AAARGH! I seriously think I'm missing a chapter. It somehow didn't get put in my copy. I realize it's a freaking large book. It was probably really difficult to make everything fit together. I understand totally if DFW just forgot to slip maybe 20 pages in. But damn, is it frustrating. WHAT THE FUCK??? Pemulis said he wanted to talk to Hal pretty damn urgently, but he never did, and what the hell happened to the DMZ? I got the part about how the 1st chapter when Hal was all spasmodic and freaky really happened a few months after everything else, so my theory is that Hal somehow found the stash and took it all, and totally fried his brain, but that doesn't really work either, because if the DMZ was as potent as Pemulis said it was, Hal's brain would have literally exploded if he took it all, not just minor facial contortions. Besides, towards the end there, the Hal parts were 1st person, and that's a pretty damn important event to not even mention in passing. "I had to knock down a couple of ceiling tiles, but I found it, and I took it all." One sentence, Hal. That's all I wanted. Goddammit!

The Gately ending was kinda weak too. I understood that all that was flashbacks, but WHAT HAPPENED NEXT??? Does he get out of the hospital? Does he manage to resist the drugs the doctors kept forcing on him? Never even mind the legal implications. And yeah, give her a few years to stabilize, but does he ever get to end up with Joelle?

I'm also still totally confused about Himself. I liked how he told Gately he'd made this movie, the best movie ever, as an attempt to reach his son but frankly, up until the very end, (er...beginning) Hal seemed pretty damn lucid to me. Was the fact that Himself thought Hal was sinking unbelievably keen insight on his part, or total insanity? No, wait. I'm positive Hal said he didn't even start smoking dope till he was 16, and Himself died when Hal was 12. Goddammit!!

Himself thought Hal was mute. Hal was actually pretty verbal and precocious. But Himself made a movie about a father who thought his son was mute, despite all evidence to the contrary. But that would mean he knew Hal was fine, but then why did he...Aaaaaagh!!!

And just why did Himself quit drinking, anyway? Joelle said it was for her, but then Himself's ghost said it was for Hal. I refuse to accept that the ghost was all just Gately's hallucination. How could Gately's subconscious have come up with so much background info about someone he'd never met?

And just why were there copies of IJ floating around anyway? I swear it said in few places that all of Himself's unfinished work was buried with him.

And what was the deal with Himself and Joelle?

And why even mention Stice and his face if you're never going to provide any closure?

And what the FUCK was going on with Orin at the end there?

I swear. I'm missing at least one chapter here.

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