That Took A Left Turn

Pages Read: 10

Pages To Go: 968

What the hell just happened?

I mentioned a bit earlier that we might be dealing with an unreliable narrator. That was an understatement.

We’re less than 10 pages in, and Hal has been wrestled to the ground by his interviewers, who are thoroughly freaked out by his behavior. It’s clear that what’s happening in his mind is very much disconnected from whatever reality is happening around him, and so we the readers have no idea what to trust.

With very little to work on so far, I see three main possibilities:

1. Hal is not in control of his actions, almost as if he’s a prisoner of his own mind.
2. Hal is making up how the administrators are reacting, perhaps as a metaphorical representation of how he feels.
3. Hal is making everything up.

There’s a lot going on in this episode, but to try and make sense of it now is probably impossible. If I come back and reread the first ten pages after I’ve finished, I expect everything will take on a very different connotation.

And if it doesn’t, then perhaps all the fuss about Infinite Jest is unwarranted.

Also of note, I’ve been reading a lot of philosophy, and listening to philosophy podcasts, so the part where Hal says/thinks about Kierkegaard* and Camus and Rousseau and Hobbes made me feel like it was all worth it, since I had an inkling of understanding what the references were. Yay, philosophy!

*Side note: Anytime anyone mentions Kierkegaard I immediately think of Family Ties. Deep cuts!

You are reading my live blog of Infinite Jest. Start at the beginning.