IJ study archive

Infinite Jest

source

TL;DR

A short 2025 Dutch-language column by Robbert-Jan Henkes — the translator of the forthcoming Dutch Infinite Jest (Eindeloos vertier, Feb 2026) — in Neerlandistiek, the online journal for Dutch language and letters. It is a single-problem translator's working note: how do you translate the title “Infinite Jest” into Dutch? Henkes (1) traces the phrase to Hamlet — it is the graveyard-scene line about Yorick, which he retells in a jokey IJ-flavoured mash-up (Yorick as a Palestinian-Pakistani neurosurgeon and scatological-joke-book author, a robbery of an office-supplies shop, a skull in a bathhouse locker in Oxford); (2) lines up six Dutch Hamlet-translators' renderings of “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy” — Van Suchtelen, Van Looy, Komrij, Burgersdijk, Voeten, and the Bindervoet & Henkes version (“een kerel met eindeloze humor, met een meesterlijke fantasie” — a fellow of endless humour, with a masterly fancy — gloss ours) — and notes the first Dutch translator, Cambon-van der Werken (late 18th c.), simply cut the passage; (3) explains what the title names inside the novel — the film James O. Incandenza made that is “letterlijk dodelijk” (literally deadly, gloss ours): viewers put the cartridge on autorepeat “in een neverending loop en – sterven” (in a neverending loop and — die, gloss ours) — and argues the premise seems “sterk ontleend aan” (strongly borrowed from, gloss ours) the Monty Python funniest-joke-in-the-world sketch; and (4) canvasses candidate Dutch titles (“Oneindige humor”; “Je lacht je dood”; “Je blijft erin”; “Je blijft lachen”), settling on none — it is an open, pre-decision note, so the eventual title Eindeloos vertier does not appear here. Along the way he recalls Wallace's working subtitle “A Failed Entertainment” and the German title Unendlicher Spaß. No IJ passage is quoted; the Dutch translation is never quoted (it did not yet exist); the only IJ plot content is the Entertainment's lethal premise and JOI-as-Hal's-father, given as Henkes's own paraphrase. The archive's first Dutch translator-primary, and a companion to the Theuwis review's closing plea for a Dutch IJ.

Key claims

The frame: the title is a Hamlet quote, and Hamlet has thirty-five Dutch faces

  • The title's source, jokily retold. Henkes opens by asking how one translates the title of Wallace's “luchtige niemendalletje” (frivolous trifle — gloss ours, ironic): it is, he says, “een quote unquote uit het bekendste toneelstuk aller tijden” (a quote unquote from the most famous play of all time — gloss ours), then spins the Hamlet graveyard scene into an Infinite Jest-flavoured mash-up — Yorick becomes “Alaspoor Yorick, een Palestijns-Pakistaanse neurochirurg en schrijver van moppenboeken met een scatologische inslag” (a Palestinian-Pakistani neurosurgeon and author of joke-books with a scatological bent — gloss ours), the skull turned up during a hunt for the perpetrators of a robbery of an office-supplies shop, found in a bathhouse locker in Oxford. Hamlet lifts it “als a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy” — the source phrase quoted in Shakespeare's English (the title's origin).
  • Thirty-five Dutch Hamlets. The translation problem, Henkes explains, is that while the play has “maar één oorspronkelijke versie” (only one original version — gloss ours) there are “vijfendertig Nederlandse versies” (thirty-five Dutch versions — gloss ours) of it. The first Dutch translator, Margareta Geertui de Cambon-van der Werken (late 18th c., translating via French/English), simply cut this passage and gave the play “een heel ander, nog veel en veel unhappiër end” (a wholly different, much unhappier ending — gloss ours), with Ophelia alive.

The six renderings of “infinite jest” (the column's comparative core)

  • Henkes lays out how six Dutch Hamlet translators rendered “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy” (all glosses ours; Dutch is the verbatim anchor):
    • Nico van Suchtelen: “een man van onbegrensde geest en uitbundigste fantasie” (a man of boundless spirit and most exuberant fancy).
    • Jacques van Looy: “een kerel met een onuitputtelijke luim, van alleruitnemendste ingevingen” (a fellow of inexhaustible whimsy, of the choicest inspirations).
    • Gerrit Komrij: “een vent met een oneindige humor, van een zo weergaloze fantasie” (a chap of infinite humour, of so matchless a fancy).
    • L. A. J. Burgersdijk: “een knaap van oneindig vernuft, vol van de kostelijkste invallen” (a lad of infinite wit, full of the most delicious notions).
    • Bert Voeten: “’n kerel met een onbegrensde humor, vol van de verrukkelijkste fantasieën” (a fellow of boundless humour, full of the most delightful fancies).
    • Bindervoet & Henkes (their own “klassieke vertaling” — classic translation, gloss ours — strong in double-entendres): “een kerel met eindeloze humor, met een meesterlijke fantasie” (a fellow of endless humour, with a masterly fancy).
  • The word “infinite jest” leaves Dutch readers cold. The famous phrase, Henkes writes, “allerbekendst in de oren klinkt van Engelstalige lezers” (rings most familiar in the ears of English-language readers — gloss ours), but “wij hier aan de overzijde van de grote en kleine plas” (we over here on the far side of the big and little pond — gloss ours) do not see the fun of it: “‘Oneindige humor’, zo wat?” (Infinite humour — so what? — gloss ours). “Als titel is het niet erg aansprekend” (As a title it is not very appealing — gloss ours).

What the title names inside the novel — the lethal Entertainment

  • The deadly film. Asked what Infinite Jest is actually about, Henkes explains the title inside the book: it names “een film die James O. Incandenza, wijlen de overleden vader zaliger van Hal, ooit maakte” (a film that James O. Incandenza, Hal's late departed father, once made — gloss ours) — “een film die letterlijk dodelijk is” (a film that is literally deadly — gloss ours). Viewers “draaien de cartridge af, zetten hem op autorepeat in een neverending loop en – sterven” (play the cartridge, set it on autorepeat in a neverending loop and — die — gloss ours). “Vandaar die oneindige humor dus. Een film met fatale afloop” (Hence the infinite humour, then. A film with a fatal outcome — gloss ours).
  • A Monty Python source-guess. Henkes proposes that the premise “lijkt sterk ontleend aan” (seems strongly borrowed from — gloss ours) a sketch from the very first-broadcast Monty Python episode, Whither Canada? — “The funniest Joke in the World,” a joke so funny it kills, developed in British war laboratories under Alan Turing to bring the Germans to their knees. He reproduces the sketch's fan-transcribed German gibberish (“Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! … Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!”) and toys with using it — or the Nazis' counter-joke — as the Dutch title, before noting that is “eerder iets voor de Duitse vertaling” (rather something for the German translation — gloss ours), which is simply called Unendlicher Spaß.
  • The “A Failed Entertainment” latitude. As a licence for title-play he recalls that Wallace “een tijdlang als ondertitel wilde A Failed Entertainment, Een mislukt amusement” (for a time wanted A Failed Entertainment as a subtitle — the Dutch “Een mislukt amusement” is Henkes's own gloss).

The candidate Dutch titles — and no decision

  • What is really in the words. Thinking further, Henkes asks “wat gebeurt er eigenlijk in die woorden?” (what actually happens in those words? — gloss ours) and answers that it is about “je doodlachen, erin blijven, blijven lachen” (laughing yourself to death, staying in it, going on laughing — gloss ours). He checks candidate Dutch titles and finds them mostly taken: “Je lacht je dood” is the title of a 1994 “bonte verzameling bizarre gebeurtenissen met fatale afloop” (motley collection of bizarre events with a fatal outcome — gloss ours); “Je blijft erin” is, as far as he can tell, still free; “Je blijft lachen” was given by Simon Carmiggelt in 1968 to one of his Kronkels collections.
  • Open ending. He lands on none, gesturing instead at “het grootse gebaar van (iets als) Oneindige humor” (the grand gesture of (something like) Infinite humour — gloss ours) with a Python flourish, and signs off “Tenzij iemand iets beters heeft natuurlijk” (Unless of course someone has something better — gloss ours). The eventual title Eindeloos vertier is not proposed here.

Theories & evidence

(This is a translator's single-problem title-column, not a study of Infinite Jest's plot. Its contacts with archive cruxes are all sightings/mentions — title-provenance and a plot-summary — graded honestly to what the column argues; the title-rendering craft and the Monty-Python source-guess have no home slug, see the last block and do-not-coin.)

CONNECTION: the title “Infinite Jest” is a Hamlet quotation (the Yorick graveyard scene), and rendering it in Dutch runs through the play's long Dutch translation history

  • Crux: hamlet-frame
  • Stance: mentions
  • Evidence:
    • [H] The source named: the title is “een quote unquote uit het bekendste toneelstuk aller tijden” (a quote unquote from the most famous play of all time — gloss ours), and Hamlet speaks the line over Yorick's skull. [the opening frame]
    • [S] Shakespeare's English source phrase quoted directly — “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy” — and six Dutch renderings of it lined up. [the Hamlet-translator survey]
  • Notes: A mentions, not an argued frame-reading. Henkes uses Hamlet as the title's SOURCE and as a translation-history problem (thirty-five Dutch versions); he does not argue Hamlet as Infinite Jest's organizing intertext (the crux's question). Sighting-grade title-provenance from the translator's desk — a record, not an argument.

CONNECTION: the title names the lethal film-cartridge — viewers watch it on a loop and die

  • Crux: entertainment-lethality
  • Stance: mentions
  • Evidence:
    • [H] The plot-summary: the film JOI made is “letterlijk dodelijk”; viewers set the cartridge “op autorepeat in een neverending loop en – sterven” (on autorepeat in a neverending loop and — die — gloss ours); “Een film met fatale afloop” (a film with a fatal outcome — gloss ours). [the what-is-it-about passage]
    • [H] The source-guess (do-not-coin, see below): the premise “lijkt sterk ontleend aan” the Monty Python funniest-joke-in-the-world sketch — a joke that kills. [the Python passage]
  • Notes: A mentions. Henkes describes the lethality (watch-on-loop → death) as plain plot summary; he does NOT argue how/why it kills or whether it is continuous with real TV (the crux's live questions). His interpretive add — the Python killer-joke as a possible SOURCE for the premise — is an influence observation with no home slug (do-not-coin; there is no Monty-Python-influence slug). Log the lethality mention; treat the Python guess as texture only.

CONNECTION: Wallace's working subtitle “A Failed Entertainment” surfaces

  • Crux: book-as-entertainment
  • Stance: mentions
  • Evidence:
    • [H]/[W] Henkes recalls Wallace “een tijdlang als ondertitel wilde A Failed Entertainment” (for a time wanted A Failed Entertainment as a subtitle — gloss ours), which he glosses “Een mislukt amusement”. [the title-latitude aside]
  • Notes: A bare mentions, sighting only. The “A Failed Entertainment” subtitle is the production datum that anchors the is-the-book-itself-an-anti-entertainment debate — but Henkes invokes it purely to license title-wordplay, not to argue the book-as-entertainment reading. A sighting only. (Held authority for the subtitle-fact = the D.T. Max biography; flagged, not asserted from this column.)

CONNECTION: the title-rendering problem itself, and the Monty-Python source-guess — translation craft and an influence claim with no home slug

  • Crux: (no home slug — title-translation craft / influence)
  • Stance: n/a (craft / reception texture)
  • Evidence:
    • [H] The whole column is a title-rendering problem: six Dutch Hamlet renderings weighed, the phrase judged to leave Dutch readers cold (“‘Oneindige humor’, zo wat?”), a survey of candidate titles, no decision.
    • [H] The Monty-Python funniest-joke sketch offered as a likely source for the Entertainment's lethal premise.
  • Notes: Translation craft (how to Dutch the title) and a Wallace-influence guess (Python killer-joke → the Entertainment) — neither has a home slug; the archive holds no title-translation or Monty-Python-influence crux, and its influence lane (Pynchon, Gaddis, DeLillo, Lynch, Barth, King, Orwell…) does not include Python. Same do-not-coin finding as every landed non-English note. NOT a fold; NOT a coinage.

Themes

The Dutch translation of Infinite Jest seen from the translator's desk, mid-work and before the title was settled; the title as a Hamlet quotation and the problem of Dutching it across a play with thirty-five existing Dutch versions; translation as comparison (six renderings of “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy” laid side by side, from Van Suchtelen and Burgersdijk to the author's own Bindervoet & Henkes Hamlet); a famous English phrase that lands flat in another language (the Infinite-humour-so-what shrug); the title as the name of a lethal film-cartridge and a playful source-guess linking it to the Monty Python funniest-joke-in-the-world sketch; Wallace's abandoned subtitle “A Failed Entertainment”; the German title Unendlicher Spaß as a foil; and the open, unresolved search for a Dutch title — a working-notes document from the making of Eindeloos vertier.

Cross-references

  • theuwis-vuur-herontdekt-2017 — the closest kin and the other Dutch note in the archive: Toon Theuwis's 2017 Filter review of the Dutch Brief Interviews closes by pleading that there is no excuse any more for the absence of a Dutch Infinite Jest. This column is that wish being carried out — by the translator, mid-work — and, tellingly, it too traces to Filter (the piece first ran in the webfilter of tijdschrift Filter before its Neerlandistiek republication). The plea and its fulfilment, from the two sides of the same journal.
  • peppelenbos-tzum-2026 — the settlement of this column's open question: the Tzum launch item reports that Henkes wanted the title Grenzeloze grol, the publisher shot it down, and the head of publicity coined Eindeloos vertier. The open canvass here (Je lacht je dood, Je blijft erin, Oneindige humor…) and the final title there make a matched pair — the problem posed mid-work, and how it actually came out.
  • kerline-books-2015 — the direct method-kin: the French note whose crown datum is a title-decision anecdote (Kerline favoured Infinie Facétie; the publisher chose L'Infinie Comédie). Henkes's column is the same problem — how to title the translation — caught earlier and undecided; both are translator-primaries turning on the title.
  • The translator-testimony cluster — blumenbach-trashpool-2011, blumenbach-spiegel-2009, nesi-minimaetmoralia-intervista, kerline-vice-2015, galindo-graca-infinita-historia-pessoal-2018 — the German/French/Italian/Portuguese translator-primaries. Henkes joins them as the Dutch translator's voice; his German-title foil (Unendlicher Spaß) points straight at the Blumenbach pair.
  • gobetti-acqua-in-bocca-2013 / mokita-blumenbach-passage-2017 — the close-reading / passage-comparison register; Henkes's side-by-side of six Hamlet renderings is the same comparative move, applied to the title alone.
  • esposito-ij-around-the-world — the cross-language reception map (which languages have an IJ yet); this column adds the Dutch edition as one of the newest, with the German case named in passing.
  • news247-kaltsas-2026 / lapresse-infinie-comedie-2015 / letraslibres-no-necrologica-2008 — the Greek, French and Spanish non-English primaries; the Dutch and Greek editions are the late-arriving-language cohort, and this is the Low-Countries entry.

Notable passages

Henkes's words unless marked. Dutch is the verbatim anchor; the English in parentheses is our gloss (paraphrase). The source's quotation/scare-quote wrapper is the curly single quote (U+2018 'left' / U+2019 'right'); reproduced as printed. [S] spans are quoted Shakespeare/Hamlet material (Wallace's English title-source and six named Dutch Hamlet renderings), quotable as this column's reproduction, not independently held; [P] is a Monty Python cultural quotation, likewise reproduced; [W] marks Wallace's own English non-prose tokens (the working subtitle, the German title). No Infinite Jest passage is quoted.

  • Henkes (the problem stated): “Infinite Jest, de titel van het luchtige niemendalletje van David Foster Wallace, hoe vertaal je die?” (Infinite Jest, the title of David Foster Wallace's frivolous trifle — how do you translate it? — gloss ours).
  • Henkes (the source): the title is “een quote unquote uit het bekendste toneelstuk aller tijden” (a quote unquote from the most famous play of all time — gloss ours).
  • Shakespeare, quoted [S — Hamlet 5.1]: “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy” — the English source phrase, reproduced in Henkes's Dutch text.
  • The six Dutch renderings [S] (each attributed by Henkes; glosses ours): Van Suchtelen — “een man van onbegrensde geest en uitbundigste fantasie”; Van Looy — “een kerel met een onuitputtelijke luim, van alleruitnemendste ingevingen”; Komrij — “een vent met een oneindige humor, van een zo weergaloze fantasie”; Burgersdijk — “een knaap van oneindig vernuft, vol van de kostelijkste invallen”; Voeten — “’n kerel met een onbegrensde humor, vol van de verrukkelijkste fantasieën”; Bindervoet & Henkes — “een kerel met eindeloze humor, met een meesterlijke fantasie”.
  • Henkes (the film): the title names “een film die letterlijk dodelijk is” (a film that is literally deadly — gloss ours); viewers set the cartridge “op autorepeat in een neverending loop en – sterven” (on autorepeat in a neverending loop and — die — gloss ours); “Vandaar die oneindige humor dus. Een film met fatale afloop” (Hence the infinite humour, then. A film with a fatal outcome — gloss ours).
  • Henkes (the Python source-guess): the premise “lijkt sterk ontleend aan een sketch uit de allereerst uitgezonden Monty Python-aflevering” (seems strongly borrowed from a sketch in the very first-broadcast Monty Python episode — gloss ours).
  • Monty Python, quoted [P]: “Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! … Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!” (the sketch's fan-transcribed German gibberish, reproduced by Henkes; not a Dutch or English span to gloss).
  • Henkes / Wallace's subtitle [W]: Wallace “een tijdlang als ondertitel wilde A Failed Entertainment, Een mislukt amusement” (for a time wanted A Failed Entertainment as a subtitle — “Een mislukt amusement” is Henkes's gloss).
  • Henkes (the German foil) [W — Unendlicher Spaß]: the Python route is “eerder iets voor de Duitse vertaling natuurlijk, maar die heet gewoon Unendlicher Spaß” (rather something for the German translation, which is simply called Unendlicher Spaß — gloss ours).
  • Henkes (the phrase falls flat): “wij hier aan de overzijde van de grote en kleine plas” do not see the fun — “‘Oneindige humor’, zo wat?” (Infinite humour — so what? — gloss ours); “Als titel is het niet erg aansprekend” (as a title it is not very appealing — gloss ours).
  • Henkes (the open ending): “Tenzij iemand iets beters heeft natuurlijk” (Unless of course someone has something better — gloss ours).

Accuracy notes

  • The source prints the Hamlet phrase in two forms. The canonical English “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy” appears early in the column; at the six-renderings comparison locus the raw instead prints the hybrid “a fellow van infinite jest en most excellent fancy” (Dutch connectives inside the English phrase — the column's own mixed-language set-up for the renderings that follow). Where this note frames the phrase as the one the six translators render, the source's locus form is the hybrid; both forms are reproduced as printed. Cite-as-written throughout (orthography and typography preserved as printed).
  • The author is the translator. The byline and the page's own author metadata both give Robbert-Jan Henkes, who is translating Infinite Jest into Dutch as Eindeloos vertier; this is a translator-primary, not a critic's or journalist's piece.
  • No settled Dutch title is proposed. Despite being about titling, the column reaches NO decision and does NOT mention Eindeloos vertier (or Grenzeloze grol); it is an open, pre-decision working note. The final title was fixed later — a dating fact, not a source contradiction.
  • The piece is a republication. Its closing line states it “verscheen eerder als vrijdag-vertaaldag-column, week 3, 2025 in webfilter van het tijdschrift filter en daarna als VandaagsVertaalProbleem” (line 168-170): first a Friday-translation-day column in Filter's webfilter (week 3, 2025), then a VandaagsVertaalProbleem, and this Neerlandistiek version dated 19 June 2025. The Filter venue is the same journal as the Dutch Theuwis sibling.
  • “Alaspoor Yorick” is a deliberate pun, not an error. Henkes fuses Dutch helaas / Shakespeare's Alas, poor Yorick into one name (line 45); reproduced as printed.
  • “unhappiër” — an ad-hoc hybrid. At line 63 Henkes coins “unhappiër end” (English unhappy + Dutch comparative); the i-diaeresis (ë) is precomposed; reproduced as printed, his own coinage.
  • The Monty Python gibberish is cite-as-written. “Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! … Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!” (line 114) and the Nazi counter-joke (lines 132-134) are the sketch's non-canonical fan transcriptions; Henkes even flags the point himself — “merk op dat de transcriptie ‘geht’ misschien correcter is maar niet canoniek” (note that the transcription 'geht' is perhaps more correct but not canonical — gloss ours, line 116-117). Reproduced with its variations (“git” throughout).
  • The ellipsis is the source's. Both ellipses (U+2026 ×2) are the source's own — line 62 (“deze passage… niet”) and line 114 (the Python line); not editorial elisions by us.
  • The dash in the running prose is the en dash. Dutch prose here uses the en dash (U+2013 ×10) for its dashes (e.g. the “loop en – sterven” break, line 100); there is NO em dash in the file. Our glosses render these as em dashes in English, but the anchored Dutch keeps the en dash.
  • Two “Beiherhund” transcriptions differ. Line 114 prints “Ja! … Beiherhund” (with ellipsis) and line 120 the run-in “Ja! Beiherhund” — Henkes quoting the same gibberish twice with slightly different spacing/punctuation; reproduced as printed.