Infinite Jest

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment (November 11)

Mario works on a documentary about E.T.A. He walks around the campus with a camera strapped to his head, one of James Incandenza’s technical innovations. He films Schtitt sleeping in his office chair while listening to loud German opera. Mario leaves, stumbling occasionally, and then visits the boys’ dormitories. He interviews LaMont Chu, who has nothing to say. LaMont asks Mario to put the camera down. He wants to ask Mario about the strange meeting between Charles Tavis, Hal, and Michael Pemulis. LaMont is worried; he saw how Hal left the meeting with an ashen white face. Mario does not quite understand LaMont’s line of questioning so he leaves to visit his mother’s office. She greets him warmly, hanging up a phone call to pay attention to her son. Avril invites Mario to join her and Charles that evening for dinner. Mario asks Avril about the journalist, Helen Steeply. Mario also asks about the Eschaton incident, but Avril deflects his questions with light chitchat. She admits that she is not going to interrogate Hal about the Eschaton violence; she will wait for him to open up to her at “the moment it’s appropriate for him to come to me” (763). Mario asks his mother about sadness. She wonders whether Mario thinks his brother Hal is sad, but Mario claims that his questions are just general curiosity. The conversation moves onto the topic of other people’s emotions. Avril tells a story about her father and his father, who both dealt with alcoholism and depression. Avril begins to worry that Mario may be sad. She says that she would be beside herself with pain if she could no longer detect his emotions.

Marathe meets Kate Gompert in a bar. Kate is shocked that she is breaking the Ennet House rules. She entered the bar after being mugged by Poor Tony. Kate reminds Marathe of Gertraude. For the first time in weeks, Kate is feeling happy. Marathe talks about how he lost his legs while playing a game involving train tracks. Then, he tells a story about Swiss people that functions as a broad analogy for the distaste French Canadians hold for Americans. Marathe admits that, at one time, he felt like pursuing suicide. However, he saved a woman from a traffic accident. That woman was Gertraude, and he married her a short time later. She helped him deal with his depression because he now felt empathy for another person. Marathe discusses Gertraude’s strange and potentially terminal medical condition: The toxic waste dumped in the Great Concavity caused her to be born without a skull. During the early days of their relationship, Marathe left Gertraude, but his depression returned so he reunited with her. The reunion made him realize that he loved her. Kate admits that she does not understand love. Marathe tells her that Gertraude will die soon unless she receives a special artificial heart. Even with the heart, she will be reduced to a vegetative state. Marathe has decided to betray the Wheelchair Assassins and give up the Entertainment to the Office of Unspecific Services, who have promised to provide the medical treatment Gertraude requires. Kate tries to console Marathe, who tells her that she is drunk. However, her incoherent words become increasingly clear and pointed. After mocking his supposedly Swiss accent, Kate confesses that she is sexually inexperienced. She stops talking to Marathe.

At E.T.A., Mario worries that Hal is sad. Hal tells Mario that he is addicted to marijuana. He also talks about the urine Michael Pemulis sells to cheat on drug tests and the Substances that Hal and the other boys take; the faculty is aware that Michael is selling clean urine and that he drugged a rival player before a match, so he may be expelled soon. Hal’s urine will be tested “to establish a context of objectivity“ (782), so he needs to give up marijuana so that he is not caught by accident. The extra month that Michael secured before the drug test is for Hal’s benefit, rather than Michael’s. Hal lists the numerous pressures in his life, all of which are made worse by his withdrawal symptoms. He fears that Avril will learn that her son has been hiding a massive secret. Hal knows that he should not have kept so many secrets from Mario, who insists that he is not hurt by the revelations. Hal finds himself angry, insisting that Mario should feel angry sometimes. He admits that, after almost two days without marijuana, he is starting to feel bad. Hal asks Mario for advice, unsure what he should do about his situation. Mario believes that Hal has done what is needed to be done by sharing his pain with his brother. In a long endnote, Michael convinces Hal to try the DMZ, which does not show up on a urine test.

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment (November 17)

At Ennet House, “an upscale kid” (786) knocks on the door and asks to speak to someone. The boy—who seems to have recently stopped smoking marijuana and is implied to be Hal—wants advice on addiction and recovery. He wants to attend a group but does not know where to start. In an endnote, a 13-year-old student named Todd Possalthwaite has a breakdown in the E.T.A. locker room at the same time that Hal visits Ennet House. Todd moans that “nothing’s true” (1067); he has realized that he cannot trust his family. Michael Pemulis tries to comfort him by telling him that mathematics is real and can be trusted. The conversation ends when the boys rush to hear the announcement system, over which Troeltsch is interviewing John Wayne, who has apparently “lost his mind” (1072).

Joelle’s friend Molly Notkin is interviewed by the Office of Unspecified Services. They want to know about her connection to the Entertainment. Molly is able to give the Entertainment its correct title—either Infinite Jest (V) or Infinite Jest (VI)—thanks to her experience as a film student. In the film, Molly says, Madame Psychosis plays “some kind of maternal instantiation of the archetypal figure Death” (788). While naked and pregnant, Death talks about cosmology and psychology. According to Molly, Madame Psychosis’s mother died by suicide using a garbage disposal. She describes her friend Joelle’s relationship with Orin and James. Joelle’s relationship with James was professional, she says, while Orin and Joelle were in a romantic relationship. Joelle did not attend James’s funeral, she has never watched the so-called Entertainment and struggles to believe that it can truly be as lethal as rumored. Molly asks the agents why they did not simply ask Avril for the master copy of the film if it was so important.

Continuing her story about Joelle, Molly says that Joelle helped James deal with his alcoholism. She believes that James had been sober for some time before his death. Molly believes that Joelle struggles with addiction because she blames herself for James’s death. The suicide, she says, has no connection to the Entertainment. Molly suspects that Avril placed a bottle of whiskey near her husband’s body because she was jealous that Joelle could help her husband in a way that she could not.

Molly shares details from Joelle’s life. She explains that Joelle’s father was a chemist and that the family was originally from Kentucky. Her father could not deal with his daughter growing older, so he treated her even more like a child. Only when Joelle went to college did she realize how strange her father’s behavior was, particularly when Joelle brought Orin to Thanksgiving and her father tried to feed her like a baby. When she confronted him, Joelle’s father said that he was in love with her and that the only time he could repress this love was when she was a child. His treatment of her is an attempt to continue to repress his romantic feelings toward his daughter. The incident frightened Joelle’s mother, who shared the secret that she had not slept with her husband since Joelle reached puberty. Now she knows why. Joelle’s mother was a survivor of sexual abuse by her own father, and her husband’s confession awoke terrible memories inside her. She attempted suicide by throwing acid on herself. Orin, Joelle, and her father all tried to stop her. By the time they intervened, Joelle’s mother was burned by the acid. According to the legend, she then threw the acid at her husband. She missed and hit Joelle instead, prompting Joelle to begin wearing her veil. Later, Joelle’s mother died by suicide by pushing herself into a garbage disposal. Molly says that Joelle/Madame Psychosis’s name is actually Lucille Duquette.

In an extended endnote, Michael Pemulis is asked to explain why John Wayne is behaving so strangely. Michael does not need to explain: John has accidentally taken some of the drugs Michael planned to sell, thinking they were antihistamines. DeLint reads through the offensive remarks made by John toward faculty members and students. One of the remarks comments on Hal’s many addictions. Michael wonders how John’s behavior will affect his chances of playing at the prestigious WhataBurger tournament. He reiterates his desire to talk to Avril about an important issue, namely that he knows about her sexual relationship with John. DeLint outlines the academy’s suspicion that Michael is responsible for drugging John. While Michael can finish the current term, he is likely to be expelled from E.T.A. Michael again asks about the WhataBurger tournament. When the coaches laugh at him, he cannot help but find “their good humor almost infectious” (1076).

Hal goes to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in Natick. He plans to adopt a fake persona at the meeting, choosing Mike as his pseudonym. He enters the room when the meeting is already in progress. Harv, the leader of the group, speaks. At the same time, a member of the audience named Kevin Bain, Marlon’s brother, weeps. Hal is surprised that some of the attendees are holding stuffed animals. Harv tells the group members to support Kevin, and while the men proclaim their love for Kevin, Hal feels increasingly awkward and notices that no one is talking about drugs. Kevin stands up and describes “Inner Infant’s abandonment and deep-deprivation issues” (802). He talks about his life, and Hal realizes that Kevin is Marlon Bain’s older brother, who supposedly made a lot of money at one time. Hal is shocked that someone like Kevin could have an issue with narcotics. He has never seen someone weep as much as Kevin. Hal realizes, with horror, that he is at “one of those men’s-issues-Men’s-Movement-type Meetings” (804). The men loudly show their support for Kevin, who crawls around on the floor of the room as he tries to deal with his issues.

Don Gately is in the hospital. He suddenly panics over whether the doctors read the note in his file. He is worried that they have given him narcotics, even though he has an addiction. He remembers overhearing a doctor after the surgery describing how an infection had taken hold in Don’s wounds.

Don drops into a semi-slumber, dreaming about a beach. In the distance, a storm rages. Don sees his mother. She is being beaten by a man. Don is in the sea. He tries to call to his mother, but she does not listen to him. Don wakes up. He is alone. Later, someone cleans Don’s face with a sponge. Later still, Pat Montesian visits to give Don an update on events at Ennet House. She is impressed that Don has refused any kind of narcotic while in the hospital. By the end of their conversation, Pat is crying. Don falls asleep again. He wakes up and sees Joelle in his room. As he lays in bed, he wonders whether he can take codeine to deal with the pain. He wants to know whether this would be considered a relapse. There is no answer.

Calvin Thrust, one of the staff members at Ennet House, visits Don. He provides an update on the circumstances surrounding the fight. Calvin issued Randy Lenz an ultimatum: Randy would need to pass a urine test, so Randy simply left Ennet House. Calvin explains that Pat drove Don to the hospital. Since then, neither Calvin nor Pat have informed the police about what happened. Don is concerned that, because Randy is gone without a trace, he might be solely responsible for whatever happened to the Canadian attackers. Because he is on probation, police involvement could result in Don being sent back to jail. Calvin explains that the gun used to shoot Don is still missing, though Bruce claims to have wrestled it from one of the Canadians before dropping it somewhere on the lawn. Once they find the gun, Calvin claims, they can go to the police and claim that Don was acting in self-defense. Not for the first time, no one will tell Don whether he killed anyone on the night of the fight. The “insufferable” (826) Calvin updates Don on the status of everyone at Ennet House.

Don falls asleep again and then wakes up the next morning to find Geoffrey Day beside his bed. Geoffrey talks for a long time about himself.

Many of Don’s worst dreams feature the same woman, who is covered in acne scars. In another nightmare, he is visited by interdimensional beings out for revenge. Even while awake, Don’s mind is filled with words that he does not understand. The academic words mean nothing to him. He tries to interpret his dreams and he thinks about his memories of children’s television shows. The interdimensional being from Don’s dream tells him that it is a “wraith” (829). The wraith is eloquent and appears often, talking about its own family. The wraith continues to talk about media, society, and the background characters in television shows. The details it shares suggest that the wraith is actually James Incandenza. The wraith/James tells Don about the struggle to connect to its youngest son and the son’s traumatizing silence.

The Entertainment, the wraith/James says, was made during the last days 90 days before James’s suicide. In this period, James was concerned that Hal was using narcotics, and he hoped the Entertainment would be a way to communicate with his seemingly mute son. The purpose of the Entertainment was to be so compelling and interesting that Hal would be forced out of his state of anhedonia. In truth, James says, the Entertainment was an apology to his son in the form of a film. Don thinks about his own strained relationship with his father, though James interrupts to insist that any communication is better than no communication at all. Don does not understand why the wraith/James is appearing to him. He wonders whether these strange dreams are just a product of his addiction. Don still struggles with the memories of his mother being abused by her lover. He is visited by three men from the White Flag recovery group. Even though Don hardly knows the men, they try to lift his spirits. As the men tell jokes, he is struck by a sudden and terrible pain.

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment (November 19)

Marathe and the Wheelchair Assassins have searched for Joelle, but she seems impossible to find. Ruling out an assault on the tennis academy, they hatch a plan to intercept a team of Quebecois junior tennis players who are going to compete in a tournament. They will hold the players hostage and take their places in the tournament. Marathe says that he will invent “an excellent ruse to explain the wheelchairs and adult beards of the false players” (846).

Don dreams about Joelle. The dream is oddly sensual. When he wakes, he thinks about an old woman who lived in his childhood neighborhood. Her name was Mrs. Waite, and she was feared among the neighborhood children because she reminded them of a “witch” (847). Eventually, Mrs. Waite hanged herself. Before her death, however, Mrs. Waite bought Don a birthday cake. She was a poor woman, so she saved up the money for a long time. However, no one ate the cake. Don’s mother threw it away. Don believes that there is no way Mrs. Waite could have known that no one ate the cake, but he feels a crushing sadness whenever he thinks about her suicide. When he dreams about Joelle, he sees her in Mrs. Waite’s house. In the kitchen, Mrs. Waite and Joelle blur into the same person. Don believes that this person is also Death. The female, maternal death represents motherhood and love. Mothers, Don reasons, want to address their role in death, so they love in an obsessive way.