Don't Touch that Dial

As if things weren't dense enough, a recent section of Infinite Jest proved that it can be much more so.

It's a section concentrating on Mario and Madame Psychosis' radio hour. What makes the chapter stand out from those seen thus far is that it is entirely centered around the radio. Three characters are followed in this section: the sound engineer, Madam Psychosis, and Mario. But the only thing connecting them is their relationship to the radio during the time of Madam Psychosis' broadcast.

For such an ethereal layout, the most grounding of the three characters is Madam Psychosis. Her parts are so grounding in part because of the chant-like list of diseases and disabilities that she reads from. The engineer, being nothing more than a student and given very little in the way of dialogue, is the most ephemeral. Mario isn't somewhere in between these two, but is instead made to be a deeper mystery than he's ever been before. He's definitely deeply intelligent, though he's socially witless in the extreme.

On top of following three characters connected by radio waves, this sections' endnotes are all just above another very long entry. As such, every flip to the back of the book filled me with dread.

Reading Too Far in tandem with Infinite Jest has made the former feel like a quick read. But now it seems that doing so has also made the latter even more daunting.