Comments on: INFINITE JEST Readalong http://www.girldetective.net/?p=6441 Reading, Writing, Movies and Mothering in Minneapolis, Mostly Mon, 11 May 2026 22:20:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: girldetective http://www.girldetective.net/?p=6441&cpage=1#comment-43484 girldetective Sat, 15 Aug 2015 02:02:00 +0000 http://www.girldetective.net/?p=6441#comment-43484 Heidi, I not only loved the line about thanatoptic fury, but that it described what WASN'T going on, and that the kids just stood around staring, and it was super boring to watch. Heidi, I not only loved the line about thanatoptic fury, but that it described what WASN’T going on, and that the kids just stood around staring, and it was super boring to watch.

]]> By: Heidi http://www.girldetective.net/?p=6441&cpage=1#comment-43482 Heidi Thu, 13 Aug 2015 02:28:37 +0000 http://www.girldetective.net/?p=6441#comment-43482 Needed to glance back through my notes for this section to see what caught my attention besides eschaton (which between Kiki and Steve and The Decemberists seems well covered territory (or map)). I'll just add my favorite line. "...as everybody gets blackly drunk with thanatoptic fury in the crisp November air—" p.327 DFW's words have this quality of cutting right to the bone on subjects most of us modern humans have dealt with in some capacity. Two in particular resonate, mostly uncomfortably, with me: suicide and addiction. The dark humor with which DFW addresses the former tends to catch me off guard the most, as in the Boston AA section, p.348 — "You can either eliminate your own map for keeps—blades are the best, or else pills, or there’s always quietly sucking off the exhaust pipe of your repossessable car in the bank-owned garage of your familyless home.", that latter method being my uncle's choice in the matter. The addiction narrative resonates because my ex had substance abuse problems. I'm totally amused by Gately's scoffing about addiction to weed (the ex's drug of choice) but greatly appreciate how DFW balances this w/ characters who actually *are* addicted to weed, and takes that variety of addiction seriously. Finally, there's SO MUCH of what have to be DFW's own views on various AA-isms in this section, my very favorite being Joelle vD's observations on the misuse of But For The Grace of God, which is HILARIOUS. "...her trouble with it is that ‘But For the Grace of God’ is a subjunctive, a counterfactual, she says, and can make sense only when introducing a conditional clause, like e.g. ‘But For the Grace of God I would have died on Molly Notkin’s bathroom floor,’ so that an indicative transposition like ‘I’m here But For the Grace of God’ is, she says, literally senseless, and regardless of whether she hears it or not it’s meaningless, and that the foamy enthusiasm with which these folks can say what in fact means nothing at all makes her want to put her head in a Radarange at the thought that Substances have brought her to the sort of pass where this is the sort of language she has to have Blind Faith in." Finally, I REALLY wish there was an actual term for what I've personally called "embarrassment by proxy" for years. DFW does a fantastic job describing the feeling on p.368, "Close to two hundred people all punishing somebody by getting embarrassed for him, killing him by empathetically dying right there with him, for him, up there at the podium." It NEEDS a term. Needed to glance back through my notes for this section to see what caught my attention besides eschaton (which between Kiki and Steve and The Decemberists seems well covered territory (or map)). I’ll just add my favorite line. “…as everybody gets blackly drunk with thanatoptic fury in the crisp November air—” p.327

DFW’s words have this quality of cutting right to the bone on subjects most of us modern humans have dealt with in some capacity. Two in particular resonate, mostly uncomfortably, with me: suicide and addiction. The dark humor with which DFW addresses the former tends to catch me off guard the most, as in the Boston AA section, p.348 — “You can either eliminate your own map for keeps—blades are the best, or else pills, or there’s always quietly sucking off the exhaust pipe of your repossessable car in the bank-owned garage of your familyless home.”, that latter method being my uncle’s choice in the matter. The addiction narrative resonates because my ex had substance abuse problems. I’m totally amused by Gately’s scoffing about addiction to weed (the ex’s drug of choice) but greatly appreciate how DFW balances this w/ characters who actually *are* addicted to weed, and takes that variety of addiction seriously.

Finally, there’s SO MUCH of what have to be DFW’s own views on various AA-isms in this section, my very favorite being Joelle vD’s observations on the misuse of But For The Grace of God, which is HILARIOUS. “…her trouble with it is that ‘But For the Grace of God’ is a subjunctive, a counterfactual, she says, and can make sense only when introducing a conditional clause, like e.g. ‘But For the Grace of God I would have died on Molly Notkin’s bathroom floor,’ so that an indicative transposition like ‘I’m here But For the Grace of God’ is, she says, literally senseless, and regardless of whether she hears it or not it’s meaningless, and that the foamy enthusiasm with which these folks can say what in fact means nothing at all makes her want to put her head in a Radarange at the thought that Substances have brought her to the sort of pass where this is the sort of language she has to have Blind Faith in.”

Finally, I REALLY wish there was an actual term for what I’ve personally called “embarrassment by proxy” for years. DFW does a fantastic job describing the feeling on p.368, “Close to two hundred people all punishing somebody by getting embarrassed for him, killing him by empathetically dying right there with him, for him, up there at the podium.” It NEEDS a term.

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