ellauri022.html on line 341: Out of the window like a wraith,
ellauri077.html on line 621: If we take the Incandenza-wraith’s claim that “Infinite Jest” was his last, desperate attempt to reconnect with Hal, to “simply converse”(IJ 838, original emphasis), as fact, this means that the actual product does just the opposite of what it was meant to. It instead traps the viewer in a solipsistic cage out of which there seems to be no escape.
ellauri082.html on line 123: But at the same time, Hal’s condition deepens. Ever since Hal ate the mold as a child, he’s been a brilliant communicator but unable to feel. (694: “Hal himself hasn’t had a bona fide intensity-of-interior-life-type emotion since he was tiny … in fact he’s far more robotic than John Wayne.”) JOI was the only one who could see it. In life, everyone thought JOI was just being crazy but in death (as a wraith) he can actually read Hal’s thoughts and thus confirm his view.
ellauri082.html on line 127: JOI’s wraith is responsible for the strange disturbances around ETA — tripods in the forest, moving Ortho’s bed, ceiling tiles on the floor. He knocks the ceiling tiles down in an attempt to find the DMZ. Pemulis is too distracted with getting expelled to have Hal take it, so JOI needs to get it to Hal some other way.
ellauri082.html on line 129: Described as coming from a kind of mold that “grows on other molds,” DMZ is an incredibly powerful and mysterious hallucinogen. It can have many different effects but often seems to transform a person’s ability to communicate. It is also nicknamed “Madame Psychosis,” after Joelle’s radio persona. Michael Pemulis manages to acquire some, but it is stolen before he and Hal can take it. It’s suggested that Hal has been affected by DMZ by the time of the Year of Glad, but it’s unclear how—whether from eating a piece of mold as a child and then withdrawing from marijuana, or having his toothbrush laced with Pemulis’s drugs (possibly by James’s wraith). As a result of this presumed DMZ consumption, Hal is able to feel strong emotions (which was impossible for him before) but unable to communicate.
ellauri082.html on line 133: Hal never leaves leaves his toothbrush unattended (870), but that’s no problem for a wraith. He places the DMZ on Hal’s brush and Hal brushes his teeth (860) and immediately begins experiencing symptoms: Ortho thinks Hal’s crying when Hal thinks he’s speaking in a neutral tone (862).
ellauri082.html on line 145: Orin (who never attended his father’s funeral) went to the gravesite and dug up his father, releasing the wraith in the process. (244: “After a burial, rural Papineau-region Québecers purportedly drill a small hole down from ground level all the way down through the lid of the coffin, to let out the soul, if it wants out.”) Orin, who is such a partisan of his father that he feels the need to repeatedly ruin the lives of people like his mother, has been mailing the tapes to his father’s enemies in revenge: disapproving film critics in Berkeley and the medical attaché (whose affair with his mother drove Himself especially wild) in Boston. It’s possible he’s being influenced by the wraith in these actions.
xxx/ellauri200.html on line 675: and steer through winds contrary towards a wraith, Ja purjehtii vastatuuleen kohti jotain haaamua,
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