One of my favorite parts of this book so far is the chapter entitled "Santa Monica" starting on 442. Waterhouse's description of Santa Monica pier, and especially the plants and design of the area is hysterical and quite true. "The are too geometric and perfect. They are schematic diagrams for plants sketched out by some impossibly modern designer with a strong eye for geometry but who has never been out in a woods and seen a real plant. They don't even grow out of any recognizable organic matrix, they are embedded in sterile ochre dust that passes for soili n this part of the country."
All the beach towns in Southern California have this feel- beautiful but somehow not real. Santa Monica to Venice Beach to Laguna- they're perfect for those TV dramas. Of course, there is the litter and the screaming kids and the too-many-seagulls, but the landscaping is very much other-worldly.

While reading this section, I was very confused about Qwghlm and the Qwghlmian people that kept appearing in Lawerence Waterhouse's storyline. I figured out it was close to England, but I didn't know if it was a code (with the mixed up letters, shown in other parts of the book) or what.
Wikipedia, as usual, sheds some light:
Qwghlm is a fictional location, featured in the books Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. Qwghlm consists of a pair of islands, Inner Qwghlm and Outer Qwghlm, off the northwestern coast of Great Britain. The islands are geographically similar to the Hebrides. It is somewhat of a parody of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and their mutual dislike for the others' way of life and religion. According to Stephenson, a very approximate pronunciation of "Qwghlm" is Taggum.

Book number four!

Firstly, I find this book hilarious. I've read aloud multiple passages to my friends/roommate (eventually they got annoyed I was reading so much) My favorite was the first paragraphs of the first chapter (Barrens, p. 5)
"After about three billion years of this sometimes zany, frequently tedious fugue of carnality and carnage, Godfrey Waterhouse IV was boring in Murdo, South Dakota...Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass"
excellent. that means the rest of us are stupendous badasses as well =)

I also found the passage starting on page 58 very funny.

The last word of Underworld was "Peace", which obviously had some deeper meaning.
Here, however, the last words are "And when he came back to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand, and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was out."
Not a very cheery scene really. At first, I found it interesting that Wallace decided to end with Gately and not one of the Incandenza's. But then I decided I knew most about Gately anyway- he was the most transparent character in the end. Or the character tha we know the most about. Most of the questions about Gately were resolved (unlike Hal and Orin, I thought, but maybe I missed something. always a possibility)

I'm wondering why Wallace decided to include so much vital information in the footnotes section! This section of reading was especially footnote-heavy, with two entire chapters in the footnotes instead of the main text (fn #324 and #332). These footnotes even start with the classic "17 November- Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment" heading. I don't understand the stylistic reasoninig behind putting such info in the footnotes. Anyone have any ideas?

This has already been posted on a billion times, I know, I'm just too lazy to find the right post to comment on.

On 677 Ms. Steeply (the reporter) and DeLint and watching the match between Hal and Stice and DeLint talks about the pressures of winning- "Winning two and three upset matches, feeling suddenly so loved,so many talking to you as if there is love. But always the same, then. For then you awaken to the fact that you are loved for winning only. The two and three wins created you, for people. It is not that the wins made them recognize something that existed unrecognized before these upset wins. The from-noplace winning created you. You must keep winning to keep the existence of love and endorsements and the shiny magazines wanting your profile."

I find it intreguing how many people worry about Madame Psychosis and her radio show after Joelle has "vanished". Several sections of this book are dedicated to the steps that the MIT radio station takes in the wake of madame psychosis- first Madame diagnosis (who reads scripture in pig-latin, and was generally ill-received. as she should have been), then just playing the background music on loop for an entire hour. People call in, even forge to the basement of the recording studio to inquire about her. the engineer answers phone calls "at once denying and encouraging rumors of suicide, institutionalization, spiritual crisis, silent retreat, pilgrimage to the snow-capped East." People just refuse to let het it go- her show someone captivated them like none of the cartridges or other entertainment did. some "have this firm conviction that Madame was still actually still showing up and sitting there by the mike but not saying anything."

At the very beginning of this section Poor Tony Krause is withdrawing from heroin and also the grain alcohol that was in the cough medicine he was drinking. Wallace ties Tony directly in with time, which I thought was kinda cool. The excruciating agony that he was going through was extended and Tony's perception of time was completed distorted.
"Time began to take on new aspects for him, now, as Withdrawl progressed. Time began to pass with sharp edges. Its passage in the dark or dimlit stall was like time was being carried by a procession of ants...Byt the second week in the stall time itself seemed the corridor, lightless at either end...after more time time then ceased to move or be moved" (302)

Everyone should read the acknowlegements on the copyright page in the front of Infinite Jest. It especially pertains to this block of reading and the long explanations of the AA meetings.
"Besides Closed Meetings for alcoholics only, Alcoholics Anonymous in Boston, Massachusetts, also has Open Meetings, where pretty much anybody who's interested can come and listen, take notes, pester people with questions, etc. A lot of people at these Open Meetings spoke with me and were extremely patient and garrulous and generous and helpful. The best way I can think of to show my appreciations to these men and women is to decline to thank them by name."

I found the section that finally describes how and when Nick killed to be surprisingly disturbing and haunting. It starts on page 778 and ends right before the epilouge of the book. This scene is supposed to be the climax of the novel, even though it happened before most of the action. Underworld does follows the classic structure of a novel (intro, rising action, climax, falling action, conclusion), except for the movement of time.
Anyway, I think this is probably the most emotional scene in the book, which would make sense as this is what forms Nick's character and estranges him from his brother, and makes him a "country of one". The description of George, "the little brightness in his eye", is startling. And obviously we ask- did he want to die? Was he playing Russian roulette- almost daring Nick to pull the trigger? Certainly seems like that, and Nick thinks so too. The repetition of "the way the man said no when he asked if it was loaded" and "first he poined the gun at the man's head" simulates Nick's thoughts- over and over and over- what just happened? This section is very well written and it shows more personality insight than we get in most of the rest of the book.