Infinite Jest

This is the opening passage of Chapter 69, which describes the increased anxiety that comes with Joelle’s recovery from cocaine addiction. During her addiction, she didn’t care very much about anything other than getting high. Now, without the distraction of focusing only on her Substance, Joelle is left facing the harsh realities of life, including the fact that substance abuse has seriously damaged her teeth.

This quotation highlights yet another dimension of the difficulty of recovery. Joelle is left thinking “obsessively” about her teeth in the way that she once thought obsessively about cocaine. As the beginning of the passage indicates, it can be hard to find a balanced, healthy way of caring about things when for so long the only care one had was consuming drugs.

Joelle has been thinking about Orin and the whole Incandenza family. Although Orin thought his family issues were unique and serious, Joelle considered them to actually be rather “banal.” She thinks about James’s film work, which she concludes is “amateurish.” In this passage, she then questions whether this assessment is correct. Her thoughts help explain why James’s work was so popular among film scholars and arthouse film fanatics but gained little popular success: there was none of the emotional momentum (or “towardness”) that audiences expect from film.

It is possible to read this passage as a self-conscious reference to Wallace’s own writing and Infinite Jest in particular. While Wallace did end up achieving a significant amount of fame and popular success for an author of experimental literary fiction, it would certainly be fair to argue that Infinite Jest is both “technically gorgeous” and lacking in “narrative movement.” It is equally possible that Wallace is mocking such interpretations of his work or showing a kind of self-deprecating appreciation for them.

This is the opening passage of Chapter 69, which describes the increased anxiety that comes with Joelle’s recovery from cocaine addiction. During her addiction, she didn’t care very much about anything other than getting high. Now, without the distraction of focusing only on her Substance, Joelle is left facing the harsh realities of life, including the fact that substance abuse has seriously damaged her teeth.

This quotation highlights yet another dimension of the difficulty of recovery. Joelle is left thinking “obsessively” about her teeth in the way that she once thought obsessively about cocaine. As the beginning of the passage indicates, it can be hard to find a balanced, healthy way of caring about things when for so long the only care one had was consuming drugs.

Joelle has been thinking about Orin and the whole Incandenza family. Although Orin thought his family issues were unique and serious, Joelle considered them to actually be rather “banal.” She thinks about James’s film work, which she concludes is “amateurish.” In this passage, she then questions whether this assessment is correct. Her thoughts help explain why James’s work was so popular among film scholars and arthouse film fanatics but gained little popular success: there was none of the emotional momentum (or “towardness”) that audiences expect from film.

It is possible to read this passage as a self-conscious reference to Wallace’s own writing and Infinite Jest in particular. While Wallace did end up achieving a significant amount of fame and popular success for an author of experimental literary fiction, it would certainly be fair to argue that Infinite Jest is both “technically gorgeous” and lacking in “narrative movement.” It is equally possible that Wallace is mocking such interpretations of his work or showing a kind of self-deprecating appreciation for them.