Infinite Summer

A note on the name: There was a Saint Lucien who lived in the third century who, according to Wikipedia, was killed by three "assassins...sent by the Roman Emperor". He was beaten with rods and then decapitated. He didn't die, but picked up his own head and walked to a place where he asked (he could speak!) to be buried, according to legend. (Or maybe he did die, but then came back to life just long enough to ask to be "properly" disposed of.) Maybe Lucien will be back, at least in spirit.

antitoi was the last name of one of the kids Wallace had a rivalry with in Midwestern tennis as a kid. It's mentioned in Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley.

Antitoi seems like it also plays into the weird thing with using pronouns as proper names/nicknames in the book relating, mostly, to J.O.I.:

"Himself" is the big one, of course. But how about calling J.O.I.'s muse Joelle? (JO-I and JO-Elle, as in french for "Her" or a sort of feminine counterpart for J.O.I.). And a little wordplay allows Antitoi to be anti-toi, or "against-you", which is an interesting name for someone who is mute/caught up in weird Wittgenstein literary jokes and who is responsible for taking J.O.I.'s creation and helping distribute it as a weapon that destroys/diminishes the self (too much "joy" becoming anti-you, and of course using the less formal, even potentially dismissive french form of "you" (toi rather than vous). Too much?

That's part of the beauty of Wallace's worldview: He takes what exists and finds way to play with it, i.e. Antitoi is a real person who's name makes for some great word-gaming. It reminds me of Nabakov's play with Humbert's name, but on major high-octane "sterabolic anoids."

He also uses it in "Tennis, Trigonometry and Tornados: A Midwestern Boyhood" (Harper's, December 1991) I don't know the "Derivative Sport In Tornado Alley" essay. In the Harper's essay DFW goes into detail and says that Gil Antitoi was both a friend and a foe, and that he was the son of a Quebecois-history professor from Urbana, and that the parents drove him and his friend Gil to tournaments when DFW's own parents weren't the ones to do this. Is this more detailed than the other essay? And is there information about this essay somewhere does anyone know that can be cited w/r/t this name being made up?

they are the same essay, w/ the book version retitled and possibly slightly expanded.