Infinite Jest

I have a Barnes and Noble problem. I have all of these books shoved haphazardly into this bookcase that is taller than me, books that I haven't read. My input rate is faster than my consumption rate. There is no mass balance here. I should be reading the books I haven't read yet, but instead I decided to read Infinite Jest again. (I like this copy - forward by Dave Eggers is good). I miss David Foster Wallace. I remember I was taking the Metra to Chicago for work when I found out he died. I felt so sick. In your life, you choose to put certain people on pedestals, and the result is nearly always painful in some way. Anyway, I had dog-eared this passage, which I am posting excerpts from here.

"Gompert, Katherine A., 21, Newton, MA. Data-clerical in a Wellesley Hills real estate office. Fourth hospitalization in three years, all clinical depression, unipolar. One series of electro-convulsive treatments out at Newton-Wellesley Hospital two years back. On Prozac for a short time, then Zoloft, most recently Parnate with a lithium kicker. Two previous suicide attempts, the second just this past summer. Bi-Valium discontinued two years, Xanax discontinued one year - ad admitted history of abusing prescribed meds. Depressions unipolar, fairly classic, characterized by acute dysphoria, anxiety w/panic, diurnal listlessness/agitation patterns, Ideation w/w/o Intent. First attempt, a CO-episode, garage's automobile had stalled before lethal hemotoxicity achieved. Then last year's attempt - no scarring now visible, her wrists' vascular nodes obscured by the insides of the knees she held. She continued to stare at the doorway where he first appeared. This latest attempt, a straightforward meds O.D. Admitted via the E.R. three nights past. Two days on ventilation after a Pump & Purge. Hypertensive crisis on the second day from a metabolic retox - she must have taken a hell of a lot of meds - the I.C.U. charge nurse had beeped the chaplain, so retox must have been bad. Almost died twice this time, Katherine Ann Gompert. Third day spent on 2-West for observation, Librium reluctantly administered for a B.P. that was all over the map. Now here on 5, his present arena. B.P. stable as of the last four readings. Next vitals at 1300h.

___

"The doctor chose his second-finest pen from the array in his white coat's breast pocket and made some sort of note on Kate Gompert's new chart for this particular psych ward. Crowded in among his pocket's pens was the rubber head of a diagnostic plexor. He asked Kate if she could tell him why she had wanted to hurt herself. Had she been angry at herself. At someone else. Had she ceased to feel as though her life had meaning to it. Had she heard anything like voices suggesting that she hurt herself.

___

"Kate Gompert stared at a point over the man's left shoulder. 'I wasn't trying to hurt myself. I was trying to kill myself. There's a difference.'

The doctor asked whether she could try to explain what she felt the difference was between those two things.

The delay that preceded her reply was only marginally longer than the pause in a regular civilian conversation. The doctor had no ideas about what this observation might indicate.

'Do you guys see different kinds of suicides?'

The resident made no attempt to ask Kate Gompert what she meant. She used one finger to remove some material from the corner of her mouth.

'I think there must probably be different types of suicides. I'm not one of the self-hating ones. The type like "I'm shit and the world'd be better off without poor me" type that says that but also imagines what everybody'll say at their funeral. I've met types like that on wards. Poor-me-I-hate-me-punish-me-come-to-my-funeral. Then they show you a 20 x 25 glossy of their dead cat. It's all self-pity bullshit. It's bullshit. I didn't have any special grudges. I didn't fail an exam or get dumped by anybody. All these types Hurt themselves.' Still that intriguing, unsettling combination of blank facial masking and conventionally animated vocal tone. The doctor's small nods were designed to appear not as responses but as invitations to continue, what Dretske called Momentumizers.

'I didn't want to especially hurt myself. Or like punish. I don't hate myself. I just wanted out. I didn't want to play anymore is all.'

'Play,' nodding in confirmation, making small, quick notes.

'I just wanted to stop being conscious. I'm a whole different type. I wanted to stop feeling this way. If I could have just put myself in a really long coma I would have done that. Or given myself shock. I would have done that. Instead.'

The doctor was writing with great industry.

'The last thing more I'd want is hurt. I just didn't want to feel this way anymore, I don't . . . I didn't believe this feeling would ever go away. I don't. I still don't. I'd rather feel nothing than this.'

___

"The doctor wrote down something much too brief to correspond directly to what she'd said. He was nodding both while he wrote and when he looked up. 'And yet this nauseated feeling has come and gone for you in the past, it's passed eventually during prior depressions, Katherine, has it not?'

'But when you're in the feeling you forget. The feeling feels like it's always been there and will always be there, and you forget. It's like this whole filter drops down over the whole way you think about everything, a couple weeks after --'

___

"Kate Gompert finally took a real breath. 'And then but no matter what I do it gets worse and worse, it's there more and more, this filter drops down, and the feeling makes the fear of the feeling way worse, and after a couple weeks it's there all the time, the feeling, and I'm totally inside it, I'm in it and everything has to pass through it to get in, and I don't want to smoke any Bob (Hope), and I don't want to work, or go out, or read, or watch TP, or go out, or stay in, or either do anything or not do anything, I don't want ANYTHING except for the feeling to go AWAY. But it doesn't. Part of the feeling is being like willing to do anything to make it go away. Understand that. ANYTHING. Do you understand? It's not wanting to hurt myself it's wanting to NOT HURT.'"

Wallace, David Foster. Infinite Jest. 1996. Back Bay Books / Little Brown and Company. New York, NY 10017. pp. 68-78.

I thought this was supremely interesting and hilarious. Depression is so horribly simple, but so very difficult for people who don't have it to understand. All of the characters in this book are fantastic. It is funny and human and raw. It isn't easy to get through. I am about a tenth of the way, but I already know it's worth it...

Now, if I just got the guts to attempt Ulysses again... Ugh.