The figure of Death (Heath) presides over the front entrance of a carnival sideshow whose spectators watch performers undergo unspeakable degradations so grotesquely compelling that the spectators’ eyes become larger and larger until the spectators themselves are transformed into gigantic eyeballs in chairs, while on the other side of the sideshow tent the figure of Life (Heaven) uses a megaphone to invite fairgoers to an exhibition in which, if the fairgoers consent to undergo unspeakable degradations, they can witness ordinary persons gradually turn into gigantic eyeballs.
I know we passed endnote 24 last week, but I want to return to it. And I will do so because when I type things here you have to read them poop ha ha ha I made you read poop.
In 2006 I went away to film school17 fully expecting to pop out of it again three years later as the most visionary writer/director of my generation. Dream big, kids. I left three weeks later, in part because of some assigned reading that very closely resembled endnote 24, only longer, and with that gross shiny-textbook smell.
So I would like to extend my thanks to David Foster Wallace for making me relive that experience, albeit shorter and in the comfort of my own home, as opposed to hunched over a library table desperately trying to read as fast as possible so I can do my essay/s. I was there three weeks — how did I get behind on so many essays? And why were there essays in a supposedly practice-based course? And why am I still bitter about this?
I wasn’t sold on endnote 24 until I read the above passage. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. The summary for Cage III – Free Show is an amazing concept. It’s funny and twisted and exciting and everything you think Infinite Jest will be when you first hear about it.
I can’t help but view the whole book in a different light, with Free Show in mind. I would actively discourage myself from such a conscious process, but I’m so obsessed with the quote at the top of this post that I would rather interpret IJ the wrong way than try to put it at the back of my mind.
“Fine, Avery” I hear you say, “you liked a tiny portion of an endnote we all slogged through. Well done. But what about the rest of the book so far?”
I’m enjoying it.
Oh, you want more than that, right? Okay. Well, I’m having great fun with the Marathe/Steeply segment. Although that’s not to say I have any idea what the hell is going on (sentences like “have I merely pretended to pretend to pretend to betray” put paid to that notion). I don’t know if it’s my status as a trans-individual that grants me such delight in Steeply’s extremely poor disguise (re: the lopsided boobs — we’ve all been there), or if we’re all having a good time reading it but I’m not going to question my enjoyment. Especially since I have so little time for such questions after scrawling acronyms from the section onto my arm in a failed effort to remember them.
If you’re interested, having such epidermal annotations publicly visible in a crowded mall will draw the attention of security agents desperate to know if QFP is some kind of terrorist organisation with a vendetta against Sears.
Just, y’know. FYI.
That was my favorite film description, too.
It reminded me of the many gems that came out of Kilgore Trout’s misguided career.
This is a good one to focus on and a good one to remember…
This is my second time through IJ, and I remember during the first read that the summary of Cage III made me stop cold and revel, for the first time in the book.
I actually read that description aloud to my husband, who’s not reading the book. Needless to say, I was more fascinated by the idea of this than he was. It seems to make much more sense in the context of the novel.
I also read this passage aloud to my husband, who’s not reading along. He laughed aloud along with me. I think he’d enjoy the book, but is commitment-phobic enough to avoid picking up something this big.
I remember thinking the first time I read IJ that it was hilarious in many sections, but very hard to excerpt and have it translate to anyone who wasn’t also reading it. It’s all very contextual, even when it doesn’t seem like it would have to be.
Oh Avery,
I love you a little bit for the poop thing.
XOXO
I love that film blurb too, and it’s definitely in step with a lot of what the book’s about — ie, subjecting yourself to horrors for some sort of entertainment (or escape, I suppose) and the notion of passive spectation as a destructive behavior. I’m glad you highlighted the blurb, and I think it’s a good filter through which to read the rest of the book.
I’ve always found the Steeply/Marathe sections a little difficult because they skirt (heh) the whole Separatist movement in vague, layered ways, and I feel like I’m missing a lot of information. But the absurdity of Steeply’s get-up, and how Wallace darts in with the occasional hilarious detail every once in a while rather than spending it all in one place, is classic, fun stuff.
I actually found a lot of the films to be conceptually amazing, and this is one of the film descriptions that, the second time around, adds a lot to the thread of the The Entertainment that runs through the book.
Sorry that I can’t join your challenge, but I made the choice to reread the book a while back and am now on page 584.
And, like everyone says, the second read is even more amazing, as the later pages totally inform the first pages.
I guess it’s what I get for reading ahead, but man do I ever want to discuss this quote right now since I’m in the 400 page range.
Let’s just say I want to sing Wallace’s praises even louder now that I realize he, seemingly, intentionally steered so many of us to this particular section of an otherwise sometimes tedious endnote.
Hey Avery, thanks for coming out as trans. I’m cisgendered and queer, and I have to say I felt a little weird about the Marathe/Steeply stuff at first.
I feel like there’s a current of gender/sexuality policing being done I guess by characters (tennis students calling each other fag, etc), and I’ve been sort of uncomfortable with that. Maybe I don’t know how to read the Marathe/Steeply stuff, given that, but I’m happy to hear you read it as delightful. Marathe certainly doesn’t even seem to react to Steeply as a woman, just an agent. And it’s cool to read an account of the little feminine details Steeply focuses on.
I’d feel weirder about Marathe/Steeply if he was actually trans, as opposed to just wearing a disguise. Certainly there are perhaps pychosexual reasons Steeply may be getting enjoyment out of the humiliation, but I think that if someone as smart as DFW chooses to use male pronouns for Steeply, he’s probably male.
The gender theme is popping up more and more, though, and I’m not sure I’m entirely thrilled with it overall so far. There is a tendency in media to punish any kind of genderplay, and I think that’s evidenced her by the passage describing Millicent Kent’s father’s experiments with cross-dressing.
The note that it “always had to be a relative’s female clothes” clearly points out that he suffers from an autogynephillic fetish rather than any kind of gender dysphoria, but it’s still always unsettling to see any kind of negative portrayal of gender-experimentation in a popular work.
I wish I’d put an endnote in my post acknowledging the fact that Conservapedians looking for evidence of the gay agenda would certainly be able to make the argument for it here. I’m not trying to shove my trans-status in anyone’s face, not least because that would be unhygienic.
Thank you, Avery and Kendall Joy, for bringing up these important considerations and confronting the question.
I was wondering about the same thing, regarding gender, and also other identity – minority – representation – identification – distance – level_of_detail_and_involvement/depth etc. related issues.
Of course, I have much to read and ponder on the topic yet, but have taken note of your thoughts and I’m finding them very useful to make sense of things.
Add “- point of view -” as well, now that is crucial.
(Sorry about the distraction.)
A non-spoiler clue: in the same vein as the endnote Avery posted, think about how up to this point in the novel, the annexed (by whom?) land in the former northeast United States is referred to, by our American cast, as the Great Concavity.
Keep your eyes peeled for what Maranthe calls it. It’s all relative…
The topic of gender is such a sort of cliche jump-off point for discussion in any piece of literature, but here I think we may be on to something. I hadn’t particularly paid much attention to that topic in IJ so far until now, and when I think about it, it’s a pretty recurrent idea.
That footnote seems almost entirely meaningless at first, but I found myself referring to it later on in my first read through, and looking back again it raises some interesting questions about p.27-31 among others.
I admit I hadn’t really been paying attention to gender throughout the book, but the Steeply sections are rather interesting in how they take up a different role from the rest of the book (I’d say more but I don’t want to reveal anything)
Conservapedia is real? It took me awhile before I figured out that website wasn’t a joke. I mean, besides the name (and Liberalpedia would be equally bad) it lists Segway as a New Liberal word?
Yeah, I thought Conservapedia was a joke at first, in the vein of Uncyclopedia or Encyclopedia Dramatica. It appears to be actually legitimate, which makes it infinitely funnier.
And Avery, I’m glad you posted about endnote 24. This is total speculation, but I have a feeling that particular section is one of the most important in the novel (both thematically and in giving clues as to what will transpire in later chapters).
Ha! that was the one I showed to my friend because it certainly is one of the most amusing concepts.
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