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1-Page Summary of Infinite Jest

Overview

A novel that’s hard to summarize, Infinite Jest begins with a scene at the latest chronological point in its story: in the “Year of Glad,” which is the final year of nine-year Subsidized Time calendar in O.N.A.N., a nation made up of parts of the former United States and Canada. The novel opens with Hal Incandenza undergoing an admissions interview at the University of Arizona, but he seems to have a panic attack and gets rushed to hospital immediately.

Hal’s story begins when he was a young boy and swallowed some mold from his family basement. His mother freaked out, which is unusual because she usually portrays herself as calm and collected in public. Hal looks back to this moment as an example of her anxiety that lies just beneath the surface of her normally composed exterior.

The Incandenza family is made up of a physicist father and an English professor mother. Their father was also a tennis player who founded the Enfield Tennis Academy, where Orin went to school as a child. His parents were divorced when he was young, so his mother moved with him to Boston. She liked their old home in Waltham better than Boston because she grew up on a potato farm in Quebec. The academy’s new headmaster after James died is Charles Tavis, Avril’s stepbrother (but possibly half-brother).

James Incandenza was the founder of E.T.A., and he ran it until his death, when his son Mario took over as director. However, because of Mario’s physical limitations (he can’t play tennis), he has less commitment than other students to the school. He acts as an assistant for James instead of focusing on running a school himself. Orin is Hal’s oldest brother; however, unlike the rest of them, he does not try to succeed in professional tennis or become a successful player on one of the satellite tours—instead, he goes to Boston University on scholarship with a stipend for tennis so that he can spend time with Joelle van Dyne (the PGOAT).

Most of the story takes place in Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment (Y.D.A.U.). Time has been subsidized because a famous Las Vegas singer turned politician named Johnny Gentle, who is head of the Clean U.S. Party, won the presidency on a platform to clean America by literally throwing away all trash into space and then later designating an area as a landfill for all American garbage called “the Great Concavity.” The landfills are being used by massive trebuchets that fling American garbage onto its eastern side, which results in environmental cycles never seen before in history.

Gentle, who was disgusted by the trash and uncleanliness of any sort, is also disgusted by the Concavity. As the leader of O.N.A.N., he ceded it to Canada as a “gift.” However, they didn’t want it at first because they thought that it would be too expensive for them to maintain, but Gentle pressed on until he got them to accept it anyway. In order to pay for reconfiguration without raising taxes, the Gentle administration proposed Subsidized Time which allowed corporations to sponsor years; in other words they were able to name each year after themselves (for example Burger King won Year of The Whopper). Most of Infinite Jest takes place during YDAU (Year of Dairy Products from the U.S.), which is one year before Subsidized Time ends with Year of Gladness

A separatist movement has existed in Canada since before the formation of O.N.A.N., and especially after its creation, which is a threat to Quebec’s health because it borders on the Concavity (a toxic waste dump). The Wheelchair Assassins are involved with this group, but they’re also working for other groups who want to take over Canada or at least parts of it.