Comments on: Infinite Summery – Week 3

By: Carol02

Carol02 — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:11:41 +0000

I didn’t learn about Infinite Summer until a couple of weeks ago, and I’m sprinting to catch up!
I just read the part about the Madame P. radio show and the brain-shaped Union. Seems like it was the “summum opus” of an architect — the endowed memorial to the Very High Seat of High Tech. (This was not the first bit that reminded me of Chuck Palahniuk.) I am loving this book!

By: dave10

dave10 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:57:05 +0000

Samantha — it’s a brain! I’m sure it’s a riff on MIT students being ridiculously cerebral. Whether it has some other meaning … well, I haven’t read that far yet.

By: Samantha B

Samantha B — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:33:08 +0000

Dave, I’m on p. 227, and I don’t remember the bit about Hal finding Himself dead. Where was that?

By: Samantha B

Samantha B — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:11:04 +0000

I want to talk about the Madam Psychosis section (which has been alluded to as being significant but, for many readers, dull), specifically all the references to the human body in DFW’s description of the building from which Mdme. P. broadcasts her show. I’m not talking about all the bizarre maladies and deformities either. The whole buliding is described in very corporeal terms. Here’s a roundup: vascular path, axoustic meatus, sephenoid sinus, epiglottal, corpus callosum, laryngeally fissured, tracheal air-filters, parietal breadth, laryngeal studio, pink wrinkled [..] gynecological walls, coaxial medulla, interneural stairways, rostral lamina, artery-red fire door, cerebrally domed, brainframe, vitreally inflated balloon-eyes, optic chiasmae, sulcus-fissures, skull-colored [..] resin, inferior frontal sulcus, parietooccipital sulcus, off-white of living skull, corporeal bone, venous-blue emergency ladder, superior temporal gyrus, Pons and abducent, basilar-stem artery, oblongata, intra-parietal sulcus, vascularly hued, bloody halo, nubbin of spine…etc.

Did anyone else notice this? Did everyone notice this but not mention it? I’m just wondering if this is significant to the plot/Mdme. P. or if its just a novel way of describing a space. Anyone?

By: Dave S

Dave S — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:04:47 +0000

I decided to kick a porn addiction this summer by cancelling my internet and picking up a huge book (IJ), not knowing it was about rehab. Amazing. DFW is keeping me alive right now. Funnily enough, my therapist has never heard of it.

Anyway, two more laugh out loud moments for me this week: Hal’s recollecting his hungry utterance upon entering the house to find Himself dead, and the little throwaway line about the Headmaster’s bets following the Port Washington meets. Seriously, out loud.

By: WmAnthony

WmAnthony — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:48:35 +0000

AAARRRgggg!
I just finished reading IJ for the first time and today I found you guys…..
Crap.
My German professor recommended I read the book before launching into the miasma that is my dissertation.
Read it.
Cats and dogs ahead. More Hal. And footnotes up the wahzoo.

By: Sean Wright

Sean Wright — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:47:15 +0000

I read Infinite Jest a couple of months ago. I finshed it a few weeks before I read about this forum on Ezra Klein’s blog. This book really changed my perspective in a way almost no book has — at least since I reached my post-post adolescent years. I only regret that I never got around to reading it while Wallace was alive.

By: John I

John I — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:44:52 +0000

Isn’t all urine sterile? He’s selling the drug-free sort.

By: Gladis

Gladis — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:33:45 +0000

Yeah, I’m writing about IJ on my blog

By: Paul Debraski

Paul Debraski — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:08:59 +0000

Sorry, my html was bad, just click the name, eh?