Infinite Summer

What's the deal with this, p.922, "and that nobody's once offered to click on the HD viewer that hangs next to a myopic fake-Turner fog-and-boat print on the wall opposite Gately's and the former kid's beds..." What kid? He does mention earlier a kid being in his room. Is it Hal, on like the 20th November YDAU? Is he the one who used the exoskeletal HALO-thing on the same hospital bed?? I can't find the second, I think earlier mention of the " kid or person in the next bed." Perhaps a square-headed person? Is this where they met, and perhaps why Himself pays Gately a visit?

I really need to reread the whole last section with Gately in the hospital but I thought the kid was probably Otis Lord there to get the computer monitor removed from his head (based on Gately's perception that the kid had a square head or hat).

Here's the reference to what certainly seems to be Otis Lord: "The blurred figure in the next bed sat up very still in bed in a sitting position and seemed to have a box on its head" (p. 809).

I wonder whether the wierdly complicated halo--which is mentioned more than once--could be for Marathe's skull-less wife?

There's an article (sorry I can't find the link to it right now) written by the book's editor about some of the changes, and I'm almost 99% sure that it was Lord in the other bed in the hospital room per the original manuscript.

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First-Time Reader
Started: 26 June 2009 | Finished: 25 July 2009

Box-on-head has gotta be Otis Lord. He shows up back at ETA towards the end of the novel. His newly-empty bed is being readied with the wierd halo/head support. I can't really see any reason why Hal would need one.

It's possible that the halo could be for Marathe's wife Gertrude. Her need for medical care--more than she what can get in Quebec--is why Marathe has betrayed the AFR and is acting as a quadruple agent on behalf of Steeply and the Office of Unspecified Services.

The year-long gap in the novel creates all kinds of room for speculation, but if Gertrude did share a room with Gately, Marathe and/or Rodney Tine would have showed up, and that could holp explain how Gately, Hal, and John Wayne ended up in Quebec digging up JOI's head.

Yeah, it's Otis. He's in this passage to poke a sly finger in the ribs of Gately's internal battle with the Higher Power he's selected seeming to leave him in a position/state of near-impossible-to-escape-from-Substance: incredible pain, confined to the bed with nothing better to do, a Dr. offering a veritable menu of drug choices. Gately wants to know why he's been put in this place of supreme vulnerability when he's clawed himself away from Substances; what sadistic Omnipotence would do this to him? Now think of Lord; he tried to play g-o-d to eschaton, and because of a lapse in his divinity, he wound up with a monitor on his head. It's a way of answering Gately indirectly; the Higher Power may not be as powerful as Gately assumes, maybe he's (Gately) in the place he is because the Higher Power 'looked the other way' at the wrong moment. When Gately think-shouts out to the Higher Power, he's unaware that the Higher Power is right next to him...not really, but that's what I think DFW is doing here.