Infinite jest by david foster wallace this month there is a bonus episode of the ark audio book club podcast on david foster wallaces epic of tennis, drug addiction and tv. This blog contains spoilers for the books ulysses and infinite jest. At the center of one is hal incandenza, an adolescent tennis star attending enfield tennis. Except hal minutes later alleges to be lying about it all. If the events in the yg are related to the entertainment, it had the opposite effect, since he was no longer able to speak. Is there significance behind the name incandenza in. They arouse me to such an extent that i could probably turn the pages with my penis paper cuts, be damned. Hal incandenza we know that hal incandenza is bound for his. Hal is as prodigiously intelligent as he is talented. Feb 01, 1996 admittedly, infinite jest is a tough book.
Its also a great way to tell people that you are reading infinite jest and not have. I knew who had completed infinite jest, i realised that they shared a quality which, if i had to pin it down, seemed to relate to a past. He appears in the book mainly either in flashbacks or as a wraith. The lengthy and complex work takes place in a semiparodic future version of north america.
Mario incandenza character analysis in infinite jest. It simply had to appear as suicide to orin who has been away from the family and has to grill hal to get any kind of info about himselfs death so he can feed that info to his reporterusa agent in drag. Infinite jest 1996 is a novel written by david foster wallace. Thats, like, pretty fucking big, yall, so obviously i was on board before even opening the thing. Stephen kings the stand uncut edition and george r. Hal incandenza also has severe compulsionissues around nicotine. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one. The novel is widely noted for its unconventional narrative structure and its experimental use of endnotes there are a total of 388 endnotes, some with footnotes of their own.
Infinite jest is both sad, depressed and funny and even 25 years after it was published in 1994 remains relevant to the modern age. He is the youngest son of avril and james incandenza. Jest is also home to some spectacular set pieces and dialogue that cracks like a whip between the boundaries of the likes of hal incandenza on a freakishly good streak of clipping his toenails. Infinite jest is notoriously known for being a long book its just shy of 1100 pages. Book recommendations, author interviews, editors picks, and more. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance. Hal incandenza is the youngest of the incandenza children. Incandenza is an expert on light and incandenza sounds a lot like incandescentthe type of light bulb that gives off light when its filament gets heated.
The kindle edition costs is 99 cents, but its also free online at project gutenberg. He received a masters of fine arts from university of arizona in 1987 and briefly pursued graduate work in philosophy at harvard university. I would like to suggest we use the book elegant complexity. Infinite jest is a 1996 novel by american writer david foster wallace. Mar 03, 1996 reading david foster wallaces latest novel, infinite jest, i couldnt help thinking at times about 7yearold seymour glasss booklength letter home from camp, published in the new. Infinite jest project gutenberg selfpublishing ebooks. Incandenza himself died when he killed himself by putting his head in a microwave oven. In fact, its take on the very nature of entertainment itself perhaps foresaw the age of vanity and social media, as seen through the prisms of tinder, facebook, twitter and instagram. An infinite jest discussion containing major spoilers. David foster wallace infinite jest wikia fandom powered. Take charactours quiz to get recommendations for thousands of characters, movies, tv shows, books, and games that are high matches for your unique personality. The timeline below shows where the character mario incandenza appears in infinite jest. Steven asin infinite jest is the perfect book for the kindle paperwhite. It has been categorized as an encyclopedic novel and made time magazines list of the 100 best.
He was concerned that hal was receding into himself, which is why he made infinite jest in the first place. Feb 15, 2016 reading infinite jest 20 years on books podcast. Max revisits david foster wallaces infinite jest twenty years. I have read a number of books of a similar length, so upwards of 500k words or 0 pages. The infinite jest quotes below are all either spoken by hal incandenza or refer to hal incandenza. You start the book having no clue when it is happening and who the various characters are. Dec 19, 2016 infinite jest is notoriously known for being a long book its just shy of 1100 pages. I had ordered the book from after hearing of david foster wallaces death.
David foster wallace, author of infinite jest and your creator, along with. Aug 27, 2014 crack out your copy of infinite jest, and recreate it in lego. Martins storm of swords are longer this, but i was able to clear those books much quicker than david foster wallaces second novel. I was in france at the time, and when i got back to the u.
So you already know whats going to happen to hal incandenza, the novel. We are led into the world of the incandenzas, from hals sweetly innocent mario to his sinisterly neurotic mother, lovingly christened the moms. One of the ways that infinite jest grabs you is that it starts in the future, and then jumps back in time a year or so. That was the project embarked upon back in april by american english professor kevin griffith and his 11yearold son sebastian. There is stuff that happens in the opening pages that explains events at the end of the book, albeit over pages and hundreds of footnotes away. His latest offering, infinite jest, has been moving toward us like an ocean disturbance, pushing increasingly.
Harold incandenza, better known as hal, is a major character in infinite jest. Its been a little over three months since the last post of the infinite jest liveblog, and i recently noticed the first tiny urges to jump back in and read the book again. He has memorized pretty much the entire oxford english dictionary and is a. His second novel, infinite jest, was published in 1996. I ordered copy of a library book of ulysses by james joyce, but the print was too small to read. Hal incandenza character analysis in infinite jest litcharts. See our topranked characters and read their profiles. Apr 09, 2009 i began reading infinite jest by david foster wallace around october 2008.
Hal incandenza, for instance, is a pothead who can take every iota. Hal is one of the main characters in the novel, where most of the events take place during his senior year at enfield tennis academy. Beyond the ease with which one can lookup footnotes, consider the following. Hal incandenza has an almost obsessive dislike for delint, whom he tells mario he sometimes cannot quite believe is even real, and tries to get to the side of, to see whether delint has a true z coordinate or is just a cutout or projection. The infinite jest quotes below are all either spoken by avril incandenza or refer to avril incandenza. Four theories toward the timeless brilliance of infinite jest. A study of david foster wallaces infinite jest, as reference for hals bio. The foreground of infinite jest features three basic plot systems. Infinite jest and the sartrean philosophy of hal incandenza. Aug 01, 2012 by michael moats this is the latest entry in words, words, words the ongoing liveblog of david foster wallaces infinite jest. Infinite jest is over pages, hundreds of which are given over to endnotes. He appears in the book mainly either in flashbacks or as a ghost. Hal incandenza, for instance, is a pothead who can take every iota way down deep and hold his breath forever, so that even his exhalations are no more than. James incandenza aka himself, who took his life shortly after producing a mysterious film called infinite jest, which is supposedly so addictively entertaining as to bring about a total neural meltdown in its viewer.
Not too many people write thousandpagers, much less read them. Im still trying to make sense of infinite jest io9. Find all the books, read about the author, and more. The character of avril incandenza in infinite jest from. Apr, 2009 a gargantuan, mindaltering comedy about the pursuit of happiness in america set in an addicts halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwedup family to come along in recent fiction, infinite jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives. At the macro level, infinite jest consists of numerous anticonfluential wallaces word episodes set a dozen years or so in the future as was the broom, at a time when numerical designations for years have been sold to corporate sponsors. Enfield tennis academy harold incandenza, better known as hal, is a major character in infinite jest. He was known for his 1996 novel infinite jest, which time included in its alltime 100 greatest novels list covering the period 19232006.
Hal eats the mold i was just wondering if people thought this directly caused hal s lack of feelingcommunication issues, or it was really just his first exposure to mindaltering chemicals, leading to addiction and use of drugs as a coping mechanism. A425635 infinite jest is a 1996 novel by american writer david foster wallace. David foster wallace february 21, 1962 september 12, 2008 was an american author of novels, essays and shortstories, and a professor at pomona college in claremont, california. But these more outre materials combine to form what is finally a thematic second tier. David foster wallaces 1996 novel, infinite jest, tells the story of the incandenza family and the events surrounding a film produced by james orin incandenza jr. Hals communication problem in the year of glad may have begun on 20 november y. Mar 09, 2011 someone above made the point that it has to be suicide in order for orin to have motivation to send out the infinite jest packages. A gargantuan, mindaltering comedy about the pursuit of happiness in america set in an addicts halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwedup family to come along in recent fiction, infinite jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives. Don gately the book ends with don gately on a beach after a.