La broma infinita

A place: Enfield, Massachusetts. One hundred miles from the Great Concavity, a radioactive wasteland teeming with mutant babies the size of airplanes, skullless creatures, and hordes of wild hamsters. A time: the Year of Depend Adult Underwear, in Subsidized Time, in an America ruled by the ecological totalitarianism of ONAN, itself governed by the shadowy Office of Unspecified Services, perpetually at war with Quebec's ultra-violent anti-ONANism. An institution: the Enfield Tennis Academy, ultra-elitist and where a discipline designed to abolish all pleasure reigns supreme. A family: the Incandenzas. James Incandenza, a military optician turned après-garde filmmaker, and his wife, the promiscuous Avril, who maintains shady connections with the Quebec guerrillas. And their three sons: Orin, a brilliant American football kicker and transnational seducer; Mario, a dwarf with a deformed face, a filmmaker like his father and possessing a prodigious sensitivity, and Hal, a promising young tennis player tormented by a terrible secret. And a film: The Samizdat. The Entertainment. The Infinite Jest. With the power to drive anyone who sees it insane and thus destroy civilization. The perfect weapon for which everyone will become embroiled in the Final War for control of America.