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This is the general discussion thread for Week 10's readings.

Here's the reading schedule:


Spoiler line for this forum is page 467 (end of Chapter 21, and end of the book).

Finished! Here's my overall review:

"I love Wallace but this isn't my favorite piece. The characters often read like a morality play instead of the bright, vibrant people he creates in Pale King and Infinite Jest. Some characters, like the Antichrist and Vlad the Impaler, redeem the work, but the character we get the most depth on is also the most annoying (Rick Vigorous). And the characters we want to know the most about, the two Lenores, remain as mysterious at the end as the beginning. Well, at least I learned how not pester future partners with my insecurities!"

I agree with Dejah across the board, although I don't see the morality in having Lenore go off with Wang-Dang Lang!!! (Yuck!) But I detect a certain repetitive self-mocking theme in all the dysfunctional relationships that Wallace can parade as stories of Rick Vigorous. I also love the fatuousness of Dr. Jay the therapist and sessions of incredible, but recognizable mis-diagnosing...I think it's Marvin Rosenberg (Nonviolent Communication) who struggles seriously against therapy directed toward fitting the "client" to the theory or diagnosis. But I still don't get the title and the references to Wittgenstein. Any suggestions?

I was pretty disappointed with the book in general; the first half was better than the second. Two things stand out: the "duck shoes" at Amherst, which was really a good take on young people of privilege (at the time - now anyone can buy them at Target) and very funny, and the look and demeanor that young people of privilege had on the Amherst campus - that is so spot on it's amazing. You see that look in many places - a face that has never known lack of anything, including approval, inclusion, love and all things material. I was really struck by DFW's ability to so clearly define that demographic - one of which he was a member, and he was well aware of that fact.

My hat is off to those of you who stuck with it. I fell off the wagon pretty early and haven't caught up yet. I'll surely finish it, but I'm not sure when.

Am I being too obvious if I suggest that the book's great deficit is that DFW staged it around a cruelly self-mocking version of himself: story-spinning, devious, jealous, insecure, foolish? The shlemiel-self he characterizes in the "Illinois State Park" essay and "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do AGain."