This post subsidized by Kellogg’s.26
Everyone knows that Sunday evening feeling.27 The pit in your stomach that grows and grows while you watch crappy TV shows that you’re not really watching because school is tomorrow and you have. Not. Done. Your. Homework.
Those who read my post last week (“Not the best student“) will not be shocked to learn that I suffered heavily from the Sunday evening feeling. I do not believe that I ever, in my school career, did a single piece of homework until the night before it was due.
How does this relate to Infinite Jest? Please. Like you even have to ask.
I’ve just finished some blast processing, reading all 75 of this week’s pages in one sitting, which MAN I do not recommend. It’s certainly lucky that, as Matthew mentioned, these pages were a lot more easy going than earlier fare. But still, that’s a lot of pages. I’m looking to Infinite Summer as an exercise in reading and writing, sure, but more than anything I’m hoping to learn some time-management skills, too.
I can’t help but be jealous of Hal’s routine at Enfield Tennis Academy — there’s very little space there to mess up or miss a deadline. I suppose it could be that I’m just jealous of his life, of course — what I wouldn’t give to be moneyed, super-intelligent and a tennis ace. Well, maybe scratch the tennis part, I’m not really one for sports. And his smarts seem like a bit of a burden at times, actually.
Okay, so I just want the money. Big deal.
The more we delve into Hal’s (mis)adventures at ETA, the more anxious I grow about that first chapter. I’m really liking this guy, guys. And I don’t want him to become that trapped soul, that shell of a person.
I really feel like this post is lacking a unifying theme, but I’m sure that’s to be expected after cramming that much IJ into my head. And the whole Madame Psychosis section did some damage all by itself. I can’t quite work out if I like it or not. Or even if I like the idea of her show or not.
I mean, it’s certainly a great concept — this mysterious figure, the only paid host of a college radio station, sending out whatever she feels like to MIT students and anyone else who can pick it up. I’m just not sure I’d be one of the students who tuned in with any kind of regularity.
The show we ‘overheard’ seemed deliberately opaque, and hard to parse — I’m presuming even more so delivered to your ears. I’m wondering if the show is Foster Wallace’s way of commenting on the difficulty of reading his own work. I’m wondering if that’s too shallow an interpretation on my part. I’m wondering if my pop tarts are finished cooking yet.
Okay, that last one isn’t really relevant, I’ll grant you. Unless it’s somehow telling that I finished that chunk of Infinite Jest and immediately craved cinnamon pop tarts?
(Note: I request silence from those of you who know that I always crave cinnamon pop tarts.)
So: is everyone doing better than me, or are you guys having to indulge in massive catch-up sessions, too? Did you like the Madame Psychosis section, and if you did can you tell me why and what it’s about so I can steal your words and use them at parties to sound clever? And are my pop tarts done? (Yes.)
Comments
56 responses to “Post of the Pop-Tart Brown Sugar Cinnamon Toaster Pastry”
I have done a few catch-up sessions, but I can’t imagine 75 pages all at once. I read about 20 last night and that’s plenty at one sitting. Maybe if I add some pop tarts I could read bigger chunks at one time.
The Madame Psychosis section was one of the harder ones for me to get through, and it was hard to see how it connects to anything. I’m a little bit ahead now and it’s starting to make more sense.
Must go find pop tarts.
This Madame Psychosis section definitely isn’t among my faves, but I read another just last night (I’m just a little ahead of the schedule because I have family coming in next week and know I’ll get behind otherwise) that was pretty great. I suppose it was more about the person behind Madam Psychosis rather than simply an excerpt of the radio show, though. I agree that it’s not the sort of thing I could manage to sit and listen to for an hour. Beauty vs. hideous deformity is kind of important. Beauty is truth, truth beauty and all that, I guess.
(No spoilers, promise!) Agreed. I’m a little ahead as well, and the next section to feature Madame Psychosis (you knew she was going to return, of course), in fact it is quite long and features a whole lot of her, is one of my favorites thus far. I meant to stay with the schedule but I’m loving IJ too much and am around p. 450. It gets just stunningly good.
The breadth of maladies that DFW came up with and the ways he described them … of course I had no idea what most of them were, but “excessively but not lycanthropically hirsute” almost made me fall off the couch in laughter when I read it. And it made me feel bad for all the wolfmen out there that might need such a support group, only to be turned away at the door when the greeter could see the wisps of hair sticking out from underneath the collar at the back of the neck.
Sorry, I’m past page 300. I can’t help but find time to read this book, really happy with it. The whole thing.
Scott: To whom are you faux-apologizing? Or, why do you begin your comment with “Sorry”?
Just curious. Thanks.
Scott: Disregard my question. I get it now.
Those are good Pop-Tarts, Avery.
Some of the sections of IJ that can be difficult to get through the first time make more sense when you know the proverbial “rest of the story.” The Madame Psychosis section probably falls within that category. At one level, it would have been easier on everyone if DFW kept some of the literary bludgeoning to a minimum. But one of the many ironies to IJ is our desire to read it again after we are finished so that we can catch more of what we didn’t understand the first time through. During Infinite Winter sections like Madame Psychosis might seem more enjoyable.
Speaking of one of my favorite winter foods, I am more of a blueberry-frosted Pop Tart person than cinnamon.
Is “Infinite Winter” in planning? ‘Cause I’m totally down for it.
Me, I’m all about the Nature’s Path Cherry/Pomegran “Toaster Pastries” http://www.naturespath.com/products/whole-grain/cherry-pomegran-frosted-toaster-pastry
I agree — I first read IJ during college (it must have been right after publication) and have always wanted to reread it, esp after I got my MA in literature. I always felt there would be a deeper level that I’d missed in undergrad. So far… nothing yet. Just a sadness that no one picked up on all these references to suicide and talked to him about it.
I thought the description of the engineering involved with airing the Madame Psychosis show was a little tedious, but the actual list of maladies, and the “family dinner” description were great. Also a fan of cinnamon Pop-Tarts!
I’m playing full-bore catch-up right now, having had to order a new copy of IJ which just arrived Tuesday.
The “Madame Psychosis” section is definitely tedious, but it becomes worth it later.
Strawberry Pop-Tarts ftw.
Yeah, I’m past page 500 now. I work a full-time job and a part-time job, but I’ve been reading this every spare second I get. FWIW, the Madame Psychosis bits do seem to be coming together a bit more by this point (not a spoiler, just a rejoinder not to get too frustrated with it). Also, I know that pit-in-your-stomach feeling about Hal. I’ve got a bit of a literary-crush on him, and knowing what’s going to somehow happen is bumming me out, big time.
I’ve got a bit of a crush on Hal as well. That part in endnote 123 made me laugh AND blush.
I’m past 500 as well, but this is a reread, so things go rather quickly since I know who’s who and what’s what (for the most part).
The Madame Psychosis section will make more sense in a few pages, once you learn who Madame Psychosis is and more of her story. This is also about the time that all of the threads start coming together and the whole story becomes more compelling and readable the first time around.
Definitely didn’t like the Madame Psychosis section, though I somehow wanted to. Couldn’t figure out if I should look up the maladies I didn’t know, or just let the list wash over me. Maybe some of the specifics are IMPORTANT? I probably shouldn’t have read it so late at night.
As for pop-tarts, I used to love the unfrosted brown sugar & cinnamon, but they seem not to exist anymore. Sadness.
I found that reading this part with the corresponding wallacewiki open helped make the passage more interesting.
Why does DFW insist on spelling the word “weenie” as “wienie”? I know “wienie” is a word, but in the sense DFW wants to use it (viz., a weak, ineffectual person), the accepted spelling is “weenie”. “Wienie” is generally just a short form for “wiener”, which in turn is a short form for the sausage. See, e.g., here and here.
Not knowing how to properly spell “weenie” makes DFW look like one. Cue comments leaping to DFW’s defense.
Only wienies leap.
In what sense is “wienie” shorter than “wiener”? And a Wiener is someone from Vienna; a wienie is someone who shares traits with the Viennese.
You’re right: I should have said variation on “wiener” or short for “wienerwurst”.
That’s a funny definition for “wienie”. I guess that’s what DFW must have meant. I was just referring to dictionaries and stuff (here, here, here), which define “wiener” as (1) short for “wienerwurst”, (2) a sausage, or (3) slang for penis.
and wienie = wiener.
You funny little wienie.
FWIW, the Madame Psychosis section as such is not one of my particular favorites. However, since it is part of the “Madame Psychosis whole,” and that particular character (particularly as she evolves with time) is so beloved for me, and says a two-word sentence later in the book that never fails to make me cry when I read it (or even think about it for very long… it is, without question, my favorite passage from any book I have ever read… but we haven’t “gotten” there yet this time around), so it’s hard for me to evaluate any particular part of her character arc on its own merits.
Same here, didn’t love all of the Madame Psychosis show, but I did absolutely love the description of the union building itself. I find myself reading larger and larger chunks at once, probably due to the threads beginning to come together and my falling hard for the book. Now I’m starting to really understand all of you here who are on your 2nd, 3rd, etc. reads. I have the growing sense I will finish and immediately return to the first page to start over!
Joan, I had the opposite reaction. I couldn’t stomach the building-as-brain metaphor, protracted as it was. However, I was able to let the rhythm of those maladies wash over me–if you read all that ugliness aloud, you’ll note that the rhythm is quite beautiful.
Yes! I thought the show itself was exactly the sort of pained, showy, po-mo College Radio stuff that would hold my interest for all of twelve seconds, but the description of the Engineer’s walk to the studio then to the roof was such vivid and lovely writing. Yes, the idea of the Brain building is similarly on-the-nose, but it’s the way Wallace describes it, and the radio tower, and night air, and the feeling of the material on the brain ceiling and every gorgeous detail is what made me love this section.
This is my second reading of the novel and what I’m noticing this time is what an astonishingly talented prose writer Wallace was. This section (like honestly almost every single one in the book so far) was a masterpiece of prose construction.
The Madame Psychosis show was hilarious to me.
I’m on p 380 or so, and feel too far ahead now but it’s JUST SO GOOD. Maybe I’ll go back to the beginning now?
Love the Madame Psychosis section a lot. (1) I’m a fan of obscure medical ailments. For fear of offending possible fellow-sufferers, I won’t be specific. (2) I’ve somehow linked the vibe, if not also the persona, of Madame Psychosis to the anonymous, slavic-accented woman who gives voice to some weird Madame-Psychosis-like radio dialogue on the Queens of the Stone Age CD, /Songs for the Deaf/ toward the end of “Another Love Song” (at 2:56) and continuing on to the beginning of “Songs For the Deaf”: “This is W-O-M-B, the womb. And if you, my pets, learn to listen, I’ll let you crawl back in. Here is something you should drop to your feet for, and worship. But you are too stupid to realize for yourselves. A song for the deaf; that is, for you.” (3) The idea of “metempsychosis” (Madame’s paronomasic twin) — “The passing of the soul at death into another body either human or animal, the transmigration of souls — fascinates the hell out of me. But how does metempsychosis apply to /IJ/? I don’t really know.
One speculation: the narrator of /IJ/ is somehow adept at metempsychic-like writing-voice shape-shifting (if, that is, you believe as I do that there is only one narrator, or, LoTR-like, only One narrator to rule them all). That is, the narrator has an unusual ability to speak in another person’s narrative voice. I mention this because the Rolling Stone heart-rending DFW article makes mention of DFW’s own uncanny ability to voice-shift. (“[Speaking of DFW’s time at Amherst] ‘I’d always wanted to be an impressionist,’ Wallace said, ‘But I just didn’t have an agile enough vocal and facial register to do it.’ Crossing a [campus green] it was the Dave Show. He would recount how people walked, talked, how they held their heads, pictured their lives. ‘Just very connected to people,’ [DFW’s college friend Mark] Costello recalls. ‘Dave had this ability to be inside someone else’s skin.’”)
Again, I’m not entirely clear on how (or if) this connects to Madame Psychosis, but at least in this reader’s head, it’s all of a piece.
Having no knowledge of the book beyond the deadline, I liked the Madame Psychosis section quite a bit. The changing of narratives between Engineer, Psychosis, and Mario felt so fluid and effortless, and even though we’re going back and forth on various topics, somehow I was able to keep it all in my mind.
Madame Psychosis comes off as the type of person who is “hauntingly beautiful.” A woman who when she spoke would seem to speak directly to your soul. Both mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time.
It’s interesting to note that she’s speaking of gruesome abnormalities and we keep going back to her most avid listener, Mario, who we know has some sort of abnormality.
Perhaps another reason MP seduces her audience is the fact that she speaks in a knowing way to the lost, the damned, the forgotten, etc.
[…] population with the time and inclination to slog through an 1100-page book. Even for those, it is at times a struggle. (Although the Madame Psychosis section was not one of those times for […]
On p.170,during a discussion of the multifarious psychotropic drugs used at E.T.A., is this bit: “DMZ is sometimes also referred to in some metro Boston chemical circles as Madame Psychosis, after a popular very-early-morning cult radio personality on M.I.T’s student run radio station WYYY-109, Largest Whole Prime on the FM Band, which Mario Incandenza and E.T.A. stats-wienie and Eschaton game-master Otis P. Lord listen to almost religiously.” When I put this together w/ the heavy use of anatomical adjectives, esp. head/brain, used to describe the student union building from which she broadcasts, it seems like the whole scenario is one big metaphore for drug induced , epiphanic religious experiences/hallucinations. The call letters W why why why, w/ Mario and Otis P. LORD listening RELIGIOUSLY etc. etc. I don’t know..could just be reading my own own experience into the thing…but seems compelling.I posted a bit about the metempsychosis homophone, and it’s possible implications , on my blog here : http://waltpascoe.blogspot.com/ . I’m curious to know if anyone else is getting anything along these lines as well…or if I’m just sliding down this rabbit hole by my own whacked out self.
No I think you’re right and the “brain” image is just the kind of over-the-top postmodern-type symbol DFW would indulge in, it seems to me. Esp. considering, take the spider shape of the E.T.A. courts (and the spider = addiction/disease of the Ennet House crew) vs. the Madame Psychosis’ brain. I’m not sure what’s giving too much away here but it seems to me at the point I’m at to be pretty relevant.
Thanks for the reply, Ben. Pretty thought provoking 7/9 post on your blog: http://hedothepoliceman.wordpress.com/
I’ve always enjoyed those long catalogues/lists Joyce uses all over the place in Ulysses. Like Joyce’s, DFW’s catalogue here has a lot of ridiculous items slipped in. The one that got me was the “fatally pulchritudinous” (190). I read that and did like the text tracking equivalent of a double take. It later becomes apparent why this is included and to whom it refers. Like Ulysses, IJ is a pretty intimidating book that is actually wicked funny if you can hold your attention and make it through sometimes difficult passages.
Reading this section was where I first became aware of the presence of this motif of deformity exemplified by Mario, the hare-lipped pot dealer, the E.T.A.s with one oversized and bizarre tan lines giving the appearance of action figures assembled from mismatched parts, the wheel chair assassins, the MIT buildings deorbited eyes and exposed brain, & c. There’s also this thing about bodies, and being really aware of your body, especially in relation to the objects around it that keeps popping up in the novel, not to mention the mind/body conflict motif (see JOI’s father re: Brando 157).
I’m digging the list-aspect as well…maybe I should read Ulysses next and stop fearing. I’m finding IJ fascinating in the same way I’ll sit and read wikipedia drill-down entries (infinitely?), except that (I hope) events will tie together, and there is in fact an end.
I’m also amused by all the grammar/word choice cops who appear to be reading the novel…this must be driving you guys crazy!
After reading the Brando section I definitely went to YouTube and sat down with every old Wild One and On the Waterfront scene I could find. Made for an interesting lens through which to watch those old clips.
Interesting that you should pick up on “fatally pulchritudinous.” You’ll want to keep it in mind as you go along. (It’s also helpful to remember The Medusa vs. The Odalisque from the JOI filmography.)
It stuck out because the whole thing has these various levels deformity, then there’s lethally pretty?! I’d already considered it in connection with the JOI film (MP also invites the “Medusas and odalisques both” to join UHID several lines after the pulchritudinous reference), and of course the P.G.O.A.T., but didn’t want to get too far ahead of the weekly deadline in my comments.
I really love the unfrosted Cinamon pop tarts which you can rarely find anywhere.
I wrote a bit about this (getting through the novel, not pop tarts) in my tumblog. Here’s an excerpt:
“…I’ve become so enthralled with the novel (the first 100ish pages are admittedly rough to get through), that I’m outpacing the 75 pages/week structure IS has outlined. (Currently on pg. 300) Which isn’t as impressive as it sounds because it’s quite a time commitment considering I have to stop every page or so and look up a different SAT word that I haven’t seen since my junior year of high school. Or filter through the endless footnotes (96 pages of them) that require me to use two bookmarks to keep track of where the hell I am. Or pause at the long, polysyllabic scientific terms used for recreational drugs that I literally have to sound out like a 4 year old trying to read “The Cat in the Hat” for the first time.”
http://stevekovach.tumblr.com/post/138844671
Can I use this opportunity, since someone just brought up how they need to look up a word every few pages or so, to suggest that Matthew (Baldwin) or some one else of equal authority at IS mention the page-by-page annotations in the David Foster Wallace Wiki Infinite Jest section? I’ll provide the link below. I’ve been using it as I go along, and not only has it been greatly helpful, but I have also registered wit the Wiki and have been editing it to add to the existing list of terms. It’s really a pretty fantastic resource for first-time IJ readers, and I was surprised it was not mentioned in the “HOW TO READ INFINITE JEST” entry from before 6/21.
http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/index.php?title=Infinite_Jest_Page_by_Page
Oh, darn it. Sorry, everyone (more specifically, sorry, Matthew) – I guess the Infinite Jest Wiki was mentioned, after all, in the aforementioned “HOW TO READ INFINITE JEST” entry.
Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is use (and help edit!) the page-by-page annotations there – they’re very helpful for difficult IJ vocabulary.
The expression is not “a pit in your stomach,” it’s a feeling IN THE pit of your stomach.
I loved everything about the Madame Psychosis story. Any mpls/st paul readers out there? She reminds me a bit of Mischke. This list is defintely something he would do something with, except in a song.
Between really loving the book and making an effort to finish before the end of July (going on a long beach trip, and not thinking I’ll be able to read anything dense while I’m there), I’m way ahead, but not feeling like it’s any kind of chore. I can’t wait to get back to it whenever I put it down. (Still, breaks are good. Once I’m starting to feel like I’m not following it clearly, I take a break.) But yeah, some sections require some patience, and that’s one of them. As the book’s progressing, I’m feeling like there are fewer of these “I don’t know what’s going on and I’ve never seen this character” sections. The longer sections begin to have more of an immediate payoff, and I’m actually not ready for them to end when they do.
the entertainment infinite jest might turn out to be a movie based on this book infinite jest if that makes sense. gonna do nothing but read it until i wet my pants and turn into dust.
When reading the Madame Psychosis part, I tried to imagine a sort of show that I would really like. Listening to the human voice is very soothing. What if there were a very soothing voice that carried you along into a kind of semi-hypnotic state…so that you weren’t alone. Listening to the radio late at night–that is something people often do alone. You are lonely. What if some super brilliant radio announcer could speak in such a way that she sort of sounded as if she were speaking to you but also kind of carried you away with a bunch of words that did not necessarily make you alert but were kind of fantastic and dreamy.
Ok, that worked for me anyway! After thinking about it that way, I started to desperately wish I had a Madame Psychosis to listen to late at night.
Since the narrator notes that Madame Psychosis shows a fondness for a school of works including James Incandenza’s middle period, I re-checked his filmography and noticed that M.P. starred in several of his films, as a mysterious veiled character. I wish there were one web page that just listed “things to keep in mind” and “things you should notice are connected to previous things.”
As I’ve just written on the forums:
I’ve actually kind of liked the Madame Psychosis appearance, as far as the first impressions go. Maybe I was able relate to it because of some of my own experiences with, say, experimental, thematic and conceptual radio shows and alternative culture and underground media-aware figures in general and the GP-O’s Psychic TV line of thinking etc.
I have also found it vaguely entertaining that so many other readers have disliked that bit. It made me think of how differently must we perceive this book, or any reading material, of course, and how it is pretty much impossible to imagine how anything “reads” like to anyone else.
P.S.: What did you think of ‘Those Were the Legends That Formerly Were’?
I imagine MP (not the Peemster, mind you) with the ultra-sedate voice of the local poetry-radio host, who I cannot bear to listen to because I fall asleep upright in the kitchen whenever she comes on the air.
On a different note, when I saw “I can’t help but be jealous of Hal’s routine at Enfield Tennis Academy – there’s very little space there to mess up or miss a deadline,” I couldn’t help but scoff. Having just graduated from a New England “Elite” boarding school, I can guarantee that DFW has painted a very realistic portrait of these schools, from the patrician-attitude, “in loco parentis“, the unity-through-hatred-of-authority mentioned in pp 95-105, 109-121, “and c.” The nature of these schools is extremely repressive in order to mold students into model citizens, and DFW really shows how stressful that scheduled life is.
At my particular school in suburban Boston, my 6-day schedule involved 2 hours of free-time per day, the rest put towards classes, sports, and homework – and said free-time was often replaced by weekly chapel services and other mandatory ceremonies of that nature. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told me 60% of my classmates smoked pot on a regular basis, and at least 20% used harder “Substances”, like alcohol, dip tobacco, X, coke, and as many hallucinogens you can think of. I think there has been no better time for me to read IJ, just because the E.T.A. chapters are so engrossing and so perfectly capture a society that 95% of American kids don’t experience.
Sorry for the digression, but I had to get that off of my back.
[…] Yeah, that "learn some time-management skills" thing from last week is going great(!) ] featured not one but two suicides: a third person look at Madame […]
I am not a part of Infinite Summer, but have been semi-regularly eavesdropping on the conversation here because I just finished reading Infinite Jest for the first time in June. Took me about 8 months, but in my defense, I teach and my recreational reading takes a backseat during the school year.
I just wanted to encourage you all to hang in there and be assured that the seemingly weird, obtuse, out-of-place sections will all be justified by the end. You may find yourself (as I did) flipping back to those sections and muttering the occasional “Oohhh,” or the kind of surprised/shocked obscenity that slips out when epiphanies occur. But it will all be worth it. Regarding Madame Psychosis, that section informs the reader on character much more than plot, if that helps.