So now I know the story of Orin Incandenza. I know just how he fared as a junior tennis player, why he made the switch to football, and what became of him while his lady love was intercepted by his dad's obsession with film. It feels like I've just ingested a chunk of information broken off of an underground vein, like I've just taken in an entire pink salt sheet's worth of information.
And still the plot's obscured. Locked behind not a wall of ice that could easily melt, but a wall of salt that has to be licked away, stroke by stroke.
It's a shame, too, since the end of the last chapter, chronicling the antics and relations had on the bus ride back to E.T.A. from the tournament Hal and co. were attending was genuinely entertaining. Particularly in the same way that Ben Horne is entertained in the second season of Twin Peaks by old home movies; Wallace captures the feel of the teenage field trip bus ride excellently. And he's also not too far off the mark, when writing that grad school is a delay of the real world and an elongation of adolescence in an endnote (#94).
If only there were more references to people doing Pierre Trudeau impressions (pages 282-83), pre-plot Infinite Jest would be a more even read.
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