Infinite Summer

[quote](and DMZ is nicknamed after the film's star - proceed into "metempsychosis" analyses at your own risk).[quote]

IS it the case that DMZ is nicknamed after the actress? I thought DMZ dated from the 1970s, well before Joelle and JOI started collaborating. It's more likely that she earned her nickname from the drug. Whatever the Entertainment that she starred in does, it acts like DMZ. "Madame Psychosis," then, might symbolize something other than a drug or a person or an Entertainment. It's a relation--a kind of addictive relation that can be incited by a variety of triggers.

Hal might have been triggered into some kind of addiction-like psychosis by a variety of things (including the messed up sexual dynamics within the Incandenza family, the mother-figure of which is a highly desired sex symbol who cuckolded JOI on a regular basis--I think that's implied, right?)

I also think it's significant that it's language that he's lost--which used to be his greatest strength, his most obvious claim to prodigy status. I think there's an important psychoanalytic reading to be made connecting linguistic prowess, the demise of his father, and the sexual anxieties and ambiguities surrounding Avril and James's relationship.

On the other hand, at its simplest, it could be that Hal becomes disconnected from his gift and morphs into an "infantophile" and pursues a mediocre career via collegiate tennis instead of the Show in order to refuse the pursuit of "greatness" that destroyed his family. Maybe he's deathly afraid to succeed?

levingard: Thanks for that SAT citation. The sequence of events around late November-early December YDAU (much of which occurs outside the actual framework of the book) certainly is murky - seems like a stretch that Hal could've been hospitalized, met Gately and dug up his father's grave (amid whatever circumstances might have surrounded that) and still been back in time to play in the Whataburger, so maybe all that happened after the tournament (but before Hal took the SAT, whenever that was)? We do know from Gately's dream/vision, to the extent that's reliable, that Hal was having difficulty communicating verbally during said grave-digging.

thinkIcanhearyou: The quote from the text (p170) is, "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," not that it necessarily matters all that much which is the chicken and which the egg, for thematic purposes. You make some interesting points, though the term "infantophile" is rather less benign that it might appear from its usage in your post - I'm still confounded over that one.

I don't see the "something I ate" as a reference to the mold per se, but rather to the DMZ - which is indirectly suggested by the mold story, though the first-timer doesn't realize that until later when they find out more about the origins of DMZ, if they're paying close attention. (I'm definitely not buying any of that internal-synthesis-of-DMZ stuff.) But I suspect the bottom line is that, as you say, we'll never know for sure what really happened, just as DFW intended.

p.s. - btw, loved that "young readers" reference - sort of a Big Buddy-ish relationship, huh?

[/quote]PHHHHEW! That's some 'heady' thinking! I like it...gotta chew on it for a bit...but I like it.[/quote]

Ditto here. But what about the clinical definition of "infantophile" - to wit, "An adult who is sexually attracted to babies and young children 0-5 years of age"?

uh. yeah, i don't know about that clinical definition. that's...gross. DFW is so careful with his definitions, he HAD to know that's what it meant. well, there goes Freud, Lacan, and Mitchell

I'd sure like to think that's more what Wallace had in mind, though he had to be aware of infantophilia as well - a particularly disturbing double entendre, perhaps?