I’m a little behind in my reading, I’m smack in the middle of the whole Lenz thing and it’s kind of making me sick, so I’m going to backtrack a little.
Last week I accused Infinite Jest of having kind of a Kubrickian sterility about it at times, but as I continue reading and the novel continues to blossom for me, I realize how much life is flowing under that apparently detached, often affectless surface.
The scene where James’ father asks for his help to move the mattress, of course, is a classic example of the sort of achingly slow emotional reveal that takes place in small ways throughout the entire novel — and is starting to encompass my experience of the entire book. In the bed scene you’re directed to focus on the physical detail, at first seemingly for its own sake, until it all adds up to reveal a horror recollected with not only the detachment of time but the precision of someone either so removed from or else so overwhelmed by the emotional impact of the sudden, strange death of his father that the physical details of the morning take on a ravishing Technicolor quality. They say time slows down for some people when they’re in car accidents or disasters, they remember the strangest details later — the song on the radio when the phone rang, the dust on the windshield before your head crashed through it. And once you have the whole picture, no matter how blandly or sharply or affectlessly it’s described, a boy running from his parents’ bedroom to his own and jumping on the bed, the slumped mattress in the hallway and the ring of the glass pushed into the carpet all bear the emotional weight of a man watching himself cope with tremendous loss from a distance. A man with a supremely focused scientific mind that can compartmentalize information and zoom in on a detail — a slowly rolling doorknob — that changes the course of his life.
The mirror cracks in the most delightful way, of course, in the very next scene, when Erdedy tries to refuse a hug. All the hemming and hawing and sweaty palms of someone who doesn’t have Himself’s muscular mind to use as a shield, or “Joe L.’s” veil, who uses drugs to keep the world at arm’s length because the fragile infrastructure of his addiction can only remain intact if no one gets close enough to breathe on it, it all gets crushed so shockingly and wonderfully by Roy Tony.
‘You think I fucking like to go around hug on folks? You think any of us like this shit? We fucking do what they tell us. They tell us Hugs Not Drugs in here. We done motherfucking surrendered our wills in here,’ Roy said. ‘You little faggot,’ Roy added. He wedged his hand between them to point at himself, which meant he was now holding Erdedy off the ground with just one hand, which fact was not lost on Erdedy’s nervous system. ‘I done had to give four hugs my first night here and then I gone ran in the fucking can and fucking puked. Puked,’ he said. ‘Not comfortable? Who the fuck are you? Don’t even try and tell me I’m coming over feeling comfortable about trying to hug on your James-River-Traders-wearing-Calvin-Klein-aftershave-smelling-goofy-ass motherfucking ass.’
Erdedy observed one of the Afro-American women who was looking on clap her hands and shout ‘Talk about it!’
‘And now you go and disrespect me in front of my whole clean and sober set just when I gone risk sharing my vulnerability and discomfort with you?’. . .
‘Now,’ Roy said, extracting his free hand and pointing to the vestry floor with a stabbing gesture, ‘now,’ he said, ‘you gone risk vulnerability and discomfort and hug my ass or do I gone fucking rip your head off and shit down your neck?’
If Erdedy were a different man, a man whose mind was so strong it could shield his heart from both its own needs and the needs of others, he wouldn’t have climbed up on Roy Tony’s neck and not let go, I suppose. But I love that he had enough strength and trust to desperation to give himself over and let Roy Tony destroy his pathetic facade. And we get to see that Roy Tony, as he clears his addiction away, has the heart of a lion.
This is getting long so I’ll just add that I’m also very interested to see if Joelle can continue to justify her own draped existence.
Comments
13 responses to “Thanks, but I Don’t Particularly Like to Hug”
“I’ll just add that I’m also very interested to see if Joelle can continue to justify her own draped existence.”
Hear, hear. I need way more Joelle in my IJ-reading than what DFW’s been giving me. Unveil yourself, darlin!
I had to read the Lenz section with my dog on my lap, hugging him very tightly.
the sudden, strange death of his father
James’ father dies in that scene??? The way I read it, he just passed out drunk.
I read it as passed out drunk, too. JS’s synopsis page says: “He pitches forward and passes out face down in the dust breaking the bed frame in the process.”
Goddamnit, I misread it? krad rhaghiuarghicf dafhg
Hmmm, are you sure? I thought there were some lines about his breathing stopping, or him turning blue while suffocating in his own puke, or some such. Seemed pretty dead.
No, he just passed out; his breathing was fine. Page 501: “I remember that his breathing was regular and wet, and that the dust mixture bubbled somewhat.” J.O.I. and his mother then proceed to futz around w/ the vacuum and behave as is if this is a fairly normal occurrence, the drunken passing out. It is a great passage though, reminds me a little of the (much longer) scene w/ J.O.I. and his dad in the garage, having a “discussion”.
That incident with Roy Tony was torture to read. I thought one brilliant thing about it is that for a middle class Calvin Klein wearing guy–in fact, for Erdeddy, who seems unable to handle any intimacy with humans–this kind of social confrontation is genuinely the worst nightmare imaginable. It would probably be better to be stabbed through the heart.
I told myself I’d re-read because I re-read a bit and about 5,000 things cropped up I hadn’t noticed but now I’m reminded I found things like this sort of painful and I’m almost scared to re-visit them.
An unrelated thought: I think this whole website needs to be turned into a book. I love the posts on here. There’s something amazing about so many of them, this one included.
I agree w/ your idea. I’ve been too busy to post or read this site much. -Just working and reading IJ have consumed the summer. *But* I don’t want this to end. How can it be kept alive, at least a bit longer, for me and everyone else who needs that?
I loved this Erdedy / R. Tony scene.
I think it may be one that I’ll be back to read aloud to anyone who will listen.
My entertainment minded mind noted it kinda reminded me of the rehab-rehabilitation that was going on for the protagonist in the beginning of the movie Fight Club. Ah, entertainment!
You mentioned the scene where James’ father is trying to fix the bed’s squeaking. As I’m sure you’re all aware, squeaking appears many times throughout the story so far, usually as an annoyance, or worse. The squeaking of tennis shoes, the squeaking of the wheel-chairs (“to hear the squeak”), and the squeaking of rodents.
And speaking of rodents, they are also a recurring theme, as is the word used to describe them: feral. Now I don’t know if what this is symbolic of, if anything. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Also, I think its pretty clever that that section up north has been changed to an “environment so fertilely lush it’s practically unlivable”.
This parallels the veiled Joelle, who claims to be so beautiful as to be deformed.
And deformity. As a theme throughout this book…don’t even get me started THERE!
This is at least the third time that some portion of the narrative seems to follow the plot of one of J.O.I.’s films, viz. “Valuable Coupon Has Been Removed.” The other two, pointed out by someone smarter than me, were “As of Yore” and “It Was a Great Marvel That He Was in the Father Without Knowing Him.” And just glancing at the filmography again, there’s “(At Least) Three Cheers for Cause and Effect” that seems like it could show up at some point.
Was J.O.I. creating films based on his own life (which seems like the Occam’s Razor explanation), or is Wallace somehow screwing with us by introducing these recursively fictional characters? And is this already being discussed in the forums?
I’ve always taken it that JOI based several of his films on his own life. “It Was a Marvel…” is problematic: the synopsis says the father is deluded regarding the son’s muteness, but how could Himself write a film in which a delusion he believes is presented as a delusion? I prefer to believe that on some level JOI knew that Hal could and did talk to him, and that the film script was (although Himself wasn’t consciously aware of it) a near-verbatim transcript of the “interview”.
…achingly slow emotional reveal that takes place in small ways throughout the entire novel
Thanks, Eden, for so concisely expressing why I am so enthralled with this book! Great post!