Okay, so I have to admit that I’m coming to the party with some jaded perspectives on David Foster Wallace. In the first place, my attempts at reading Consider the Lobster were thwarted by the little voice in my head that kept saying, “he’s throwing in everything but the kitchen sink!” With respect to IJ, I am reluctant to hitch my wagon to a groundswell or a literary movement of any kind (e.g. Oprah’s Book Club). I guess you might say I am an insufferable skeptic who would rather “wait and see” what the hullabaloo is about. But I am also the type of reader who believes a novel should be able to stand on its own merits: required reading guides and footnotes strike me as superfluous and suck the life out of the flow of the narrative. What is the story? Is his post-modern form lost on me? As you can see, this novel is problematic for me on many levels.
Now that I have aired my “beefs,” I would like to comment on the recurring theme of “giving oneself away” which, I believe, we originally attributed to Schtitt. Nigh two hundred pages in and we’ve seen several examples. On page 107, Marathe tells Steeply, “Our attachments are our temple, what we worship, no? What we give ourselves to, what we invest with faith.” Ortho Stice echoes this on page 119: ”…it’s about how to reach down into parts of yourself you didn’t know were there and get down in there and live inside these parts.” (A concept reinforced in real life, I might add, in Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston). Hal himself reiterates this approach while imparting rules for success to his underlings: “talent’s unconscious exercise becomes a way to escape yourself.” (173)
A few random thoughts…
Has anyone else noticed the recurring use of the word “dessicated”?
O.N.A.N – not to be betray my own Freudian fixations, but the definition of onanism is “masturbation” or “self-gratification”
Randy,
I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all about the O.N.A.N connection. When I first read that in IJ, I was immediately recalling my sunday school lessons, and the misadventures of Onan.
Perhaps, this ONANism of the book is tied directly to the concept of giving one’s self away. I recall the idea that there is no such thing as a selfless deed. All the characters’ motivations, temples perhaps, are based in self gratification. I think this even applies to someone like Marathe who seems somewhat more romantic than the others. P.S. he will continue to endear himself to you as you read. Perhaps, they only give their faith in the self-interest. A karmic masturbation.
By: timesnine on August 4, 2009
at 10:16 pm
“The entrace says EXIT” (p. 222) ! ! ! !
By: daniellesely on August 5, 2009
at 10:23 pm