Infinite Jest

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment (May 9)

Most days during his high school years, Hal leaves his dormitory before 6am and does not return until after dinner. His roommate is his brother Mario, who was born with disabilities that affect him physically and cognitively. One morning, as Hal rises early and prepares for tennis practices, he receives a telephone call from an unnamed person who says that their head is filled with “things to say” (32). Hal assures the person that he can wait forever. When the call ends, Hal knows that the person on the other end of the line was his oldest brother Orin. Mario wakes and asks who called. Hal tells him to go back to sleep, adding that Mario does not know the person.

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment

A 36-year-old medical attaché from Saudi Arabia is in the northeast United States in his role as personal ear-nose-throat consultant to the Saudi Minister of Home Entertainment, referred to as Prince Q—. Due to the Prince’s diet—which consists solely of Toblerone chocolate bars—the attaché treats the Prince for “yeasty sores” (33) and sinus problems that require daily drainage. The attaché is a devout Muslim who refuses alcohol and drugs, unwinding each day by eating dinner in an armchair while watching films. The attaché returns home earlier than normal on April 1. The Prince blames him for the increased pain of a particularly difficult draining procedure. When the attaché returns home, his wife is still out. She is not available to make his food or to activate the television screen he uses to watch films. Annoyed, the attaché checks his mail and finds a package with an unmarked film tape. The package is labeled “HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!” (36). Certain that today is not his anniversary and that the tape is not meant for him, the attaché sits down to watch it.

Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar

In a short section, the perspective and the narrative style change. A person named Clenette recalls an incident that took place in the Brighton Projects. A man named Roy Tony sexually harasses Wardine, his partner’s daughter. Meanwhile, Wardine’s mother uses a hanger to abuse her daughter, leaving scars on her back. Wardine’s boyfriend Reginald wants to help her deal with Roy’s abuse, but he also pressures her into a sexual relationship.

The narrative changes again. An eighth-grader named Bruce Green loves a girl in his class named Mildred Bonk. By the time they reach 10th grade, Mildred smokes, drinks, and uses drugs. By the age of 18, Bruce and Mildred live together with their baby daughter, a drug dealer named Tommy Doocey, and two other couples. Tommy Doocey is the man who will supply Ken Erdedy’s marijuana. When Mildred smokes marijuana, she watches entertainment cartridges. Bruce works all day. Nevertheless, their young lives are like “one big party” (39).

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment

The Saudi medical attaché is still watching the tape he received in the mail.

The narrative switches perspective to Orin Incandenza. Orin is a professional football player for the Arizona Cardinals. He lives in the American southwest but dislikes the region, especially compared to his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. In particular, he dislikes the southwest’s large cockroaches that have infested his home. Frequently, he suffers from nightmares about flying roaches, as well as his other fears: heights and early mornings. One morning, he thinks about his recent sexual partners as he walks through his apartment. To Orin, these women are “Subjects.” He remembers one Subject, who sprayed perfume while they had sex, and another Subject with whom he watched a horrifying documentary about schizophrenia. When under an increased amount of stress, Orin starts contacting the Subjects again.

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment

At E.T.A., 17-year-old Hal visits the boiler room in the basement to smoke marijuana. Hal keeps his drug use secret from most people and tries to avoid smoking with anyone else. Though his mother knows that he drinks, Hal is successful enough that she can ignore the issue. While drug use technically should result in expulsion at E.T.A., this policy is not often enforced. Indeed, the prorectors of the school use drugs. Nevertheless, Hal carefully removes all evidence of his marijuana use. He is unsure why he is so careful, as though the secrecy of the drug use is more important than the drug use itself.

Mario also attends E.T.A. He does not play tennis, but—as a budding filmmaker—he films and edits the practice sessions and games for review. Before his death, James Incandenza was also a filmmaker.

Meanwhile, the medical attaché continues to watch the mysterious film. He is so captivated by the film that he has urinated over himself. He stares at the screen, watching the tape on a hypnotic loop.

Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland (Autumn)

The previous year, a man named Don Gately violently robs a house. Don, who also has a substance use disorder, is “more or less a professional burglar” (55), but he rarely uses violence when stealing. On this occasion, however, he breaks into the heavily secured home of a leader of a group working against the Organization of North American Nations, the proposed superstate that includes Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Guillaume DuPlessis is a liaison between Quebecois separatists and right-wing political extremists in Alberta. Don had been led to believe that Guillaume would be vacationing with his family rather than being present in his home in Boston. However, Guillaume is suffering from a head cold, so he stayed at home. When Don ties Guillaume to a chair, Guillaume cannot breathe because of his cold. He dies of suffocation. Don is prosecuted for murder by a lawyer whose home he once robbed, meaning that the prosecution is particularly vindictive.

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment (November 3)

The narrative changes to a first-person perspective to describe a dream common to all E.T.A. students: The common feature of the dream is the sense that they are sharing a room with a mysterious evil presence. They look at the floor and see a face, then know that this face is evil. When the students wake from the nightmare, they look at the bare, normal floor but cannot be certain that the evil face is not with them. 

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment

James Incandenza was the first director of the Enfield Tennis Academy. After his death, his brother-in-law Charles Tavis took on the role. James, Sr.—James’s father, who was addicted to alcohol—excelled as a tennis player and an actor in his youth but failed to realize his potential after a scandal. James, Sr. trained his son to be an excellent tennis player; James also studied physics and filmmaking before opening E.T.A. and marrying Avril, whom he considered to be one of the only “bombshell-type females” (64) in the academic world. Avril was also heavily involved in the Quebec separatism movement. An extensive footnote describes James’s filmography, including an unreleased and possibly unfinished work titled Infinite Jest. James killed himself at age 54 by sticking his head inside a microwave rigged to stay on with the door open.

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment (November 1, Denver, CO)

Orin and his football team fly around the Arizona Cardinals’ stadium dressed in bird costumes, a new part of their jobs that requires them to perform theatrical stunts before football games. The experience triggers Orin’s fear of heights, and, as an athlete, he resents being made to do such ridiculous things.

An E.T.A. student named Michael Pemulis speaks to a group of younger students about the psychoactive effects of a mushroom.

In a first-person passage, Hal explains how he tried marijuana for the first time at the age of 15 due to a recurring nightmare. He wanted to be able to sleep through an entire night but was frequently bothered by a nightmare in which he found himself on a giant tennis court. With a large crowd and no way to see his opponent, the umpire told him to play. He sees his mother supporting him in the crowd.

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment

In the psych ward in a hospital, a doctor finds Kate Gompert on the bed in her room. Kate has been placed on suicide watch, meaning that she is under constant surveillance. The doctor asks the nurse for time alone with Kate and then reads her medical history, noting that she has been diagnosed with depression. She has been to the hospital four times in three years, and her most recent suicide attempt makes the doctor deeply concerned. Kate speaks to the doctor and describes her suicide attempt. She explains that she does not hate herself; she simply does not want to be alive any longer. Kate feels a sense of horror rather than sadness.

The medical attaché’s wife returns home to find her husband watching the film, soaked in his own urine. When she cries out and tries to rouse him, he remains unresponsive. She turns and looks at the screen, which is still playing the film.

Mario has a special relationship with Gerhardt Schtitt, the head coach at E.T.A. with an affinity for corporal punishment. Mario films the practice sessions for Gerhardt, who confides in Mario. They visit an ice cream parlor in Enfield and Gerhardt explains that tennis can be appreciated from a mathematical and philosophical perspective. He sees tennis as a mix between chess and boxing. His ultimate conclusion is that tennis and junior athletics are “life’s endless war against the self you cannot live without” (84).

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment

Tiny Ewell rides in a taxi through Watertown in Massachusetts. He has an alcohol addiction and has recently finished a stay in a detox facility, and his wife has obtained a restraining order against him. A staff member from the rehab center rides with him as they head to the Marine VA Hospital Complex in Enfield.

The personal physician of the Saudi Prince becomes worried about the absence of the medical attaché. He sends assistants to check on the attaché’s house, where they find the attaché and his wife staring rapturously at the video screen as the film plays. The assistants are caught in the same mesmerized rapture. When the physician arrives to see for himself, he too is caught by the hypnotic images on the screen. Soon, the room is filled with medical staff and security guards who cannot look away from the screen as the mysterious film continues to play.

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment (April 30)

Remy Marathe is a member of Les Assassins des Fauteils Rollents (the Wheelchair Assassins), an anti-O.N.A.N. resistance group. He sits in his wheelchair as he watches the sunset from a hilltop outside Tucson. In the dark, a field operative named Hugh Steeply curses as he walks into a cactus. Steeply is dressed as a woman and wearing a set of prosthetic breasts. Marathe and Steeply discuss the film sent to the medical attaché. The film has mesmerized a long list of people. Steeply accuses Marathe and his organization of sending the tape, which they obliquely refer to as “the Entertainment” (90). Steeply believes that Marathe’s people used the Entertainment to further their political agenda, though Marathe insists that his people have bigger objectives in mind. Steeply mentions that the medical attaché once had an illicit affair with the wife of the man who directed the Entertainment; the identity of the director is implied to be James Incandenza. In a lengthy aside, the narrator describes a giant herd of hamsters that is crossing the Great Concavity, the polluted, rotting section of land given to Canada by the United States when O.N.A.N. was formed. The herd of hamsters can be traced back to a single pair of hamsters set free by a young boy in Boston years before. Marathe insists that neither he nor his organization were involved in the Entertainment. Steeply notes that Marathe is working as a triple agent, and they discuss the death of DuPlessis, which Marathe believes is suspicious. 

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment

In Tucson, Steeply asks Marathe about a politician named Rod Tine, who is having an affair with a woman named Luria. Marathe prefers patriotism to romantic love, though he notes that everyone is radicalized by something. He asks about Steeply’s motivations and why he is worried if some “wicked Quebecers” (108) want to spread the Entertainment. He hums the national anthem of the United States and thinks about his wife, whose severe medical condition—she was born without a skull—has forced him into becoming a double or triple agent to secure treatment and supplies from Steeply.

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment (November 3)

Hal and other students discuss life at the ETA while watching footage of old tennis pros. They talk about the slim chances that any of them will become a professional tennis player. However, given many of the students are either very clever or from wealthy backgrounds, they will not need to do so. Hal decides that the only thing they have in common is their “aloneness” (112). These days, Hal smokes so much marijuana that his mouth fills with saliva if he goes too long without getting high.