians condemn this absolution through ironic detachment; for them the clock
should be put back and interdependence dissolved.
312 CRITIQUE
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

That the United States government also uses this sense of irony is apparent
from the long transcript of a meeting organized to discuss the introduction of a
warning video against the lethal Entertainment (87683). Fully Functional Phil,
the prancing ass is chosen to spread the warning; but to avoid his looking like
an authority figure, the board decided to almost ironize the icon (87980).
4
Before the board has a look at the sucker (883), a kind of vision they also
expect from the intended audience, the VICE-PRESIDENT FOR CHIL-
DRENS ENTERTAINMENT, INTERLACE TELENTERTAINMENT, INC.
(876) adds that there is an extremely exciting adolescent-targeted version of
Fully Functional Phil [. . . in which] Phil engages in a great deal more ironic self-
parody (883). In this way, the board follows the lines about commercials that
Wallace established in E Unibus Pluram. The audience feels contempt for the
sucker and indulges in it as designed by commercial strategies.
Don Gatelys take on crowd-pleasing strategies naturally is defined in terms of
the specificities of an AA audience: [T]his particular audience does not want to
be supplied with what someone else thinks it wants (368). AA audiences want
emotions (truth) as unmediated as possible. Both Orin and Hal, however, have
strategies to deliver the goods that meet the expectations of the audience. Rather
than genuinely grieving over the loss of his father, Hal simulates different stages
of overcoming grief to the satisfaction of the professional grief therapist. To pre-
pare himself for the sessions, he has chew[ed] through [. . .] the section for grief-
professionals themselves in the library (254, emphasis in original). Orins ques-
tion, But you got through it. You really did grieve may sound sincere, but he
only wants Hal to tell [him] what it was like, so [he] can say something generic
but convincing about loss and grief in an interview (256). Hal and Orin seem to
be suffering from a lack of final vocabulary, a set of terms like true, good,
person and object
5
with which to engage in unironic communication:
Hal himself hasnt had a bona fide intensity-of-interior-life-type emotion
since he was tiny; he finds terms like joie and value to be like so many vari-
ables in rarified equations, and he can manipulate them well enough to sat-
isfy everyone but himself that hes in there, inside his own hull, as a human
beingbut in fact hes far more robotic than John Wayne. (694, emphasis in
original)
Orin regards truth as essentially constructed; Hal knows he processes emotions
as a robot or a computer would (that is, through mathematical equations). The
reference to the self-serving but chilling HAL 9000 computer (Raizman,
Chapter IV) in Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey is apparent (Theuwis 16).
Hal realizes the problem can be summarized as a function of the general Ameri-
can treatment of anhedonia and internal emptiness as hip and cool (694):
Hal, whos empty but not dumb, theorizes privately that what passes for hip
cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being real-
SPRING 2006, VOL. 47, NO. 3 313
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

ly human, since to be really human (at least as he conceptualizes it) is prob-
ably to be unavoidably sentimental and nave and goo-prone and generally
pathetic, is to be in some basic interior way forever infantile, some sort of
not-quite-right-looking infant dragging itself anaclitically around the map,
with big wet eyes and froggy-soft skin, huge skull, gooey drool. One of the
really American things about Hal, probably, is the way he despises what it is
hes really lonely for: this hideous internal self, incontinent of sentiment and
need, that pules and writhes just under the hip empty mask, anhedonia. (694)
This attitude probably explains why Hals attempt to surrender and join a Nar-
cotics Anonymous meeting fails. The search for and identification with the
Inner Infant represented grotesquely in the novel give him the creeps: Its at
this point that Hal begins truly to lose his willed objectivity and open-minded-
ness and to get a bad personal feeling about this Narcotics Anonymous (NA)
Meeting (801). He fears losing the objective stance and fails to surrender his ego
in the search for his essence. Instead he wills himself [ . . .] to stay objective and
not form any judgments before he has serious data, [. . .] hoping desperately for
some sort of hopeful feeling to emerge (801, emphasis added).
6
With such an
attitude, Hal is not ready to surrender, to gain hope through the continual loop of
the Keep Coming dogma, or to share and Identify instead of Comparing
(1001n90).
However, there are some glimpses of Hal Identifying like Mario. Some of his
fathers entertainments summon emotional reactions:
Wave Bye-Bye to the Bureaucrat remains Marios favorite of all their late
fathers entertainments, possibly because of its unhip earnestness. Though to
Mario he always maintains its basically goo, Hal secretly likes it, too, the
cartridge, and likes to project himself imaginatively into the ex-bureaucrats
character on the leisurely drive home toward ontological erasure. (689)
This thematic-mimetic-representational (Wgenbaur 248) analysis shows us that
the problems caused by ironic detachment and the inability to empathize are
themes in nearly all the plotlines of Infinite Jest. I plan to discuss next the way in
which Jamess movies, especially Infinite Jest, involve the audience with
respect to irony.
The Irony of Infinite Jest
Over the years, a lot has changed in the theory dealing with literary titles. Mov-
ing from prescriptive (Schopenhauer 594) or discursive anecdotalism (Adorno;
Booth 198n25), title theory gradually reached maturity. Lmmerts comments on
Die einfhrende Vorausdeutung (The Introductory Portent) (Bauformen des
Erzhlens 14353) or Hoeks monograph indicate, far better than earlier margin-
al glosses, how the syntactic, semantic, sigmatic, and pragmatic function of titles
314 CRITIQUE
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

is modeled. Titles stand in a direct metarelationship to content, function (e.g., The
Mousetrap instead of The Murder of Gonzago), or structure (Kafkas Der Proce)
of the text and mediate it toward the audience: [F]airly often a title provides
direct indications to assess and evaluate the works events, theme or meaning,
even before the text has enlightened the reader (Lmmert 144, my translation).
The Medusa v. The Odalisque, one of Jamess audience-obsessed pieces, is
an intriguing example. In it, a theater audience watches an incredibly violent lit-
tle involuted playlet The Medusa v. The Odalisque, in which both mythical
creatures are trying to de-map each other with blades and/or de-animate each
other with their respective reflectors. The obvious result is that the spectators
turn to varicolored stone after having caught one of the creatures reflection
(39697). We might wonder at the movie viewers, who didnt think too much
of the thing as they never do [. . .] get much of a decent full-frontal look at what
it is about the combatants that supposedly has such a melodramatic effect on the
rumbles live audience, and so [. . .] end [. . .] feeling teased and vaguely cheat-
ed (397). Unlike Joelle, who equates the function of the playlets audience with
that of the movies (740), I am inclined to think The Medusa v. The Odalisque
tries to thwart exactly such an interpretation. Duplicating the playlets title for the
films gives the movie audience a direct opportunity to scrutinize their own point
of view. Precisely because the movies viewers are denied a decent full-frontal
look (397), the movies setup does not replicate the cruel theater spectacle. One
might even question the idea of indiscriminate verbal duplication: Throughout
the novel, the italicized movie title is rendered with single quotation marks,
which might point out the mediated way the movie is presented to its audience.
Sterns (Interpersonal Othering), Boswells (132) and even Joelles (741) dis-
cussions of the film do not take into account the quotation marks. Of course,
Joelle spots what she calls human flashes (741) in The Medusa v. The Odal-
isque, but she fails to adapt her interpretation to this insight: Her assertion that
the films only feeling for the [movie] audience [is] one of contempt (740) thus
is incorrect.
Wave Bye-Bye to the Bureaucrat compels in a different way: the titles imper-
ative mode invites viewers to join the little kid in waving bye (689). The title
need not be ironic, for neither the child nor the viewers, who cannot intervene in
the story, can save the ex-bureaucrat; all that is left is gently seeing him off as he
walks into the night. (It is remarkable that Hal Identifies with the wrong char-
acter: he likes to project himself imaginatively into the ex-bureaucrats charac-
ter [689]).
The most hated Incandenza film is indubitably The Joke (397). On its
release, [t]he art-film theaters marquees and posters and ads for the thing were
all required to say something like The JOKE: You Are Strongly Advised NOT To
Shell Out Money To See This Film, which art-film habitus of course thought was
a cleverly ironic anti-ad joke (397). The title signals that the film is meta-ironic
toward an ironic audience: when you do not take the ad at face value, you will be
SPRING 2006, VOL. 47, NO. 3 315
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

ironized through The Joke. The crowds discomfort and overt hostility indicate
that they felt victimized. At first glance, this seems an interesting solution for the
dangers of victimization through irony, but a meta-ironic stance still employs
irony and is not an authentic solution to the problem.
I want to comment on Accomplice! before turning to Infinite Jest itself. The
movie is important for its explanation of how an audience can experience a dou-
ble bind, because the title fails to make clear the movies events (94547). What
we know for sure is that the boy is sobbing that the depraved old homosexual
has made himthe prostitutea murderer (946). Then he shrieks Murderer!
Murderer! over and over, so that almost a third of Accomplice!s total length is
devoted to the racked repetition of this wordway, way longer than is needed for
the audience to absorb the twist and all its possible implications and meanings
(946). (The word accomplice is implied but never actually used in the movie.)
One of two things could be occurring: either the boy shrieks at the man, because
the man has unwillingly murdered himself (with the boy as an unwilling accom-
plice), or the boy just shrieks. In the latter case, the shrieks mean that the boy
thinks that he himself is the (unwilling) murderer, perhaps because he has not
struggled fiercely enough to free himself. In that case, the man is merely an
accomplice against his will. It is impossible to know how the boy ultimately
decides the question of guilt. Like Hal, we eventually turn to the title: As I see
it, [. . .] Accomplice!s essential project remains abstract and self-reflexive; we
end up feeling and thinking not about the characters but about the cartridge
itself (946). The title does not help the viewer untangle the story, which is clear-
ly calling someone an accomplice. But is it the man or the boy? Showing that
double binds about the meaning of a story can be implemented on a structural
level seems to be the theoretical-aesthetic end (947) of the cartridge.
This insight is particularly useful in analyzing the double bind of the lethal
Entertainments title. For any ordinary viewer, to watch the movie is to experi-
ence a lethal pleasure-seeking urge to watch the movie again and again and [to]
eventually die [. . .] a slow euphoric death. Viewers who have some way or anoth-
er been dragged away from their TelePuter [. . .] want nothing else but to contin-
ue viewing the film even though they know it will eventually kill them (Theuwis
71). The title is derived from Hamlets reminiscence of Yorick, whom he recalls
as a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy (Shakespeare 5.1, 17677;
Nichols 6). James Incandenza even called his last production office Poor Yorick
Entertainment Unlimited because, as his wraith tells Gately, his most serious
wish was: to entertain (839, emphasis in original). The ghost explains that the
film was meant to drag Hal out of his muteness,
[t]o concoct something the gifted boy couldnt simply master and move on
from to a new plateau. Something the boy would love enough to induce him
to open his mouth and come outeven if it was only to ask for more. Games
hadnt done it, professionals hadnt done it, impersonation of professionals
hadnt done it. His last resort: entertainment. Make something so bloody
316 CRITIQUE
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

compelling it would reverse thrust on a young selfs fall into the womb of
solipsism, anhedonia, death in life. A magically entertaining toy to dangle at
the infant still somewhere alive in the boy, to make its eyes light and tooth-
less mouth open unconsciously, to laugh.
7
To bring him out of himself, as
they say. The womb could be used both ways. A way to say I AM SO VERY,
VERY SORRY and have it heard. (83839)
Of course, it is manifest that the addictiveness of the entertainment also has a
negative side. For an audience that does not know that the film will be so bloody
compelling and does not willingly choose to watch it,
8
the title is a dark and
ironic joke: They all but experience infinite jest. The relationship between title,
content, structure, and effect depends for its meaning on the audience, not on the
intent of its maker. Even then, the wraith could simply be indulging in gross
self-pity, (839) as Gately puts it, and not be speaking the truth. After all, Joelle
says that Jim referred to the Works various films as entertainments [and] did
this ironically about half the time (743). In an interview with the Bureau of
Unspecified Services, she states that he always meant it ironically (940). There
is no way to know for sure. The title invariably oscillates between the two mean-
ings in its relation to its audience.
Irony, in Theory
A detailed structural analysis of the novel might explain how the title of a novel
can take into account theories of irony. Other scholars have provided complete
histories of irony, (for a survey, see Muecke 1424). My interest is to explain
briefly how ironys emotional ethics (Hutcheon 14) and its victimization also
work to show how ironic meaning is inferred by what Hutcheon calls discursive
communities (18). Ironys emotional ethics is mainly significant for putting
content in perspective; discursve communities are a bridge to the structural
analysis of the novel. Like Hutcheon, [m]y concern here is simply with verbal
and structural ironies (3).
Hutcheon observes that most people feel that there is something [. . .] suspect
about irony [. . .] . The suspicion of deceit that accompanies indirection, espe-
cially when combined with the idea of power, understandably makes for a cer-
tain unease (9). Muecke claims that this is a rather recent development, but he
too acknowledges that irony has an edge:
The ironic observers awareness of himself as observer tends to enhance his
feeling of freedom and induce a mood of satisfaction, serenity, joyfulness, or
even exultation; his awareness of the victims unawareness leads him to see
the victim as bound or trapped where he feels free; committed where he feels
disengaged; swayed by emotions, harassed, or miserable, where he is dis-
passionate, serene, or even moved to laughter; trustful, credulous, or nave,
where he is critical, sceptical, or content to suspend judgement. (48)
SPRING 2006, VOL. 47, NO. 3 317
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

One can apply that description to a number of the situations with which I have
already dealt. With respect to The Joke, Mario said Lyle had said Incandenza had
confessed that hed loved the fact that The Joke was so publicly static and simple-
minded and dumb, but we also read that Jim said those rare critics who defend-
ed the film by arguing at convolved length that the simple-minded stasis was pre-
cisely the films aesthetic thesis were dead wrong, as usual (398). How can this
be? We must infer that the film ironizes the audience of art-film habitus, who
thought the ad was a cleverly ironic anti-ad joke (397) and came to see the movie.
Critics defending the movie are in the awkward position of having seen the movie
themselves: they are part of the ironized crowd, and hence they cannot take Jamess
stand. Worse, such critics are the ultimate butts of the whole enterprisethey fail
to see that the only people exempted from the cutting edge (Hutcheon 37) of
irony are the ones who took the ad at face value and stayed home.
The problematical speech of the new AA member is another example of
ironys edge. What Don Gately rejects is the aura of smugness hovering about
the speaker. An AA speech by definition cannot be disengaged (Muecke 48)
because speaking at an AA meeting is a Commitment. It cannot be dispas-
sionate, serene, [. . .] critical, [or] sceptical because such attitudes would betray
a commitment only to the ego, which must be abandoned to break through the
endless cycle of addiction.
Hutcheon also spots the possibility of complacency in irony:
irony becomes a kind of surrogate for actual resistance and opposition. Iro-
nists have been accused of smugness before, [. . .] but this time it is the inter-
preter too who is not being let off the hook. Even worse, irony is seen by
some to have become a clich of contemporary culture, a convention for
establishing complicity, a screen for bad faith [. . .]. What was once an
avenue of dissent is now seen as a commodity in its own right [. . .]. This
position is usually articulated in terms of contrast: the authentic or sin-
cere past versus the ironic present of the total ironist [. . .] whose use of
what is interpreted as a mode of monadic relativism [. . .] prevents taking
any stand on any issue. (28)
9
Infinite Jest comments on this complacency. The crowd at E. T. A. watching
Marios version of The ONANtiad finds absolution via irony (385) rather than
changes anything. The Fully Functional Phil and The Joke ads also testify to how
commodified and stifling irony has become. Both ads seem to function in the
way Wallace has described other ads. Referring to a particular Pepsi commercial,
he observed:
The commercial invites complicity between its own witty irony and veteran-
viewer Joes [Joe Briefcase is Wallaces generic name for the average TV
consumer] cynical, nobodys fool appreciation of that irony. It invites Joe
into an in-joke the Audience is the butt of. It congratulates Joe Briefcase, in
other words, on transcending the very crowd that defines him, here. (E
Unibus Pluram 179)
318 CRITIQUE
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

Hal and Orin represent another version of complacency in the sense of Jamesons
monadic relativism. Hals dread of his Inner Infant and the nightmares
10
from
which Orin awakens with an abrupt fetal spasm, unrefreshed and benighted of
soul, his eyes wobbling and his wet silhouette on the bottom sheet like a coro-
ners chalk outline (47, emphasis added) seem to point out that learning to wear
a mask of ennui and jaded irony (694) is dangerous.
Muecke sees a solution to ironys galloping relativism, [. . .] at least in theo-
ry, by a call to order in the form of renewed ironic laughter from on high, but
more probably by the practical exigencies of life (50). However, Infinite Jests
critique of irony in its comments on Analysis-Paralysis (203) and The Joke
defeats Mueckes first suggestion. His second suggestion, which is similar to
Richard Rortys theory of irony (93), seems to provide an authentic solution to
the problems of victimization and relativism. However, the only characters able
to hear the call to order [. . .] by the practical exigencies of life are AA mem-
bers, who also abhor irony.
Keeping in mind Hutcheons differentiation between ambiguity and irony
(3336), we can label Infinite Jest a classic example of irony. Hutcheon argues
that we should stop thinking about irony only in binary either/or terms of the
substitution of an ironic for a literal (and opposite) meaning. She proposes
instead a new kind of interpretation: If we considered irony to be formed
through a relation both between people and also between meaningssaid and
unsaidthen [. . .] it would involve an oscillating yet simultaneous perception of
plural and different meanings (66). The unsaid may be the primus inter pares
(66, emphasis in original) of the two meanings, but both meanings are involved
in the semantic value of the irony. Infinite Jest is exactly such a title. The spec-
tator experiences infinite jest, but one can ask whether there should not be
more to a meaningful life than a quest for this kind of self-centered jest. There-
fore, it is no coincidence that Marathe refers to the pursuit of happiness clause
from the American Declaration of Independence (425). When the viewing is
accidental and not consciously chosen or when screening the film is used as a
weapon, the title is especially ironic: The jest of happiness becomes a mocking
jest, one that hurts. The affective response of [the interpreter] in the game turns
out to be just as complicated [. . .], for it too ranges between extremes: from plea-
sure to pain, from amusement to wrath (Hutcheon 4142). Hutcheon is reluc-
tant to call the butt of irony a victim (42), but because the viewers response is so
extreme, I am inclined to think of the process as one of victimization in McKees
sense of the concept.
The events and characters in the novel allow us to assert that irony in its vari-
ous forms is berated and condemned. Taking into account Hutcheons argument
that irony is most commonly a strategy of interpretation, that it is in the eye
of the beholder (117, 116), and given that certain ironies are observable only by
specific groups or discursive communities (89115), I argue an option that
Hutcheon does not consider: that reading the novel creates an audience that has
SPRING 2006, VOL. 47, NO. 3 319
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

a heightened awareness of both the formal issues and the negative aspects of
irony. However, because irony is observable only with the presence of a com-
mon memory shared by addresser and addressee (98), a textual memory is con-
strued and nurtured during the process of reading the novel, similar to Stanley
Fishs concept of the developing responses of the reader in relation to the words
as they succeed one another in time (27). This option need not be in contradic-
tion to Hutcheons view; insights gathered while reading substitute for the miss-
ing preexisting communal values and beliefs (Hutcheon 95) necessary to test
Infinite Jests use of irony. Infinite Jest, like much of Wallaces best work, trains
an ironic eye on the misuse of self-conscious irony (Boswell 183). Such an audi-
ence will look at the novel with more suspicion, knowing that if the novel were
one big joke played on us all (as labeled in I really wanted to like it . . .) it
would be inconsistent with its content.
As I shall contend, the novel contains structural aspects that might easily lead
to such a conclusion, which would make it a failure in my eyes. Therefore, we
should scan the text for meta-ironic markers that signal the possibility of iron-
ic attribution (Hutcheon 154), although, in my opinion, some markers could sig-
nal the opposite.
On Construction
Wallace has often emphasized the importance of narrative form. He holds that
televisions narrative strives not to change or enlighten or broaden or reorient
not necessarily even to entertainbut merely and always to engage, to appeal
to. Its one, openly acknowledged end is to ensure continued watching (Fic-
tional Futures 44, emphasis in original).
11
Wallaces formal consciousness has
regularly affected his fiction, for example, in Octet, or the monologic dia-
logues in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.
Looking at the different incomplete descriptions of the film (230, 78795, 850,
93841, 933n28), one finds no apparent reason to think that some structural
manipulation of the film causes the continued watching. One could say that the
point of focus (with Death played by Joelle talking down to an auto-wobble
lens placed in a crib [939]), which puts the viewer in the position of an infant
looking up and urges sudden Identification with his Inner Infant, is a structural
strategy. But, by no means does there seem to be a structural analogy to the nar-
ratological manipulation of the soap episodes that employ cliff-hangers. What-
ever causes the films effect seems strongly tied to its content rather than to its
narratological structure, which explains why a viewer can enter in the middle of
the movie and immediately become engaged with it. That the Death scene con-
sists of at least twenty minutes of permutations of Im sorry (939) also gives
credibility to this interpretation: it is of no importance whether you watch for just
one moment or for the total amount of permutations.
320 CRITIQUE
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

Novels do not operate in this way. Maybe [i]n theory one can start reading
Infinite Jest at a random page (Theuwis 24), but the average reader will start at
the beginning of the narrative and gradually progress through it (Bal 8182). In
my opinion, Infinite Jest structurally exploits the linearity of the reading process.
Many readers, among them Dan Cryer and Michiko Kakutani, have lamented
the lack of resolution or closure in the novel. The terms are misleading, for
the end of the story is, of course, in the first scene of the book. The problem is
the presence of a content void, a time gap, which Hager places at the center of
his argument. For him, the reader must project and speculate on what could have
happened at the intersection of every characters and events narrative vectors
vectors the novel notes but doesnt follow through all the way to intersection. In
this view, the text seems to thematize Isers concept of the Leerstelle (gaps).
The main problem with this theory, however, is that it requires readers to
loop to the texts beginning to be able to project a correct interpretation of
the events occurring in the time gap (Wayne, Chapter III). Readers must loop
not only because the first scene of the narrative is the storys last one,
12
but also
because two passages refer to events that happened during the gap, one retro-
spective, one prospective. In the first scene of the narration, Hal describes events
that do not happen until after the narrative end on page 981: I think of John
N. R. Wayne, who would have won this years WhataBurger, standing watch in
a mask as Donald Gately and I dig up my fathers head (17). The event on page
17 strangely links to Don Gatelys dream one year earlier in the story (but more
than 900 pages further into the narrative), in which he dreams he is with a very
sad kid and theyre in a graveyard digging some dead guys head up to retrieve
the important thing buried inside the head (934). Wayne summarizes the rela-
tion between the loose ends as follows:
The searches (for the master-copy of the Entertainment) are, singularly told,
temporally linear: Hals is a flashback and Gatelys is a foreshadowing. In
conjunction, the visions intertwine in the chiasmic future perfect of story and
narrative: Gately, at the end of the narrative, imaginatively projects a story
event that has already happened, at the start of the narrative, for Hal. (Chap-
ter III)
Certain features of the novels structure add to the uncertainty of the content, for
example, the function of the notes and the references to the textual void of the
temporal gap.
13
I have argued that only late in the narrativeon page 223can readers recon-
struct the chronological order of the story. By then, however, all major characters
and plotlines have been introduced. Readers will then try to reassemble a story
from what they have been reading, realizing that they lack certain information to
fill in the gaps in the logic between the scenes that have preceded in the narra-
tion. The storys ending is known from the narratives start, leaving the readers
with the quest to understand that outcome while progressing in the narrative. In
SPRING 2006, VOL. 47, NO. 3 321
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

my view, the novel puts to use this pursuit of understanding most effectively
through the endnotes. Readers are somewhat at ease when they reach page 223
because some of the disparate plotlines have reemerged in the narrative, but this
sense of relief is reflected in the notes at a more general level. For example, the
most interesting note that appears before note 78 (attached to the CHRONOL-
OGY [999n78]) is the following (994n33): 33. I.e., Before Subsidization or
the beginning of the subsidized O.N.A.N.ite lunar calendar under President Gen-
tle; see sub. We might at first be a bit annoyed that a note is provided for 1989
(81), a time reference we can understand but it explains that a different calendar
is in use. At an early stage, readers get a hint that more explanation follows (see
sub), but they might be irked that unlike in other notes, they are not referred
directly the location of the necessary information.
14
But a resolution of the ten-
sion is awarded at page 223, which makes the readers believe they will eventual-
ly understand.
Also, because of notes referring to other notes that themselves refer to a part
of the story that is presented at a later point in the narrative, for example, 985n21.
994n39b, 995n45, flash-forwards that provide some extra information occur
throughout the text (especially note 304, which is referred to throughout the text).
In this way, readers get the impression that much of what in the story is beyond
comprehension will become clearer in the narration to come. These flash-words,
however, are narrative flash-forwards. Normally flash-forwards are constructs
that provide insight into the story yet to be presented. Here, the notes do not con-
tain flash-forwards but require readers to establish them by turning the pages and
gradually progressing to the actual later stage in the narrative. This is unusual
because the notes contain information needed by readers later on to understand
the narrative, or even the notes themselves, as note 39b on page 994 indicates.
The reference links of narrative flash-forwards thus establish a textual void
and a blind spot in the readers vision. Why else is it necessary to put such ref-
erences in the text? We might expect that readers would remember the informa-
tion about the actual future had it been given instead of a referring note. Discov-
ering a blind spot questions our reading ability, but there seems also to be a
content void because the narrative apparently needs secondary information
through the notes. When the same background information is given twice, thrice,
or even more often, then we must presume that the text fails to explain itself.
Readers are unable to understand this fact until they have finished the novel.
Thus, constructing notes reflects the lack of information needed to close the gaps.
The textual status of references to events that happen during the time gap is
another problem. Apart from the fact that there is no logical reason why Gately
could know what would happen during the gap (even the instigating lexical
rapist [832] could not have foreseen this at this point), there is also the odd last
sentence of the narrative, which contains a grammatical flaw: And when he
[Don Gately] came back to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing
sand, and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was way out (981). Wayne
322 CRITIQUE
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

spots the paratactic and of unresolved iteration and [the] dangling back to
(Chapter III). They leave us speculating: to exactly what place did Don Gate-
ly come back? To himself? To a certain zone (death?)?
15
It is by no means cer-
tain that the events Hal remembered could have taken place in the textual void.
The quest for the Master Copy of Infinite Jest also has to remain unresolved,
because it is said to be hidden in the head of James Incandenza,
16
which we
know, from page 251 onward, is nonexistent. Gatelys dream reflects this; Hals
version of the grave digging does not. This distribution has to do with the narra-
tive structure. On the level of narration, Hal can still speak of an existing head
because we as readers do not as yet know from the narrative that the head does
not exist. Gately cannot speak of an existing head because at that point readers
know what has happened. On the level of narration, a certain amount of ambiva-
lence exists, the heads status being 0/1.
17
Although readers are confronted with a crux in the text, they, nevertheless,
have been speculating and projecting wildly on what could have happened dur-
ing the temporal void. Theories exist to explain Hals strange behavior during the
last scene of the story. He has consumed the powerful drug DMZ that Pemulis
had offered him (908, 1065n321); he has seen Infinite Jest; or the mold he
apparently ate as a child had taken effect.
18
To make a good speculation
requires rereading the text in search of clues to support ones interpretation. The
structure of the novel then becomes a loop, making it into a structurally manip-
ulated, enslaving text like Wallaces TV programs that are designed to ensure
continued watching (Fictional Futures 44, emphasis in original). Such an out-
come would render its title as ironic as the filmswhich would not please read-
ers, who, by reading the novel, have become part of the discursive community of
irony-sensitive readers.
Having scanned the text for meta-ironic markers, I will try to indicate how
some structural markers can serve as a counterpart to this ironic construction. A
text as a whole should contain all of its pages. Wayne has recognized this as he
concentrates on [t]he page after 981, before the Notes and Errata section [. . . that
is] unmarked by text or a page number (Chapter III). That section, although
without page numbers, is part of the body of the text because it is taken into
account in the subsequent numbering. Two other unmarked pages (the title page
and the following blank page) also affect the pagination. The title is printed on the
title page, in tight, thin, bold capital letters of a font different from that of the body
of the text. Although seemingly a trivial fact, it becomes meaningful when we
scan the text to find it again. It reoccurs only once, in the little quarter circle at the
bottom of page 981, which is in the same bolder and tighter kind of print.
19
Wayne has interpreted this textual level differently. He understands the
incomplete circle as the invitation to loop addictively, in the figure of an
ellipse, to the beginning of the novel (marked with one such ellipse/eclipse)
as many time-stamped sections of the novel have one, with the empty page 982
as the locus where the projection occurs (Chapter III). He does not take into
SPRING 2006, VOL. 47, NO. 3 323
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

account, however, that the first two pages are also part of the text and that the
ellipses preceding certain chapters do not have the same size, font or placement
as the little quarter circle. Also, Wayne disregards our view of the novels struc-
ture as a recursive loop. The addictive effect of the text is already there; there is
no need for the figure to add to it.
However, if we regard the title page and the quarter circle as dispensations on
the higher [. . .] textual level, on which Nnning situates all those intratextual
structures that can be ascribed neither to the characters nor to the narrator (23,
my translation), readers are provided with a chance to leap out of the loop (the
quarter circle could be considered as a loophole). No longer are we enslaved by
the structurally manipulated counterpart of the Entertainment. As long as we con-
tinue projecting our version of the missing link in the storys gap onto the blank
space of page 982, we must rewind to update that version, remaining trapped on
the level of narration. Luckily, readers can opt out by leaving this level and situ-
ating themselves in the three-quarter circle that is situated outside the novel, or, in
Nnnings terms, on the textual level above that of the narration. Readers are
given the opportunity to realize and accept that the content of the novel is inher-
ently ambiguous and to follow Gatelys lead in overturning anticipation of retro-
spection by transforming the novels temporal void from a recursive loop into a
zone of the future perfect: The first scene with Hal, and the void itself, will have
happened (Wayne, Chapter III). Because the (full) circle would have some fea-
tures in common with the ellipses that precede some chapters, one might say that
the key moment of literary reception lies in the fact that to break the loop, readers
can write the missing chapter outside of the narration. This missing chapter, then,
because it is situated on the level of the superstructure, will not be a simple pro-
jection of ambiguous events but a metacommentary that breaks the loop.
As the colophon unambiguously reveals, the title of the book is in fact Infinite
Jest: A Novel.
20
As in the discussion of The Medusa v. The Odalisque, this title could
point out the difference with the film (the counterpart of the play) and constitute the
novel as novel, consisting of narration and superstructure.
21
The title seems to indi-
cate that we are reading a novel that has, because of its structure, a completely dif-
ferent relationship to its audience than has the movie of the same name.
CONCLUSION
I would derive sincere pleasure in hunting down this Wallace character,
wrapping him up in a burlap sack, and beating him senseless with a two by
four [. . .]. I guess in the case of Infinite Jest post-modern means pretentious,
awkward, and heartless. Save yourself. . . put the book down and slowly
walk away. (theo@ntli.com)
I have argued that by means of structural manipulation Infinite Jest counters the
danger of an ironic readinga danger that was imminent because a structure
324 CRITIQUE
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

analogous to the means by which the film Infinite Jest engages its viewers would
be a cruel and ironic joke on the irony-sensitive audience shaped in the reading
process. Readers can find the exit (Theuwis 24, emphasis in original)
22
by sit-
uating themselves in the three-quarter circle placed outside the narration, render-
ing any ironic interpretation obsolete. Forgoing the addictive projection in the
recursive loop, readers can finally acknowledge that the novels ambiguity
(emerging from the passages on the burial of the cartridge, for instance) cannot
be resolved on the level of narration.
Boswell remarked that Wallaces work [. . .] has always sought to stave off
exhaustion by puncturing holes in its own structure, holes that lead back to the
world outside the text (199), whereas Burn concluded that [p]art of Wallaces
aim seems to be to break with self-reference and direct the reader outside of the
book (22). These interpretations are only partly correct; they do not take into
account that the space oustide his work where direct, single-entendre princi-
ples can breathe and live (Boswell 207) is initially to be found on the level of
the texts superstructure, and not merely in real life: After all, an authentic solu-
tion in the field of literary ethics should operate on the specific fictional plateau
that readers cannot simply master and move on from (Infinite Jest 839). The
superstructural plain is the textual limit, the locus where the infinity of the addic-
tive loop can and should be halted. Only at that level can the solution proposed
here be truly part of the novels aesthetic agenda, because by analyzing some
striking textual markers it can be demonstrated to be part of the textual strategy.
Thus, Infinite Jest probably is the first novel to truly functionalize its being
snapped shut: readers are given the opportunity to leave the addictive reading
cycle by entering their meta-commentary on the level of the novels superstruc-
ture, after which they experience their nonironic infinite jest by slowly walk-
ing away after putting the book down.
GHENT UNIVERSITY
GHENT, BELGIUM
NOTES
1. Think of Orins nightmares (46), which show what his truth might be like, or of his drawing
of an infinity symbol () on the bare flank of his girlfriend after sex a nice and not simulated ges-
ture (47) because, as she clearly does not understand it, there would be no point in simulating some-
thing that would be lost on the addressee.
2. For a discussion of the content of the film and its implications, see Stern (The Othering of
Canada).
3. It is quite strange that the filmography claims The ONANtiad only lasts 76 minutes (989n24).
Maybe the fictional critics Comstock, Posner, and Duquette (985n24) mixed up Jamess and Marios
versions, for the latter is way shorter (381).
4. This was possible because the demographic target has a capacity on Kruger Abstraction
Scale [of] three or above (87778). As is well known, young children tend to confuse irony with
SPRING 2006, VOL. 47, NO. 3 325
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

lying (Hutcheon 66, 122).
5. I derive these examples from Rorty 77. In Rortys terms, Hal is an ironist who cannot feel the
solidarity provided by irony and thus longs for metaphysical essences.
6. The illusion of self-control is pernicious in AA (Bateson 31213).
7. It is no coincidence that Jim refers to the Inner Infant Hal dreads so much.
8. The discussion throughout the book between Marathe and Steeply centers around the amount
of choice actually involved in deciding whether one should watch the film. Choice is apparently not
such a clear concept. The implied irony is that no one in the formerly American territory can be said
to have a mind clear enough to choose objectively whether to watch it. And naturally, when the Enter-
tainment is employed as a terrorist weapon by Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents (sic), choice is
not relevant at all.
9. Hutcheon refers to or quotes (in order of appearance) W. C. Booth (A Rhetoric of Irony
24950), T. Lawson (164), B. Austin-Smith (51), T. Gitlin, and F. Jameson (412).
10. There is another dream-like sequence of seclusion and confinement (97172). The position of
the passage in the novel (it is very unreal, rather symbolical, and clearly not one of [Orins] bad
dreams, although Orin is in deep denial about its not being a dream [972]) is not very clear, but it
certainly is a reference to Kafkas The Metamorphosis and even more distinctly to Orwells 1984. The
metaphysical state of relativism reached in Room 101 is also the subject of Rortys analysis of 1984
(16988). He interprets it as a very dangerous possibility, incongruent with his otherwise positive
interpretation of irony. What is horrifying is that Marathe, trying to find the Master Copy of Infinite
Jest, will become the ultimate (demoniac) ironist to break Orins last remaining sense of essence.
11. Referring to certain statements in McCaffery (13238), in which Wallace rejects hollow for-
malism, Daverman fights a deplorable rearguard action with Hager over the importance of narra-
tive/form in Wallaces fiction. Daverman states that Hager makes Wallace the kind of writer he [the
author] abhors, because Hager supports his theory by a very detailed inspection of page numbers,
double entendres, and other minutia and asserting a very complex structure. There is more, howev-
er, between anesthesia of form (McCaffery 136) and metafictions structural cleveritis (McCaf-
fery 134).
12. The reader realizes rather late that the narrative by no means represents the chronological lin-
ear structure of the story. Through the late introduction of the CHRONOLOGY OF ORGANIZA-
TION OF NORTH AMERICAN NATIONS REVENUE-ENHANCHING SUBSIDIZED TIME

,
BY YEAR (223), the reader understands there is a prolepsis. That the CHRONOLOGY ends with
the Year of Glad is significant: the first scene is thus effectively rendered as the storys last.
13. There are, of course, more: think, for example, of the ambiguity the questions of authority
bring about in Baines statements, or of the strange episode involving the professional conversation-
alist (2731, esp. 31; 992n24), which may or may not actually be a scene from It Was a Great Mar-
vel That He Was in the Father Without Knowing Him (Schmidt, n.pag.).
14. Naturally, the chronological filmography of Jamess movies (985n24) provides some of the
missing information.
15. The phrase causes a problem even if we take into account the other dangling come to con-
struction in the novel (819). In the last scenes of Gatelys flashbacks in the hospital, in which he is
fighting not to receive any drugs, the question of whether he survives in a sober state is equivalent to
whether he is alive or not.
16. Joelle gives additional information on the burial: there was an interment of the tapes (790)
along with Jims body (940, 999n80) in LIslet Province of Nouveau Qubec (78990). She does
not say that the Infinite Jest Master Copy is buried inside his skull because, of course, she knows
there was no head.
17. Compare Schrdinger 5. Are the Variables Really Blurred? (Schrdingers Cat, emphasis in
original). Schrdinger expounds that such an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic
domain [. . .] transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy [. . .] can [. . .] be resolved by direct obser-
vation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a blurred model for representing reali-
ty. Because a blind spot in the readers vision exists in Infinite Jest, no direct observation can exist
for the content and, therefore, all content-based interpretations remain mere speculation.
18. Compare, for example, Schmidt. Hal has no memory of eating fungusthis memory was of
Orin telling the story (953). The second scene makes this perfectly clear (1011). When Hal answers
the Dean with Call it something I ate (10), there is no way to know whether Hal has actually eaten
the fungus and whether he is also trying to communicate this uncertainty. Additionally, it is interest-
326 CRITIQUE
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

ing that Johnette F. misreads the E.T.A. on Hals sleeves as A.T.E. (786), which once again could
lead to speculation. All these examples show that interpretations such as Schmidts remain mere
guesses.
19. Unlike in the two different hardcover versions, the quarter circle is not in the paperback edi-
tion.
20. In Hoeks classification, Infinite Jest: A Novel is a title plus a subtitle in the form of a generic
term and compared to the main title, the subtitle is situated on a metalinguistic level (96, my trans-
lation, emphasis in original).
21. Compare Hoek: The meaning proposed by the title is qualified by the co-text, at times open-
ly, at times imperceptibly. The title gives direction to the reading of the co-text, the co-text determines
the meaning of the title; thus, the connections between title and co-text are dialectical (132, my
translation, emphasis in original).
22. Note the emphasis Infinite Jest puts on exits from the outset: Hal observes that EXIT signs
would look to a native speaker of Latin like red-lit signs that say HE LEAVES (8).
WORKS CITED
Adorno, Theodor W. Titel: Paraphrasen zu Lessing. Noten zur Literatur III. Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 1965. 718.
Austin-Smith, B. Into the Heart of Irony. Canadian Dimension 27.7 (1990): 5152.
Bal, Mieke. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. 2nd ed. Trans. Christine Van
Boheemen. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1997.
Bateson, Gregory. The Cybernetics of Self: A Theory of Alcoholism. Steps towards an Ecology
of Mind. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999. 30937.
Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1961.
. A Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1974.
Boswell, Marshall. Understanding David Foster Wallace. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 2003.
Burn, Stephen. David Foster Wallaces Infinite Jest: A Readers Guide. New York: Continuum, 2003.
Cryer, Dan. Infinite Jest. Newsday 12 Feb. 1996. 15 Oct. 2004 <http://www.smallbytes.net/
~bobkat/newsday.html>.
Daverman, Brooks. The Limits of the Infinite: The Use of Alcoholics Anonymous in Infinite Jest as
a Narrative Solution after Postmodernism. Honors paper Oberlin College, 2001. 15 Oct. 2004
<http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/brooksdaverman.htm>.
Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge:
Harvard UP, 1980.
Gitlin, Todd. Postmodernism and Politics. Cultural Politics in Contemporary America. Ed. Ian
Angus and Sut Jhally. New York: Routledge, 1989. 34760.
Hager, Chris. On Speculation: Infinite Jest and American Fiction After Postmodernism. Senior the-
sis Stanford University, 1996. 15 Oct. 2004 <http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/thesisb.htm>.
Hoek, Leo. La marque du titre: Dispositifs smiotiques dune pratique textuelle. Approaches to Semi-
otics 60. The Hague: Mouton, 1981.
Hutcheon, Linda. Ironys Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony. London: Routledge, 1994.
I Really Wanted to Like It . . . 6 May 1997. 15 Oct. 2004 <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/
customer-reviews/0316921173/ref=cm_rev_next/002-9716760-8244815?%5Fencoding= UTF8>.
Iser, Wolfgang. Indeterminacy and the Readers Response in Prose Fiction. Aspects of Narrative:
Selected Papers from the English Institute. Ed. J. Hillis Miller. New York: Columbia UP, 1971.
145.
Jameson, Frederic. Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke UP,
1991.
Kakutani, Michiko. Infinite Jest. New York Times 13 Feb. 1996. 15 Oct. 2004 <http://www.smallbytes
.net/~bobkat/jest2.html>.
Lmmert, Eberhard. Bauformen des Erzhlens. 5th ed. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1972.
Lawson, Thomas. Last Exit: Painting. Art after Modernism: Rethinking Representation. Ed. Brian
Wallis. New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984. 15366.
McCaffery, Larry. An Interview with David Foster Wallace. Review of Contemporary Fiction 13.2
(1993): 12750.
SPRING 2006, VOL. 47, NO. 3 327
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4

McKee, John Bryan. Literary Irony and the Literary Audience: Studies in the Victimization of the
Reader in Early English Fiction. Diss. Syracuse U, 1972.
Muecke, Douglas Colin. Irony and the Ironic. The Critical Idiom 13. New York: Methuen, 1982.
Newton, Adam Zachary. Narrative Ethics. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995.
Nichols, Catherine. Dialogizing Postmodern Carnival: David Foster Wallaces Infinite Jest. Cri-
tique 43.1 (2001): 316.
Nnning, Ansgar. Renaissance eines anthropomorphisierten Passepartouts oder Nachruf auf ein lit-
eraturkritisches Phantom? berlegungen und Alternativen zum Konzept des implied author.
Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fr Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 67 (1993): 125.
Raizman, Noah. Call It Something I Ate: Language-Games, Addiction, and Dialogic Possibility in
David Foster Wallaces Infinite Jest. 15 Oct. 2004 <http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/
vitru3.html>.
Rorty, Richard. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge, Eng.: P Syndicate of the U of Cam-
bridge, 1989.
Schmidt, Dan. Notes on David Foster Wallaces INFINITE JEST. 15 Oct. 2004 <http://www.dfan
.org/jest.txt>.
Schopenhauer, Arthur. Kapitel 23: ber Schriftstellerei und Stil. Smtliche Werke, Parerga und
ParalipomenaKleine philosophische SchriftenII. Ed. Wolfgang Freiherr von Lhneysen. Darm-
stadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976. 589650.
Schrdinger, Erwin. The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics: A Translation of Schrdingers
Cat Paradox Paper. Trans. John D. Trimmer. 15 Oct. 2004 <http://www.tu-harburg.de/rzt/rzt/it/
QM/cat.html>.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The Worlds ClassicsThe Oxford Shakespeare. Ed. G. R. Hibbard.
Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989.
Stern, Travis. W. I Am in Here: Fragmentation and the Individual in David Foster Wallaces Infi-
nite Jest. 15 Oct. 2004 <http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/iaminhere.htm>.
theo@ntli.com. Ive Just Had Three Weeks of My Life Sucked Away. 3 Nov. 1997. 15 Oct. 2004
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviws/A399YK746819BY/ref=cm_cr_auth/002-
9716760-8244815?%5Fencoding=UTF8>.
Theuwis, Toon. The Quest for Infinite Jest: An Inquiry into the Encyclopedic and Postmodernist
Nature of David Foster Wallaces Infinite Jest. Thesis Ghent U, 1999. 15 Oct. 2004 <http://www
.thehowlingfantods.com/toon.html>.
Wgenbaur, Thomas. Narrative Ethik. Das Paradox der Ethik als KybernEthik der Literatur. Im
Bann der Zeichen: Die Angst vor Verantwortung in Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft. Ed.
Markus Heilmann and Thomas Wgenbaur. Wrzburg: Knigshausen, 1998. 22953.
Wallace, David Foster. A Supposedly Fun Thing Ill Never Do Again. A Supposedly Fun Thing Ill
Never Do Again. Boston: Little, 1997. 256353.
. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. London: Abacus
(Little), 1999. 1428; 69105; 18199; 24571.
. E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction. Review of Contemporary Fiction 13.2
(1993): 15194.
. Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young. Review of Contemporary Fiction 8.3
(1988): 3653.
. Infinite Jest: A Novel. Boston: Little, 1996.
. Octet. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. London: Abacus (Little), 1999. 11136.
. Up, Simba! 7 Days on the Trail of an Anticandidate. eBook. iPublish, 2000.
Wayne, Derek Edward. Addiction to Itself: Self-Consciousness in David Foster Wallaces Infinite Jest.
Bachelor thesis Harvard U, 2001. 15 Oct. 2004 <http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/Thesisdew.htm>.
328 CRITIQUE
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
U
n
i
v
e
r
s
i
d
a
d

d
e

S
e
v
i
l
l
a
]

a
t

1
0
:
2
3

2
4

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
4