endnote 24 as JOI's coded autobiography
This asks whether James Incandenza's film catalogue, laid out in a long endnote, is a coded autobiography aimed at his family. It is contested because the reading has to assume an authorial intent and a decoding family that the text itself never shows.
Adjudication
This crux has an adversarial ledger: Why the Entertainment Kills. The per-reading verdicts are below.
Theories on this crux
| Reading | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Minor structure & design cruxes | favored |
| The anti-Entertainment & the book-as-samizdat family | open |
Discussed in
- Community book club 2
- David Foster Wallace: Fiction and Form
- 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. 46 (S3 Ep 12): You Ain't Gonna Learn What You Don't Wanna Know — endnote-24 filmography walkthrough + Hal on the floor (pp. ~948–951)
- IJ Book Club S2 Ep. 7: Different Types of Sight — the match from the gallery, Matty Pemulis at the Man o' War, Hal in the viewing room (pp. ~673–~689)
- Infinite Cast Part 122: THE END (pp. 971–981) — commentary segment only: finishing the book on-air, the ending convergence, star ratings, is-IJ-good-for-boys
- Mapping the Zone Ep. 02: Eating Granola With A Large Wooden Spoon (v2.0) — monthly IJ read-through, pp. 1–105 (Year of Glad through the locker room; the filmography tour, Gompert, Schtitt)
- The Great Concavity Ep. 7: Chris Ayers on the Incandenza filmography posters and the IJ20 cover contest (Jan 2016)