IJ

[Michael Bailey]

ULG part II & 3 - no spoilers, just a few teasers
(went ahead and finished it, have had bunches of interruptions IRL
which seem to be continuing)

The tennis academy, and to a lesser extent, the tennis tour itself
begins to remind me of a Ring Lardner story ("You Could Look it Up")

Laugh out louds would be the Shriners at the execution, and the
uncomfortable hug at the Narcotics Anonymous meeting
(lachrymo-laughter)

tearjerker #1 for me would be Don Gately's neighbor baking him the cake

many short and a few of those enjoyable long footnotes (1* of Pemulis
describing the Mean Value Formula: the Peemster is a Loki-like
trickster but I'd love to have him for a math teacher; and also a
couple** of transcripts from an interview of Hal's brother conducted
by "Helen Steeply")

great description of Haldol's effects***

A brawl ensues at a session of Eschaton, which is a strategic game
played on tennis courts.  The idea is to enact nuclear warfare by
lobbing tennis balls accurately.  The Mean Value theorem allows game
officials to assign arsenals based on previous performance; heavy math
also comes into play in creating a microcosm on the courts that fairly
represents geo-political reality.  Eschaton's a creation of the
students, and Pemulis in particular had refined the rules.

It is he who is most upset at a breach of the rules (hitting a
player's person with a ball constitutes an unacceptable confusion of
map and territory) but he, Hal, Trevor Axford and Ann Kittenplan (a
name I cannot get out of my head the past few days) will have to face
the music...
...such music being conducted by the Moms's 1/2 brother CT who since
the demise of the Academy's founder (Hal's father) occupies the
Headmaster's office, and which music apparently will include tinkling
into glassware for urinalysis, though there's a cutaway at that point
and lots of clarificatory-expository jockeying through other plots and
other years

There is lots of convincing anecdotal evidence to prove that alcohol
and drug abuse are fraught with sadness.  This is told with clinical,
chemical and artistic detail and rings true (er, ah, that is I've
heard from people that it can go like that)

"Infinite Jest" is the title of a video, made by Incandenza Sr, which
stupefies people with pleasure. The governmental alarm at possible
dissemination of this video (by the Wheelchair assassins) is detailed
in a long intermittent conversation between a turncoat Wheelchair
assassin and government-agent-in-drag "Helen" Steeply

I found myself identifying more and more with Don Gately; but still
holding out hope for Hal Incandenza

Without getting into long exposition or spoilers, I found the
narrative shape very "different" and worthy of some meditation.
Lots and lots of continuity is available between scenes, so I know he
can link stuff up.  Also, almost every single one of the thousands of
long sentences parses (though I found what I consider to be a boo-boo
on page 693 in Hal's interior monologue, and another one a few pages
later in the Moms's actual speech, and these 2 characters seem not to
be ones inclined to solecism - though whether DFW committed these
deliberately to show the parties under stress, only he probably could
tell us) and he is lavish with detail.
So I can only figure that there is a reason for the - corrugation? -
Klein bottleish shape? - of the narrative arc and am speculating
furiously (may even have to read some criticism)

Anyway, heck of a yarn, and I'd say that one would enjoy this book, if
this is the type of book one enjoys (for me, it is)

* footnote 123, pg 1023
** footnotes 145, pg 1026, and 234, pg 1038
*** footnote 227, pg 1037