Further notes on narrators

It's been a while since I came across them, but another two of Infinite Jest's endnotes offer clues to the book's narrator. These two are 293 and 294.

Both of these notes refer to a section of the book that follows Joelle van Dyne. One note offers an explanation of Joelle's background in such a way that it's clear that the note's not written by Joelle (293). The other note offers a parenthetical addition to one of Joelle's thoughts. This latter one makes its writer/speaker seem omniscient. The earlier one is definitely in the third person, and comes from an outside perspective.

So, assuming that all of the notes are written by the same person, it seems that the book's master narrator is someone outside of the story. Yet, there's at least one note that is a regular section unto itself (sections being from certain characters' perspectives), suggesting that if all of Infinite Jest's notes are written by one person,that person isn't just omniscient, but also in control of the characters themselves. In other words, the note writer is simply the author himself.

This figure isn't necessarily David Foster Wallace, however. He could be yet another character whose background and description are built by what's annotated and what's not.