r/InfiniteJest

I decided to upgrade my routine and bought a stainless steel tongue scraper a few weeks ago. I always thought brushing was enough but the amount of buildup that came off the first time was honestly life changing and kind of terrifying. My mouth felt so light and fresh like I had just finished a professional cleaning. But then the side effects started kicking in and I realized I had accidentally turned my nose into a high precision instrument.

The issue is that without that layer on your tongue your taste buds and sense of smell just peak. I can taste every single note in my morning tea now but the trade off is that I can smell literally everything in my house. I can detect a single damp gym sock in the laundry basket from three rooms away. I found myself deep cleaning the fridge at 11 PM because I could swear I smelled a lemon that was slightly past its prime. It is like I have traded my peace of mind for the tracking skills of a bloodhound .

I used to just walk through my day being totally oblivious to the scents around me. Now every room has a distinct profile and I am constantly on edge. I went into my favorite coffee shop yesterday and had to leave because the smell of the roasted beans combined with the milk steamer was suddenly so overwhelming I thought I would get a migraine. I am obsessed with how clean my mouth feels but I hate being this hyper-aware.

I have started buying unscented everything because any artificial fragrance now feels like a physical punch to the face . It is a weird spot to be in where you finally have perfect hygiene but you kind of miss being a little bit numb to the world. If you decide to get one just know that you are going to find out exactly what your house smells like and you might not like the answer.

I guess I am just doomed to be the girl who carries around a bottle of essential oils just to have one safe thing to smell when the air gets too loud.

I have 200 pages left in this behemoth. Started back in February, right after Valentine’s Day. Loving every minute of it, very stimulating read after spending the last few years reading Pynchon, Gaddis, Gass etc. I will say I was expecting more of their influence but DFW reminds me most of the master DeLillo. Please rally me up as I race towards the finish line

At the tail end of my first read, and having gone through the many posts debating whether or not Molly Notkin’s story about the acid-flinging is true, I couldn’t find any mention of what seems like a crucial passage on page 940, when JvD is being interviewed by Steeply as to the location of the Master:

“When he talked about this thing as a quote perfect entertainment, terminally compelling — it was always ironic — he was having a sly little jab at me. I used to go around saying the veil was to disguise lethal perfection, that I was too lethally beautiful for people to stand. It was a kind of joke I’d gotten from one of his entertainments, the Medusa-Odalisk thing. That even in U.H.I.D. I hid by hiddenness, in denial about the deformity itself. So Jim took a failed piece and told me it was too perfect to release — it’d paralyze people. It was entirely clear that it was an ironic joke. To me.”

Now obviously Joelle misread J.O.I here, because no one in this book can communicate themselves properly, but equally obviously her misreading says a lot about herself and her insecurities, in that she evidently believes herself to have been hideously deformed and not using the veil to hide her overwhelming beauty. Of course she might be lying to Steeply — a double-blind lie about her face — but I can’t imagine why she would, considering she doesn’t believe in the Entertainment’s power anyways. Any insight?

I'm in the middle of my fourth read and as per usual loving every sentence and second I have the privilege of spending in this world thanks to DFW. With every read I feel like I get a better understanding of the characters and, even though a film adaptation would most likely be awful, or at the very least, unfilmable, I always get a slight twinge of yearning to see these characters on the big screen.
Having said that, if you had an unlimited budget, which actors would you cast? for the IJ characters?

I'll start:

Jon Cena as Don Gately - Just add a Prince Valiant cut and you've got the heart-of-gold IJ hero, who by all appearances has a heart of gold IRL.

Other ideas?