David Foster Wallace Quote
The infinite joke —Infinite jest, in English—is the second novel written by the late American writer, essayist, and professor David Foster Wallace, after his debut work The system broom. Infinite jest was published in 1996, and is considered the author's greatest work, as well as one of the hundred best and most representative novels of the XNUMXth century according to the magazine Time.
Thanks to its multiple themes It is framed in genres such as satire, science fiction, philosophical novel, tragicomedy, psychological novel and dystopia.. The narration makes use of combinations of techniques such as internal dialogue, fictional biography, and alternation of narrators. The infinite joke It has more than a thousand pages, and many of them have footnotes.
About the context of The infinite joke
the clear dystopia
The work is loaded with a complex atmosphere full of nuances. It is set in an ultra-capitalist America —where, even, the name of the years is sponsored by large industries—. Governs the totalitarian ecological regime of the ONAN, which is run by the shadowy Bureau of Unspecified Services. These, in turn, are in a perpetual war against the anti-ONANism of the Quebec population.
unexpected crossroads
In this warlike panorama several plots are generated that seem not to be related to each other. Nevertheless, As the events unfold, the characters meet and intertwine to resolve their own conflicts.. These events take place in two main settings: a detox center and a tennis academy.
A tennis academy and a rehabilitation center
The Enfield Tennis Academy is an elite complex for high performance athletes. Su philosophy of training is the abrogation of all human impetus. Meanwhile, the Ennet House for Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation is a center that uses religion and conversion to treat its users. Similarly, in these two scenarios four intertwined stories are told:
Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents
The first of them deals with a radical group of the population of Quebec, a Canadian province. This association is known as Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents —The Assassins in Wheelchairs; ASR— Radicalists plan a violent coup against ONAN intelligence.
ennet house
The second story tells how the resistance of the Boston area becomes increasingly submerged in the consumption of narcotics. To rehabilitate themselves, they enter the Ennet House as an emergency. They are also supported by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) as well as Narcotics Anonymous (NA).
Enfield Tennis Academy
the third frame focuses on students from the prestigious Enfield Tennis Academy. This school was founded by the late James Incandenza. After Incandenza's death, his widow, Avril, takes control of the school with her adoptive brother, Charles Tavis.
The Incandenza family
The fourth and last of the narratives tells the story of the Incandenza family. Likewise, speaks of Hal, the youngest of its members.
The Infinite Joke: The Nexus
all these sequences and narrator changes are related through a movie called The infinite joke. In the novel this work is also known as “entertainment” or “the samizdat”. In relation to this film, viewers find it so entertaining that their only goal is to watch it a number of times, until they die of starvation.
However, all this is just the shell of the story. Foster Wallace writes very clearly about the dark places addicts inhabit and consumers of all kinds. Despite the obvious fiction in the stories, many critics have placed The infinite joke as a work of historical realism, due to the way in which the events are narrated until they are taken to an unrecognizable place.
Main characters
With a novel of such magnitude and complexity, it may be a bit confusing to find one or several main characters. Nevertheless, These people are the ones who make the greatest contribution in history., and are also the most recognizable:
Avril Incandenza
Is a dominant and beautiful woman. When James died, her husband, Avril turns head of Enfield Tennis Academy. Likewise, she maintains a relationship —perhaps since before the death of her spouse— with Charles Tavis, who is her adoptive brother.
April has several phobias, among them are: agoraphobia, closed doors, ceiling lights and germs. Also, she is obsessed with keeping an eye on her two youngest children.
Hal Incandenza
Hal he is the youngest son of the Incandenza family. It is probable that he is also the main character of the novel, since the events that are narrated in the work revolve around his stay at the Enfield Tennis Academy.
He is a gifted young man, smart and very talented. But you feel insecure about his abilities, and subsequently about the sanity of his mind.
James Orin Incandenza Jr.
This man is the avril's husband, as well as the father of the Incandenza children —Orin, Mario and Hal—. He was also the founder and director of the Enfield Tennis Academy. James possesses a tireless ingenuity: he is an expert optician and filmographer, as well as a creator of infinite joke, a mysterious and addictive movie.
Your relationship with Orin, Mario and Hal Is very complicated.
Mario Incandenza
He is the second son of the Incandenza family, although he could be the result of the relationship between Avril and Charles Tavis. He has multiple congenital deformities, and is a slow learner. But he is also very friendly and always seems to be in a good mood. Like his father, he is a talented filmmaker, and when James dies, Mario inherits all of his production tools.
Orin Incandenza
This is the firstborn of the Incandenza. He is also the kicker for the Phoenix Cardinals football team, and a certified heartthrob. He is a man who isolates himself from the rest of his family, and, like all its members, has a tense relationship with his relatives. The center of all his conquests are young mothers.
About the author, David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace was born in 1962, in New York, United States. Son of philosophers and writers, studied at Amherst College, where he majored in English and philosophy. He also specialized in mathematics and modal logic.
Your doctoral thesis, Richard Taylor's 'fatalism' and the semantics of physical modality, was published by New York Times posthumously in 2008. For her he received the Gail Kennedy Memorial Award. In 1987 he received a bachelor's degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona.
Foster Wallace passed away in 2008 at the age of 46.. The cause of his death was suicide. His father, James D. Wallace, affirms that the writer suffered from depression for some years, and that the lack of functionality of his treatment left him without the tools to deal with his illness.
Other works by David Foster Wallace
Novels
- pale king (2011) - the pale king.
Tales
- Girl with Curious Hair (1989) - The girl with the weird hair;
- Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999) - Short interviews with repulsive men;
- Oblivion: Stories (2004) - Extinction.