tecnología, traducción y cultura
Narrative Constructions of Entertainment in Infinite Jest
Manuel Asensi Pérez
Catedrático de Teoría de la Literatura y de la Literatura Comparada Universitat de València
Ramón Cotarelo
Catedrático de Ciencia Política y de la Administración de la Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología de la Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
Mª Teresa Echenique Elizondo
Catedrática de Lengua Española Universitat de València
Juan Manuel Fernández Soria
Catedrático de Teoría e Historia de la Educación Universitat de València
Pablo Oñate Rubalcaba
Catedrático de Ciencia Política y de la Administración Universitat de València
Joan Romero
Catedrático de Geografía Humana Universitat de València
Juan José Tamayo
Director de la Cátedra de Teología y Ciencias de las Religiones Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
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ANA CHAPMAN
tirant humanidades Valencia, 2023
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I don’t really know what I am.
I don’t really know what the interior of anybody else is like – I often feel fragmented, and as if I have a symphony of different voices.
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
Born in 1962, David Foster Wallace was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist whose virtuous style granted him the title of one of the most influential and greatest writers of his generation. He led the way for a new literary style in American fiction in the early twenty-first century characterized by its dense, self-reflexive and satirical analysis of American culture.
He was raised in an academic household surrounded by books and “where dinner conversation was a coded affair of private jokes and insular slang” (Boswell 2). His father was a philosophy professor and his mother was a community-college English professor who shared most of their knowledge with their children, David and Amy (two years younger than David).
Like Hal Incandenza in Infinite Jest (1996), Wallace was a regionally ranked player competing in junior tennis tournaments while he read Kierkegaard. Wallace wrote how when his sports career suddenly rocketed “my vocation ebbed, I felt uncalled” (Wallace, “Derivative Sport” 13). He dramatically concluded that “Midwest junior tennis was also my initiation into true adult sadness” (Wallace, “Derivative Sport” 13). Sorrow is another common topic found in his work and which is connected to his enduring depression suffered throughout his life. It was at the time of his tennis period that his interest shifted towards math. He expressed that for him playing on the court was a logical problem where he would construct his movements and the opponent’s ones.
He went on to study a double major in English and in philosophy specializing in math and logic at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Depression became severe there where he unexpectedly lost interest in math and decided to start writing fiction. He wrote The Broom of the System (1987) as his English senior thesis there. During this period, he began drinking and pot-smoking as an escape from the solipsism that originated from his depression.
His essay “E unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction” (1993) is one of the most important nonfiction works which precedes Infinite Jest and which functions as the most direct articulation of Wallace’s
particular take on postmodernism and the unique challenges facing writers of his generation. However, although he is frequently defined as a postmodernist writer, he has also been regarded as part of a different type of modernism. Marshall Boswell defines it as the “third wave of modernism” (Boswell 1) or as a post-postmodernist. Interestingly, Wallace considered that modernism and postmodernism were over and this is one of the reasons that gives rise to framing his style as a new literary vanguard.
His experience in drug abuse, 12-steps programs and tennis form the backbone of his novel Infinite Jest. His intermittent depression is also reflected in his progress of producing the novel as he struggled and abandoned it multiple times before the final draft was published. After Infinite Jest was released he took on journalistic assignments for the literary magazines Harper’s and The Atlantic. He was later appointed as a contributing editor in 1996 for Harper’s which allowed him the opportunity to write many of his most famous short stories.
Following the completion of Infinite Jest he focused his writing on short fiction and nonfiction productions. Most of the short stories he wrote during the time he worked for Harper’s were gathered together in his works, A Supposedly Fun Thing to Do I will Never Do Again (1997), A Brief Interview (1999) and Oblivion (2004). He gained a name with his books The Broom of the System (1987) and The Girl with Curious Hair (1989) which are both considered a result of the influence postmodernism theory had on his writing during his college years.
In 2001 he was hired at Pomona College as the Disney Professor of Creative Writing. The endowed chair was established by Roy Edward Disney, Walt Disney’s nephew. Note the irony of such a position as Wallace is well acknowledged as an author who criticized much of the use we make of pop-culture and who among other things, parodied corporate sponsorship in all its forms as may be observed in Infinite Jest
Wallace’s thematic interests were among others, self-consciousness, “the difficult exchange economy that exists between characters’ interior landscapes and the world around them” (Burn IX), the mediated world and solipsism. Moreover, authors such as Thomas Pynchon,
Don DeLillo and William Gaddis, to name just a few, are considered to have influenced his literary style.
His commencement speech on May 21, 2005 at Kenyon College was later published in the form of an essay under the title of This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life. The essay is considered the clearest expression of his “hortatory idiom” (Cohen and Konstantinou 6) and includes reflexivity and irony apparent in much of his writing production. It incorporates other common aspects seen in his work such as loneliness and the human difficulty to empathize and communicate with others. Similarly, it is as Wallace states, about “how to think, how to pay attention” (Wallace, This is Water 92), a process that enables people “to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t” (Wallace, This is Water 95).
His lifelong struggle with depression came to an end on September 12, 2008 when he committed suicide at the age of 46. Notwithstanding, he remains a figure whose reputation still grows day by day.
Wallace is best known for his behemoth multi-layered novel Infinite Jest and his nonfiction contributions. Published in 1996, Infinite Jest is a dense and complex 1079-page novel with 388 endnotes depicting a dystopia originated from the overuse and totalitarianism of the entertainment world in a country that resembles America.
Set in a near-future Boston the novel examines three main stories that crisscross and merge in many parts of Infinite Jest. The three stories represent different sides of the entertainment world in which sport, addiction and media culture are analysed in each intertwined story. Firstly, Tennis, which was one of Wallace’s interests, is examined in Infinite Jest with the Enfield Tennis Academy (E.T.A.) that was set up by Jim Incandenza, father of Orin, Hal and Mario. Secondly, the main representative for addiction in the novel comes from the narration of events occurring at Ennet Alcohol and Drugs Rehabilitation House. This rehabilitation house establishes specific patterns of recovery through commitment to a higher power. And thirdly, the Canadian terrorists known as the Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents’
search for the Entertainment (the ultimate deadly pleasure, a film that will eliminate American citizens) becomes another revealing line of narration in the novel. All events and characters intertwine in the discovery of real loneliness together with the question concerning identity and self in an external controlled and mediated world. This lengthy novel contains among many other things, a vast number of characters, the use of technical language and made-up slang. All this makes it harder for readers to find pleasure in reading it. The virtuosity of his style is seen in the language, style of writing, organization and in Infinite Jest’s encyclopedic characteristic. As Wallace stated, “the book is cruel to its readers, but for the readers’ own good” (Boswell 120). He held the idea that literature was “to force you to work hard to access its pleasures, the same way that in real life true pleasure is usually a byproduct of hard work and discomfort” (Boswell 119). This gives evidence to why Wallace introduces the notion of entertainment’s rules of conduct as degrading and destructive to an important, and, perhaps, sacred part of the human experience. Wallace was an author obsessed with the world of entertainment and its paradoxical forms, and was utterly critical towards, in his view, the ironic contemporary style of living. This is observable in his analysis of the novel as he equally defined it as a “very pretty pane of glass that had been dropped off the twentieth story of a building” and at the same time the novel was “really designed more like a piece of music than like a book” (Burn XI).
The novel both exemplifies and diagnoses the information overload that exists in the twenty-first century. In the novel he created a whole new style which “established him as perhaps the foremost writer of a remarkable generation of ambitious new novelists —a generation that, as Wallace himself had predicted in his second book, he would someday lead” (Boswell 117).
Although we can see traces of other important works of the time, labelled as encyclopedic and self-reflexive (Jonathan Franzen, William Vollmann and Richard Powers) his style still stands out for its uniqueness. Similarly to his second book, Girl with Curious Hair, he used real famous characters to analyse the world of consumerism, addiction and art in Infinite Jest.
Moreover, Infinite Jest is “fixated by its tools for chemical and electronic self-gratification [as it also] seems more prescient with the rollout of every new compulsively entertaining digital device” (Kalfus). It is a work that includes concerns and themes such as solipsism, language, terrorism, media world, tennis, addiction, self-reflexivity, irony and politics. With reference to solipsism, he considered Wittgenstein to be a real artist as he understood that “no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism.” (McCaffery 143).
Infinite Jest is a book that works on obscurity and annularity, which results in an apparent non-concluding story of endless addiction and its effects. At the end of the novel readers are left without much certainty about the course of events. Hal’s condition remains a mystery under the uncertainty of his ability to speak and his unsettling smiling face and with Don Gately in hospital not sure he will come out. The third story of the Canadian terrorists, the Assassins ends with them on their way to Enfield Academy in search of the deadly entertainment.
The structure of the book is intentionally organized to move from the historical and scientific analysis of body and mind to give way to the neuroscientific analysis of disturbances in proprioception, interoception and perception apparent in the novel. I hold that these four factors (body, mind, feeling and perception) are key participants in identity and sense of agency. The four main sections (body, mind, feeling and perception) are constructed from a neuroscientific theoretical and/or historical background in order to establish a solid basis to support my research and interpretation of the novel because this book deals with notions and concepts that are not of common use in literary analysis. It is an original means of interpretation which requires in depth descriptions and foregrounded concepts in order to analyse the examples observable in Infinite Jest.
The significance of this book lies in the use of the neuroscientific discourse and its findings to analyse the representation of body and mind and their role in creating identity in Infinite Jest. By undertaking the work from this angle my study offers new perspectives on
these questions, as well as on the interconnectivity that exists between science and literature and thus how this association is significant in understanding our current state of mind and body. The theoretical framework helps to shed light onto a comprehensive exploration of Infinite Jest allowing it to show a potential and transformative view on these particular notions and topics. My investigation takes its point of departure from the interconnectivity of different culture study scopes and how apparently disconnected fields can give profound insight into the understanding of these concerns.
The use of neuroscientific language and its metaphors provide a transversal perspective to explore major topics developed in Infinite Jest while, at the same time, articulating and enlightening contemporary problematic issues. Moreover, little work has been done on the impact that a neuroscientific approach can have on the literary dimension which makes this study reinvigorating and a fresh point of departure for future studies.
It became essential to trace back how the body has been depicted from the earliest examples that exist in order to understand where the representation of the body is currently at. Culturally, scientifically, neuroscientifically and philosophically the body has undergone different interpretations in history that shape a linear progression towards how the body is identified at the present time. Therefore, chapter one, “The Body in History,” introduces the body in history and its association with the mind to give way to the representation of the body as prosthetic, machine-like and malleable parts in Infinite Jest in chapter two “Where is my body?”
In chapter two I focus on disturbances of body representation while in chapter three, “Where is my Mind?,” I undertake a comprehensive exploration of disturbances of mind from a neuroscientific approach. Also, in chapter three, “Where is my Mind?,” I introduce major aspects of current neuropsychological research as the backbone for the discovery of sense of agency and self in the novel. Different investigations are presented in this chapter in order to provide a clear vision of basic neuropsychological concepts that are used throughout
my thesis in connection to sense of body ownership, autonomy and agency.
The disturbances explored in chapter three are linked to the schizophrenic symptoms observed in true patients which I metaphorically parallel to numerous characters in the novel.
As the novel is contextualized in an entertainment ground, the last section of “Where is my Mind?” hints at the use of entertainment in a hedonistic form as the next step in understanding the question of identity and self. For this purpose, I thoroughly look at entertainment from the standpoint of substance abuse, cartridges and the reconceptualization of the word fun. In order to get my views across, the use of terms such as the illusion of autonomy are introduced to describe the contradictory sense of pleasure apparent in Infinite Jest. Pursuit of pleasure and entertainment become a mask to hide true addiction and dependence on the external mediated world. Choice, which is examined in chapter three, becomes another problematic concept which is analysed borrowing terms from current neuropsychology and neuroscience.
Chapter four “Feeling: Interoception and Exteroception Stimuli” entails the search of feelings and how this affects body ownership, identity and sense of agency in the novel. In order to proceed towards this discovery, I yet again introduce some key concepts from modern neuropsychology such as interoception and exteroception.
In the manner of a conclusion, chapter five “The Optical World in Infinite Jest: The Phenomenology of Perception” works around a key aspect in the novel which is that of perception. This chapter wraps up all previous chapters to consolidate them when it comes to their portrayal and influence upon each other. In this concluding chapter I propose what may be the origin and result of how the body and the mind is represented in the novel and what may be the answer that Wallace holds.
History gets written with the mind holding the pen. What would it look like, what would it read like, if it got written with the body holding the pen?
(Berman 110)
Bodies have a central role and place in social life not only for their physicality space they possess but also as a medium to understand eras and cultures. Bodies can transfer and transmit much of who you are or where you come from while still being instrumental in detecting origins or even periods by means of garments, ornaments or even representations of the body such as paintings and sculptures among other forms. Additionally, our bodies have been a site of interest and research to typify the corporeal form and functions as part of the human quest to configure and paradoxically, at the same time as mankind’s attempt to deconfigure and reconstruct its core basics of origin and functionality1. That is, by imposing a definition or reinterpreting it with the means available at the time the body is reset to a new form. This assertion is grounded on the multiple accounts which are detectable through history, where philosophers, physicians and artists, to name the principal protagonists, became engaged in the remarkable discovery of the nature of the body. In fact, there has always been a need permeating human consciousness to understand human existence, an attribute that may very well be ascribed to our aching need to understand the role and the functionality of the body in the world.
Identifying representations and the development of scientific medical theories has enabled us to understand to a greater extent what the body stands for in each particular era of human history. But we
1 Further comments on the enhancement and reconstruction of the human body as a way of understanding the body are found on page 30-31.
must not dismiss that the corporeality site has had different spheres of influence. Throughout history, intellectuals have proposed different views on the corporeality that did not by any means have to coincide with the ground reality or citizen’s perception of the body. Therefore, we should establish a clear distinction which was unquestionably made from the lived body, the scientific one and figurative-real representation that coexisted in each period.
In this introduction to the body I will rescue these forms to allow us a greater understanding of how the status and representation of the body have reached the current nature of identification and figurative usage.
Interests in the role and function of the body have been the centre of concern and have been influenced by many different branches of thought. With the rise of humanity new shapes of enquiries started to sprout, developing into different domains throughout the course of history. Religion, philosophy, politics and social theories steadily began to be molded. They became distinct and delineated from one another whilst all attempting to identify the role of the body and how the body may have been relevant in their field of enquiry. Different waves portray the struggle of human beings to understand the world they live in and, in turn, to give a metaphorical expression to the corporeality. However, one theory has always stood out from the rest (not only in the corporeal field) as the official one dismissing any dissident views as a way of establishing some order and universal pattern among human beings. Therefore, to conceive a broad and meaningful view on the body the debate has to engage with all the lines of theorization possible2. This will give a solid base to the analysis of how the corporeal and mind reality in Wallace’s Infinite Jest is constructed and how through the incorporation of different influential lines of research a distinct perspective on the novel is enabled. Mainly through art, science, neuropsychology and philosophy this research attempts to seek a thorough study and interpretation of Wallace’s words in Infinite Jest. Configuring the body as a key site for literary, scien-
2 The studies taken into major use in this thesis are of disability theories, neuropsychology, postmodern theories of the body and any other relevant critics that discuss the history and the current state of body and mind.