Avril's separatist involvements
This asks how deep Avril Incandenza's ties to the Québécois separatists run, and in particular whether she is secretly the shadowy figure Luria P—. It is contested because the novel plants real evidence of separatist connections while the full identity claim would require the narration to be misleading us in ways the rest of the book never is.
Scenes
Adjudication
This crux has an adversarial ledger: Wayne, Avril, and the A.F.R.. The per-reading verdicts are below.
Theories on this crux
| Reading | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Avril has real, pre-existing Québécois-separatist ties — but is (probably) not Luria P— | favored |
| Avril–Orin, and the parentage lattice | open |
Discussed in
- Community book club 2
- Community book club 4
- I Hate Infinite Jest ep. XXXII (pp. 938–981, the end) — guest Tim Eastwood: the ending-theories finale — the Lyle-toothbrush DMZ walkthrough, the single-quote narrator argument, and the Marathe ER identification
- IJ Book Club Ep. 02: Are they addicted to the process, the secrecy, or the drug? — early-pages session, Orin's phone call through the pump room
- IJ Book Club Ep. 03: To sleep, perchance to dream? — early season-1 panel on the Gately/DuPlessis burglary, JOI's biography, Kate Gompert, and a first tour of the filmography (pp. ~55–79 + endnote 24)
- IJ Book Club Ep. 17: Reinventing Government and History — the ONANtiad session (pp. ~375–407 + n.145): Luria authored experialism, found drama as critic-troll, the wraith skeptic holds
- IJ Book Club Ep. 21 (S2 opener): Diddle Check? — the blue waiting room, the surprise urine test, and the Marathe/Steeply dawn (pp. ~508–~530)
- IJ Book Club Ep. 22 (S2 Ep 2): The Back-Door Slip — the government-side samizdat briefing, the Avril/Wayne tableau, Lenz & Green, the hand-model scene with endnote 234, and Arslanian's fusion lecture (pp. ~548–575)
- IJ Book Club Ep. 26 (S2 Ep 6): The Founder Let You Guys on the Grounds — the Hal–Stice exhibition as the book's Mousetrap, the narrator's axe against Steeply, the Avril blind spot, the Bain letters (pp. ~651–673)
- IJ Book Club Ep. 28 (S2 Ep 8): Ever felt like PT Krause, but looked like PT Krause? — Poor Tony resurrected, the anhedonia core, and the wraith learns where the DMZ is (pp. ~689–706)
- IJ Book Club Ep. 32 (S2 Ep 12): Novocain for the Soul — Marathe at Ennet, Mario's documentary night, and three conversations that aren't (pp. ~746–769)
- IJ Book Club Ep. 38 (S3 Ep 4 by feed position): Full of the sound and fury... — the off-the-board roadmap session: the head-dig as settled fact, JOI's save-Joelle scheme, the hole-communication mechanism, and the who-is-the-plant fight (no new pages)
- IJ Book Club Ep. 48 (S3 Ep 15): Are These Idiots Still Talking? — the pre-exhibition locker room, Barry Loach and the sauna death, Orin under the tumbler (pp. ~964–972) — with the Ep. 49 (S3 Ep 15a) next-day addendum
- IJ Book Club Ep. 50 (S3 Ep 16, the feed's final episode: The voice down the hall was weeping like its heart would break): one page and twelve sentences of Gately's last section — the St. Elizabeth's baptism assembly, the ice-bath dispute, the dosing war reignited, and the whole novel floated as Himself's own made-up composition (pp. ~972–974)
- IJ Lecture IV: The Year of Glad (Hardcore Literature) — the wraith orchestrates, Hal wraith-dosed with DMZ (and maybe shown the film), the too-late head-dig, and the AFR-victory missing year (pp. 795–end)
- Infinite Jest Book Club ep. 14: Word is Wayne has exactly one gear — endnote 110 line-by-line (the Orin–Hal call as coded warning), plus Mario's birth section
- Infinite Notes — co-(re)-reading notes for Infinite Jest
- Michael Pietsch to DFW, December 22, 1994 (second-read letter + cut-suggestion list)
- The Great Concavity Ep. 19: first-time Infinite Jest readers — Rachel Laird & Amy Peltier on finishing the book (recorded ~late summer 2016)
- Understanding David Foster Wallace (revised and expanded edition)
- What Happens in Infinite Jest — My Own Personal Theory, Parts One–Four (an online forum)
- an online forum — full-history archive digest
- an online forum — full-history archive digest
Manuscript differences
- All Marathe/Steeply mountainside dialogues and most of the AFR material are post-1993 additions; the germ, however, dates to 1986.
- An early Avril post-coital scene with an unnamed older lover was cut.
- Avril's full name gained "Tavis" between galleys and hardcover — "Avril Mondragon Tavis Incandenza, Ed.D., Ph.D." is a last-stage insertion.
- Luria P—'s indistinctness survived three separate editorial asks across the Dec-1994 letter…
- The Bain/Steeply correspondence is a post-1993 addition.