Infinite Summer

I agree with Pemulis -- no targeting of actual participants. Since there weren't any previous rules regarding the subject however ... I thought it was a pretty brilliant move.

My favorite part of the entire Eschaton section was Pemulis's reaction and everyone elses, for that matter, to Otis P. Lord unlocking the cabinet and putting on the red beanie. I laughed out loud for awhile after that.

I agree with leegoesplaces that the new connotations of "map" make this thermonuclear geek-fest intriguing. I absolutely love how silly Wallace is willing to get, e.g. "a couple ostensible world leaders run here and there in a rather unstatesmanlike fashion with their open mouths directed at the sky, trying to catch bits of the fall’s first snow”. They're kids pretending to rule the world, but catching snowflakes is just more compelling. That's gorgeous.

So w/r/t the "hammer" of Otis Lord obviously being God, I think the reason that it's so obvious is that O. Lord doesn't represent God, he represents someone playing God, and poorly. Comically. God in the Eschaton section is Pemulis, invoking His Son over and over, railing at how the person playing God is playing God poorly but never intervening because he respects the boundaries of His creation the way "participants" in it don't.

The "map" tie-in is compelling. There is a difference between the map and what it represents; if you're starting to understand like I (think I) am that "map" throughout the book means either face or body, i.e. a physical representation of something but not the thing itself, then someone "eliminating their map" is only destroying Himself physically; "it's what's inside that counts," as they might say in Boston AA -- In the very beginning of the book, Hal is insisting "I am in here," but he can't get the point across because his outward representation no longer represents what he really is. And isn't that last bit the point of the U.H.I.D. people and Mario and Booger and other, less startling deformities, like oversized arms and legs, why-Joelle-may-be-veiled (whether a deformity in the common sense or too-powerful beauty, she chooses not to let people see her map, which, one guesses, makes it easier to deal with what she really is), an army of assassins with useless legs, etc.

"Map" would seem also to have future implications for the "redemisement" controversy. Have they really made part of America a toxic wasteland and given it to Canada, or is America something other than its (literal) map?

Hal needing to feel his face to see what expression is on it at the end of the section is the coup de grace: Hal is becoming, or is starting to understand that he is, something other than his face/map/physical representation of himself. (Himself, capital 'H'? After all, just as Pemulis is the Creator of the Eschaton world, J.O.I. is the Creator of Hal. And as I said elsewhere I'm probably missing many Hamlet references because I haven't seen very many yet, but this would augur a later "appearance" by Himself, somehow, railing at Hal that he's not doing it right but not being able to physically intervene, being dead. Like, you know, King Hamlet.)

sobermoode, I disagree. Sure, the move was disruptive and did not entirely follow the conceit of the game. But, AMNAT and SOVWAR were having a meeting on the map, in a specific, target-able territory. They could just have easily met off the map, outside of the courts' boundaries. Ingersoll is clearly being a dick, but I contend that his dick move, since it pertained to something on the map, was a valid (not to mention hilarious) one.

(edit--corrected the name to SOVWAR)

Picturing Lord's head in the monitor I was reminded of Himself's head in the microwave. Is that why Hal seems to be disconnecting from himself? Does he see some similarity?

Camasal

I was reading through a poetry anthology and ran across the name of Otis P. Lord, the judge who had a possible romance with Emily Dickinson. (To him, Dickinson wrote, "While others go to Church, I go to mine, for are you not my Church, and have we not a Hymn that no one knows but us?") I know the "O. Lord"/God thing really works perfectly with the IJ character, but I wondered if this was somehow not a coincidence.