The Second Time Around (Through page 102)

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TL;DR

The opening installment of a page-by-page reread journal (it stops at p. 102) by the DFW Words blogger "Don", mixing affectionate close-reading with an amateur proofreader's eye. Its interpretive payload is small but pointed: it endorses the reading that Hal is in marijuana withdrawal in the Year of Glad, notices that James Incandenza's filmography is thoroughly autobiographical, spots the buried "Bernard Wayne" clue in the plagiarized Canadian-terrorism endnote, and wonders whether the odd punctuation on p. 102 signals a narrator who is not Hal. Alongside these it logs four candidate textual errors, all of which resurface in the blogger's 2016 twentieth-anniversary collation — two corrected there, two listed as still uncorrected.

Key claims

Framed as a devotion piece: Don read IJ "for the first time about 8 years ago and it's haunted me ever since", every later novel falling short, so "instead of pretending I want to do anything else, I'm reading my clear-cut favorite novel for the second time." Rereading, he says, is what Michael Silverblatt described: "it's like getting to know someone well."
On the p. 76 passage where a woman's expressions make it "clinically impossible for the doctor to determine whether or not she was entirely sincere", Don says it resembles Hal in the opening scene and "lends credence to the theory that Hal is going through pot withdrawal in the Year of Glad."
J.O.I.'s eight-page filmography (endnote 24) reads as forehead-slappingly purposeful on the reread: "James Incandenza was one of those autobiographical artists who make cringingly personal art" — films that dramatize scenes from his own life (the "professional conversationalist", scene 005) and his wife's "(imagined?)" infidelities, and whose unfinished late titles (Too Much Fun, The Unfortunate Case of Me, Sorry All Over the Place) read like apologies.
A "sly joke": Himself casts Paul Anthony Heaven to narrate documentaries precisely for his deadening monotone — "the deadening academic monotone that Himself so loved" (scene 172, p. 910).
The plagiarized Geoffrey Day article in endnote 304 (reached via endnote 39) carries plot-load beneath its academese comedy: "it actually contains a lot of vital information about Canadian terrorists groups, especially the A.F.R., which will tie in significantly with the subplot involving Marathe." Buried in it is a "Bernard Wayne", "who we can assume is related to John Wayne in some way, as they both come from the family of an asbestos miner" (scene n304).
A self-correction on Hal's appearance (p. 101): Don had pictured Hal as "staunchly Caucasian, almost as white as can be. This is not correct" — the text makes Hal the "radiantly dark, otterish" ethnic-looking Incandenza while Orin got Avril's Anglo-Nordo-Canadian phenotype (scene 034).
A narration puzzle at p. 102: the serial comma is omitted where a Hal-narrated sentence would keep it — "It's doubtful that Hal would make this mistake", Don writes, wondering if the observation comes from a different character's perspective. He raises "presently"-for-currently as a second un-Hal-like tell, then dismisses it himself: Hal used "presently" on page 4.
Amateur-proofreader catches (candidate errors, all four revisited in the blogger's 2016 anniversary collation): p. 22/23 "as/is"; the p. 78/79 semicolon in the sentence where the medical attaché's wife finds him transfixed before the cartridge; p. 90 "one the hell of a shrill stink" ("corrected" to "one hell of a shrill stink" "in the unfairly maligned audio book."); the p. 100 "til" / "till" inconsistency in a single speaker's lines.

Theories & evidence

THEORY: Hal is in marijuana withdrawal during the Year of Glad

Crux: hal-condition
Stance: endorses
Evidence:
- [text] The p. 76 description of a face whose expressions make sincerity "clinically impossible" to read — Don ties it to Hal's uninterpretable affect in the opening scene as support for the withdrawal reading. [¶ pg. 76]
Notes: Don endorses an existing reader theory ("lends credence to the theory that…"), he does not originate it; he offers the p. 76/opening-scene resemblance as the sole textual leg and raises no counter-tension against it.

THEORY: "Bernard Wayne" in the plagiarized endnote is kin to John Wayne (A.F.R. tie-in)

Crux: wayne-naming
Stance: endorses
Evidence:
- [text] Endnote 304's plagiarized Geoffrey Day article names a "Bernard Wayne" among the male offspring of an asbestos miner — the same familial marker attached to John Wayne — which Struck transposes into his term paper without noticing. [¶ pg. 88, endnote 39]
Notes: Presented as a buried authorial clue that "flies over Struck's head"; Don reads the endnote as smuggling real A.F.R./Marathe plot information under cover of academese parody.

THEORY: The p. 102 narration is not Hal's

Crux: narrator-proximity
Stance: entertains
Evidence:
- [text] The omitted serial comma at p. 102 — a mistake Don judges un-Hal-like — as a possible signal of a shifted narrative perspective; he raises "presently"-for-"currently" as a second tell but withdraws it himself. [¶ pg. 102]
Notes: Don immediately complicates his own read: Hal himself uses "presently" on p. 4, so the diction tell is not decisive; he leaves it open.

THEORY: Some of Infinite Jest's apparent errors are (or aren't) intentional

Crux: intentional-errors
Stance: entertains
Evidence:
- [text] A running list of "possible mistakes" — p. 22/23, p. 78/79, p. 90, p. 100 — that Don flags without deciding whether they are Wallace's deliberate solecisms or genuine slips. [¶¶ NOTES section]
Notes: The p. 90 "the hell" reading was "corrected" only in the audio book. All four candidates resurface in the blogger's 2016 anniversary-edition collation: p. 22/23 and p. 100 among the corrections, p. 78/79 and p. 90 on its still-uncorrected list (both marked "arguable" there) — making this 2013 census an intermediate datapoint between the first printing and that later correction pass.

Themes

Rereading and devotion; Hal's condition and the opening-scene affect; the Incandenza filmography as autobiography; the A.F.R./Quebec-separatism subplot; narrative voice and who is telling a given section; the novel's textual apparatus and its (intentional and unintentional) errors.

Cross-references

The blog's own textual-variant posts — the 2016 anniversary-corrections collation and the "two mistakes" essay — which pick up several of the candidate errors Don flags here.
The End Zone parallels post by the same blogger, another close-reading of the ETA sections.
Scene anchors: the "professional conversationalist" film scene (scene 005); Paul Anthony Heaven's monotone narration (scene 172); the Geoffrey Day / Bernard Wayne endnote (scene n304); Hal's ethnic self-description and Orin's contrasting phenotype (scene 034).

Notable passages

"James Incandenza was one of those autobiographical artists who make cringingly personal art."
On Paul Anthony Heaven: cast for "the deadening academic monotone that Himself so loved."
On the reread: "Rereading IJ really is how Michael Silverblatt described it: it's like getting to know someone well."
On Hal's looks: "I've always thought of him as staunchly Caucasian, almost as white as can be. This is not correct".