Sentence by sentence annotations of (a very little bit of) Infinite Jest

Originally written for and to a friend.

Preface

forgive the fucking invented syntax. Inline diagramming is hell. I'm only tracking dependencies here. Mostly that's the part that interests me in sentence structure. the nature of each dependency is cool, but too much resolution for pacing/cadence concerns, which is your point of curiosity. Bold is for shit that's been referred to by something other than its neighbours, italics for pointers to such. Articles are ignored, even though they're of interest, because it interferes with other shit I want to point out.

Pronouns are underlined and resolved with the same italics shit.

To the extent that it's possible or easy, all references are made to things that have already been mentioned.

Work in progress, to be fiddled with when I feel like it.

YEAR OF GLAD

Ooh adjective used like a noun he nasty (is it the brand? it's the brand, isn't it)

1

I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies.

What a fucking opening sentence.

I <- am <- seated <- in <- {an office}, am <- surrounded <- by <- {heads <- and -> bodies}.

• Present tense copula Establishing shot.

  • Also straight off, passive voice. Not "I sit", not even the present continuous "I am sitting", which is still a copula + adjective, but "I am seated", as if he's been seated there by somebody who may or may not be him.

• Other consequence of copula - the two things he is are "seated" and "surounded". Seems to equate the self-configuration and the context in which he finds himself - something like a pun on "I am in this position"

  • lets the zoom-out happen without pause for other helpers - "I am this way" becomes "I am in this place" without pause.

• Config before context. It's a zoom out.

• "Heads and bodies" - a disorienting distinction to make.

• Note the cadence. I am sea-ted in an off-ice, sur-round-ed by heads and bod-ies. Almost dactylic. The little lilt on heads and bodies is inevitable and feels playful (in context, a bit dark).

• No contraction, the better to preserve cadence, the better to make it as awkward as possible.

2

My posture is consciously congruent to the shape of my hard chair.

{My -> posture} <- is <- {consciously -> congruent} <- to <- {the shape <- of <- {[my, hard] -> chair}}.

• Notice the verb dependency and every prepositional dependency goes backwards in the sentence, but the sentence has lots of adjectives, so you have to wait for them to be over before the noun shows up and you can chunk it. But by then, there's another dangling reference to resolve.

  • viz.

    • "is" - is what?

    • "consciously congruent" - to what?

    • "the shape" - of what?

    • "my hard chair"

  • where the accents above are on the adjectives, tripping you up in answering your questions, forcing you to pause and chunk this bit before weaving it into your open context.

  • I don't mean to say these are conscious pauses or questions - more that on a level, there's a sensation of grasping and falling short as you move through the sentence. It doesn't carry you, it slows you down.

  • the sounds, again! cadence, alliteration. My pos-ture is con-sciously con-gruent. So many dactyls that it could be sung as a lyric.

3

This is a cold room in University Administration, wood-walled, Remington-hung, double-windowed against the November heat, insulated from Administrative sounds by the reception area outside, at which Uncle Charles, Mr. deLint and I were lately received.

This <- is <- { a cold -> room} <- in <- {University -> Administration}, room <- {Remington -> hung}, room <- {double-windowed <- against <- {the November -> heat}}, room <- {insulated <- from <- {Administrative -> sounds} insulated <- by <- {the reception -> area <- outside}}, room <- which <- at {and -> Uncle Charles, and -> Mr. deLint, and -> I} -> were -> received lately -> received <- at.

Jesus fuck. Look at the contexts he's switching between on a fucking hair pin curve. This man abuses the fuck out of his copulae. Everything is a fucking adjective or relative clause. (Here btw is a good example of a relative clause - "at which Uncle Charles, Mr. deLint, and I were lately received.") The only reason to use these is because the order of presentation puts the emphases in the right place for your connotation goals.

Also notice the steady increase in sentence length and complexity, scaling user attention demands; as well the echo of body position, place position from 1 in 2 , 3; it echoes the zoom-out, providing more and more context as we proceed. The elaborative retreading of covered ground is a thing that the writing of dialogue might also draw from, since dialogue structure does often perform the function of Elaborating. (old remembered lessons from CL coming interestingly to the fore.) But because he hasn't committed to any address yet, is still in this removed-as-fuck first-person passive voice, already the questions and hypotheses of the reader must draw on the introspective and the dissociative - maybe he's just come awake? Why does the "stage setting" include him as a prop? Is this a satire (for this level of detail presented in this idiosnycratic way certainly feels as though it might be mocking)?

All half-formed, of course, easily morphed and discarded as the reader progresses. But enough will linger to cast an affect far further ahead than the specific suppositions might survive. This is what mood is made of.

4

I am in here.

I <- am <- in <- here.

aaaand we're still in copulae.

Notice the abruptness, the "wait what didn't I know that" scramble coupled with the "oh right yeah he's been weirdly dissociated in his narrative until now anyway". A bnuch of potentialities resolve themselves - indeed this narrating weirdo is a little wonky in the self-image (and perhaps also in the world-image), and thus it's possible that the funhouse mirror nature setting exposition may not be parody, but an artifact of lens skew.

In addition, the pacing makes this sentence like a fullstop. The Reader's attention, that has been steadily scaling in response to demand for the last three sentences, is fully brought to bear, and like a sccreeeeech-stop in a Looney Tunes short, needs to put a little too mch effort into the pace adjustment. What would otherwise have been an unremarkable sentence, in light of all built context forcibly applied, becomes a moment of surprise and reflection, between breaths where you can hear your own heart beat for perhaps a few more paces than is comfortable. This sort of pace-variance trick is easy to overuse, easy to disenchant a reader with, but the yakety-sax parodylike tone of what we've seen so far - no matter how we may be reevaluating it now (and I'm still not sure) - make it perversely difficult to not take this instance of it seriously.

(Alternate reading: if you're forced to wonder whether an author is making fun of you, it becomes suprisingly difficult to make fun of them.)

Infinite Jest annotations task list

5

Three faces have resolved into place above summer-weight sportcoats and half-Windsors across a polished pine conference table shiny with the spidered light of an Arizona noon.

These are three Deans — of Admissions, Academic Affairs, Athletic Affairs.

I do not know which face belongs to whom.

I believe I appear neutral, maybe even pleasant, though I've been coached to err on the side of neutrality and not attempt what would feel to me like a pleasant expression or smile.

I have committed to crossing my legs I hope carefully, ankle on knee, hands together in the lap of my slacks.

My fingers are mated into a mirrored series of what manifests, to me, as the letter X. The interview room's other personnel include: the University's Director of Composition, its varsity tennis coach, and Academy prorector Mr. A. deLint.

C.T. is beside me; the others sit, stand and stand, respectively, at the periphery of my focus.

The tennis coach jingles pocket-change.

There is something vaguely digestive about the room's odor. The high-traction sole of my complimentary Nike sneaker runs parallel to the wobbling loafer of my mother's half-brother, here in his capacity as Headmaster, sitting in the chair to what I hope is my immediate right, also facing Deans.

The Dean at left, a lean yellowish man whose fixed smile nevertheless has the impermanent quality of something stamped into uncooperative material, is apersonality-type I've come lately to appreciate, the type who delays need of any response from me by relating my side of the story for me, to me.

Passed a packet of computer-sheets by the shaggy lion of a Dean at center, he is speaking more or less to these pages, smiling down.

'You are Harold Incandenza, eighteen, date of secondary-school graduation approximately one month from now, attending the Enfield Tennis Academy, Enfield, Massachusetts, a boarding school, where you reside.' His reading glasses are rectangular, court-shaped, the sidelines at top and bottom.

'You are, according to Coach White and Dean [unintelligible], a regionally, nationally, and continentally ranked junior tennis player, a potential O.N.A.N.C.A.A. athlete of substantial promise, recruited by Coach White via correspondence with Dr. Tavis here commencing... February of this year.'

The top page is removed and brought around neatly to the bottom of the sheaf, at intervals.

'You have been in residence at the Enfield Tennis Academy since age seven.'

I am debating whether to risk scratching the right side of my jaw, where there is a wen.

'Coach White informs our offices that he holds the Enfield Tennis Academy's program and achievements in high regard, that the University of Arizona tennis squad has profited from the prior matriculation of several former E.T.A. alumni, one of whom was one Mr. Aubrey F. deLint, who appears also to be with you here today.

Coach White and his staff have given us —'

The yellow administrator's usage is on the whole undistinguished, though I have to admit he's made himself understood.

The Director of Composition seems to have more than the normal number of eyebrows. The Dean at right is looking at my face a bit strangely.

* Uncle Charles is saying that though he can anticipate that the Deans might be predisposed to weigh what he avers as coming from his possible appearance as a kind of cheerleader for E.T.A., he can assure the assembled Deans that all this is true, and that the Academy has presently in residence no fewer than a third of the continent's top thirty juniors, in age brackets all across the board, and that I here, who go by 'Hal,' usually, am 'right up there among the very cream.'

Right and center Deans smile professionally; the heads of deLint and the coach incline as the Dean at left clears his throat:'— belief that you could well make, even as a freshman, a real contribution to this University's varsity tennis program. We are pleased,' he either says or reads, removing a page, 'that a competition of some major sort here has brought you down and given us the chance to sit down and chat together about your application and potential recruitment and matriculation and scholarship.'

'I've been asked to add that Hal here is seeded third, Boys' 18-and-Under Singles, in the prestigious WhataBurger Southwest Junior Invitational out at the Randolph Tennis Center —' says what I infer is Athletic Affairs, his cocked head showing a freckled scalp.

'Out at Randolph Park, near the outstanding El Con Marriott,' C.T. inserts, 'a venue the whole contingent's been vocal about finding absolutely top-hole thus far, which —'

'Just so, Chuck, and that according to Chuck here Hal has already justified his seed, he's reached the semifinals as of this morning's apparently impressive win, and that he'llbe playing out at the Center again tomorrow, against the winner of a quarterfinal game tonight, and so will be playing tomorrow at I believe scheduled for 0830 —'

'Try to get under way before the godawful heat out there. Though of course a dry heat.'