Infinite Summer

A question I've mulled each time I read this book is: Why did DFW write a book with such a major focus on loneliness that’s over 1000 pages long? The book demands a huge amount of time from us as readers. It pulls us from social events (although it brought us together here), our work (i.e. addictinggames.com), and sleep. But imagine how much DFW spent alone- an amount of time alone that any of us would label unhealthy (though we thank him for doing it)- to complete this book. He HAD to spend time thinking about how much time the book fills and steals both for him and his readers. This is (probably) a chicken/egg chronology dispute, but did the process of writing IJ make DFW lonelier than when he started? Or was he already feeling detached and needed this book as a tool to engage the world and let us know he was out there? If DFW wrote the book with full awareness of its lonely-izing function, is he saying something by making it as long and complicated as it is? One huge reason (there are many, this is just the one that stands out for me) I think there is merit to considering the book’s length a significant aspect of IJ’s meaning comes from Troeltsch on 117-8:

“Boys, what it is is I’ll tell you it’s repetition. First last always…till the sheer repetitive weight makes it sink down into the gut…over and over until the accretive weight of the reps sinks the movements themselves down under your like consciousness into the more nether regions, through repetition they sink and soak into the hardware, the CPS. The machine-language…The point of repetition is there is no point. Wait until it soaks into the hardware and then see the way this frees up your head…frees the head in the remarkablest ways…you start thinking a whole different way now…”

Repetition is something DFW knows. He knows the repetition that tennis demands, he knows the repetition that writing demands, and he knows the repetition life is. And what is he giving us? 1000+ pages of repetition; start top left, scan right, down one line, return to left, scan right, repeat to bottom right, turn page, repeat, repeat, repeat. This book is like a slow dawn; DFW is imbuing us in loneliness with the repetition of the act of reading until it “soaks into the hardware.” Let’s keep this line of thought in mind as we continue and see if it’s a white rabbit worth following.

Pg 107-108 offers one of DFW’s most pointed and terrifying statements about loneliness. Marathe and Steeply are debating over the things that people choose to love. Marathe thinks love for people is foolish because they’re all so fickle. Right down to people dying without giving any notice. Jerks. Marathe argues you must choose carefully what it is you love because this is what defines you; what will you die for without “the thinking twice?”

When Steeply suggests that there are things you cannot choose to love, you just do (“the temple comes to Mohammed”), it seems as if he’s caught Marathe in a trap and is winning the argument. Then Marathe turns the whole thing around and upside down:

“Then in such a case your temple is self and sentiment…you are a fantatic of desire, a slave to your individual subjective narrow self’s sentiments; a citizen of nothing… You are by yourself and alone, kneeling to yourself.”

WHA?!?!?!?!? How much more tragic can alone get? Marathe’s arguing that any passion not consciously chosen is a choice to be alone. It’s as if DFW believes there’s a level of emotional attachment that needs to be combated, but because it’s always there, you’re always at war with yourself OR alone. And the sickest part? DFW seems to think most people are unaware of how lonely they are because he’s got everyman Steeply arguing that the automatic loves are the proof of the “something bigger.” If DFW is being frank with himself about his genius, he may be arguing that people are not smart enough/ don’t think enough to recognize the inherent loneliness of feeling compelled to love something.

Pg 112 “We’re all on each other’s food chain. All of us. It’s an individual sport. Welcome to the meaning of individual. We’re each deeply alone here. It’s what we all have in common, this aloneness.”

This one pretty much speaks for itself; the 20th century USA is a nation of individualism with everyone on everyone else’s food chain. We’re in competition whether conscious or not. And so, just as we share in common the fact that we’re all unique, we share in common the fact that we’re all alone. You can’t build a community on that. BUT, you can build a community on a common enemy. Perhaps that’s the reason we always seem to be fighting an enemy: Korea, Cuba, Russia, Taliban, Grenada. Without an external target we can all get together and hate, what do we have to share? It's sort of a Watchmen-ish perspective.

Pg 146
The analysis of telephone use is almost too caustic for comfort…ok, ok, it IS uncomfortable. This was one of those my-brain-has-exploded-hand-gesture causing passages that makes me wonder if DFW isn’t trying to coax neuroticism out of his readers. DFW’s right, a huge arational illusion comes with being on the phone; “you got to believe you were receiving somebody’s complete attention without having to return it.” In other words, we’re self-absorbed creatures that don’t stop to realize that everyone else is self-absorbed too. Maybe not all the time, or even most of the time, but too often, we recede into our internal worlds and put on facades of interest. Facial expressions, verbal cues that we’re paying attention, whatever. The reality of everyone’s self absorption is that we’re all alone but most of us are totally oblivious to it because it takes empathetic (non-lonely) thinking to recognize it.

“It would be like being able both to lie and to trust other people at the same time.” This sentence is underlined, starred, and on a dog-eared page in my copy of IJ because it’s the paradox that I alway go to in my head when I'm alone. How the hell do we trust one another when we’re capable of deceiving one another? What’s to say anyone is being honest with you? Trust is a necessary delusion. Sure, a lot of people you encounter and are friends with do not take advantage of your trust, but they could. That’s what bother’s DFW.

Another note on repetitiveness. Addicts are taught not to think and to repeat the same things over and over. AA (alcoholics anon) is all about repetition. To get it in their gut. And they are also told to enjoy the first few years because all they have to do it sit there and listen. Just show up. Sit down and listen. Call your sponsor - which also sounds like the buddy system in the book.

I see the book so far as a journey of life - not cohesive and no running plot - almost like an essay - but then I'm only on page 135.

And also when DFW talks about "just do it" when he discusses who makes it and who doesn't in the tennis world - don't think too much - which I think was probably the most difficult for DFW himself - (did I say himself???) Hmmmm ------ Also an AA phrase - to "act as if". Then your body, mind and soul will integrate it.

I'm waiting for what's to come - all of this has it's downfalls. Hope he gets to it.