2025-06-28
I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies...
I am in here.
Infinite Jest opens in November YDAU with Hal (potentially named after Shakespeare's prince in Henry IV?), seventeen, narrating. Twice Hal begins a sentence with "I am." Hal is facing off with several school deans, who are considering his admission to Arizona. (ASU? AU?) Twice it's said that Hal has justified his seed. Through his tournament performance. His academic performance has recently slipped, making it difficult to believe that he could really be the sole author of such essays as Neoclassical Assumptions in Contemporary Prescriptive Grammar, The Implications of Post-Fourier Transforms for a Holographically Mimetic Cinema, The Emergence of Heroic Stasis in Broadcast Entertainment, Montague Grammar and the Semantics of Physical Modality, A Man Who Began to Suspect He Was Made of Glass, Tertiary Symbolism in Justinian Erotica.
Nobody can understand Hal when he talks, types, gestures, expresses himself. It's unclear (at this moment) how he can play tennis, etc. (spitball: What if he can only express himself through formal language, of which tennis is a physical modality. other spitball: much of what Hal describes is being misperceived. He's trying to control perception of himself more than he is his actual self. Perhaps his perception (the perception of him) has become his reality in some way or another. Not literally true, as the perception of him choking/seizing/psychotic didn't result in a (true) medical emergency). It's unclear the cause of this - "call it something I ate." It's suggested that mold he ate circa age five (twelve years ago) might be related. He's pinned to the floor when he speaks, the staff thinking he's spastic. Twice Hal says he is not what they see and hear.
There is nothing wrong. I'm in here.
I am not what you see and hear.
I'm not
Hal is ferried off to the emergency room, his second time ever. The first being a year ago, where a bizarre Québecois lady talked about her titty. Hal once saw the word KNIFE finger-written in a bathroom. He's become an infantophile? He thinks of Cosgrove Watt.
He thinks of John N.R. Wayne, who watched Hal and Don Gately dig up James Incandenza's head. Where be your gibes now?
So yo then man what's your story?
Mostly sourced from wikipedia and AHD. Sorry for no OED. TODO.
avers: To affirm positively
circumflex: 1. Curving around. 2. Any of several marks,
especially (^), used over a vowel in certain languages or in
phonetic keys to indicate quality of pronunciation.
Kekuluéan knot: Might refer to the structure of benzene,
its ring-shape a Kekuluéan discovery that laid foundations
for modern organic chemistry.
Excerpted is a speech of his on the birth of structural theory
Someone has spoken of genius and the benzene theory has been called a work of genius. I have often asked myself: What is a genius and what a work of genius?
It is said that a genius recognizes truth without knowing the evidence for it. I do not doubt that even in ancient times this kind of thinking occurred. Would Pythagoras have offered up a hecatomb if he had recognized his famous theorem only after finding a way to prove it?
It is also said that genius thinks in leaps. Gentlemen, the growing intellect does not think in leaps. That is not given to it.
He describes his discovery of benzene:
Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation: long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together all twining and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time also I spent the rest of the night in working out the consequences of the hypothesis.
Let us learn to dream, gentlemen, then perhaps we shall find the truth.
And to those who don’t think
The truth will be given.
They’ll have it without effort.
And as an aside in the speech:
It seems to be the fact that parents normally decide the vocations of their sons.
It seems likely that DFW and Hal would have been drawn to this - "gambols" occurs twice in Kekulué's speech and once in Hamlet's reminiscense on Yorick. Questions of genius, the subconscious, and fathers and sons all give Hal the howling fantods.
Lapidary: One who cuts, polishes, or engraves gems.
Perhaps relevant to cartridge optics.
Prescriptive Grammar: How language ought to be used. Its
"Neoclassical Assumptions" might involve the rejection of
modern(ist) language usage and revival of "classic" language
usage.
Montague Grammar: The idea that human language can be
represented as a formal language. Dependent on prescriptive
grammar, presumably. When connected with "Physical
Modality," it might be suggesting that there is a proper,
formal way to move through the world. TODO son not like that
son.
Justinian Erotica: Justinian I's reign "was marked by the
ambitious but only partly realized renovatio imperii, or
'restoration of the Empire.'" What people were jacking off to
during the failed restoration (their simulacra of
fulfillment TODO quote marathe here) of a glorious empire
likely relevant to our erudite ONANite etc etc.
Quadrivium: The higher division of the seven liberal arts
in the Middle Ages, composed of geometry, astronomy,
arithmetic, and music.
Trivium: The lower division of the seven liberal arts in
medieval schools, consisting of grammar, logic, and
rhetoric.
Hirsute: Hairy
Presbyopic: Blurry near-vision. Complementary to myopic.
Parquet: Parquetry is an inlay of wood, often of
different colors, that is worked into a geometric pattern or
mosaic and is used especially for floors.
Halogen: Fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and astatine
are halogens. Halogen means "salt former," which is what
they do when reacting with metal.
Enfilade: Gunfire directed along the length of a target,
such as a column of troops.
Martinet: One who demands absolute adherence to forms and
rules. After Jean Martinet (died 1672), French army officer.
Hypophylangial: Missing fingers/toes (or at least their
bones). A grief therapist has this.
Etiology: The study of causes or origins.
Another nice quote from Kekulué:
Whoever wishes to train himself as an investigator must study the traveler’s original works; and that, too, so thoroughly that he is able to read between the lines -- to divine the author’s unexpressed thought.