Definitive Jest

Entry: hydrolysis (n.)


In context: "...it eventuates that Lenz has again miscalculated the effect the Bing's hydrolysis will have, he always like previsions the effect as cool nonchalant verbal sangfroid, but instead Lenz on the way home finds himself under huge hydrolystic compulsions to have Green right there by his side..."

Definition: I guess here is one place where you kind of come to a pretty strong decision one way or the other as to whether you like or really dislike David Foster Wallace's writing.  So, here is fn. 232, pg. 1037:

"Hydrolysis is the metabolic process by which organic cocaine's broken down into benzoylecgonine, methanol, ecgonine, and benzoic acid, and one reason not everybody is wire to enjoy Crosbulation is that the process is essentially toxic and can yield unpleasant neurosomatic fallout in certain systems: e.g. in Don Gately's neurosystem, spider angiomas and a tendency to pluck at the skin on the backs of is hands, due to which tendency he's always loathed and hated coke and most cokeheads; in Bruce Green's system, binocular nystagmus and a walloping depression even while the coke-high's still on that accounts for the tendency toward fits of weeping with his nystagmic face hidden in the crook of his right arm; in Ken Erdedy an unstoppable rhinorrhagia that sent him to the Emergency Room both times he ever did cocaine; in Kate Gompert blepharospecticity and now instant cerebral hemorrhage because she's on Parnate, an M.A.O.-inhibiting antidepressant; in Emil Minty a ballism so out-of-control he snorted Bingo only once."


Other: It actually continues on for quite a bit and gets more comic or more gruesome, depending on your taste and stomach for these sorts of descriptions.

SNOOT score: 1

Page: 557

Source: Infinite Jest