Like this:

It has been suggested that readers who slog through the first 200 pages of Infinite Jest are rewarded with a second wind of sorts. At this point in the narrative, David Foster Wallace lays out a sweeping landscape of all things re/ to substance abuse and addiction. In no certain terms, he defines addiction as “either a disease or a mental illness or a spiritual condition [sic] or an O.C.D.-like disorder or an affective or character disorder” (203). He suggests substance-addicted people “have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking” (203). Perhaps as a cautionary note, he reminds us that gambling, work, shopping, shoplifting, sex, abstention, masturbation, food, exercise and prayer are may all be forms of “abusable escape” (202).

This section of the novel, for me, was affirming in a couple of ways. In the first place, DFW is giving a more detailed and sinister face to one of the underlying themes of the story.  By including theories, data, and anecdotes (within the context of the Ennet House), we are, at the very least, in just five pages of straight-forward prose, provided with a boarding pass for the voyage. As readers, we can take this information and apply it retroactively to characters we have already met, but also have it at our disposal as we move forward.

Naturally, twelve pages later, we see the first reference to Joelle van Dyne (a.k.a Madame P). When Wallace states, “The truth is that the hours before a suicide are usually an interval of enormous conceit and self involvement,” (220) we know Joelle’s motivation from the outset. Cloaked in a linen veil, Joelle sets out to procure the home-made implements for smoking enough free-base cocaine that she will “get so high that she’s going to fall down and stop breathing and turn blue and die” (222). At this point in the novel we have encountered multiple characters plagued by some form of addiction.  While Hal and Erdedy have their own rituals involving marijuana, Kate has attempted suicide on multiple occasions, and Himself actually succeeded in doing so. Was DFW making a statement vis-à-vis the connection between substance abuse/suicide connection?

 On her way to purchase drugs, Joelle meets a dapper black gentleman (Henry Louis Gates?) on the subway platform. He inquires about her veil and they exchange pleasantries. I must confess, reading this section I found myself hoping the stranger was imbued with a sense of wisdom that would somehow counteract Joelle’s hopeless predicament and make her want to live. What does it say about the circumstances of the characters in the novel, when I, as the reader, am trying to impose my own outcomes upon them? Are they all destined to die in the end? Is DFW saying life is hopeless and that we might as well expedite our ultimate fate?

Pages 200 – 300 were breezy by comparison, but I am still waiting for a second wind of a different sort. Perhaps this will come in the form of a character who has identified a reason to live.