Quite a Character
I guess I was somewhat curious when I began my reading about which characters would come to visit us again. DFW does a great job of creating characters with a surprising amount of depth for all the number of pages in which they are presented in. However, he creates SO many characters, it seems increasingly unlikely that even in 1000 pages they could all be woven together into one "story" unless DFW suddenly changes his style drastically. This brings us to questions 1 & 2:
1) We've seen some strongly recurring characters (Hal, Mario, Pemulis...) and some who come back quite a bit less strongly (dealer in the trailer with the snakes, Mildred Bonk & her husband) and some who, as far as I can tell, have not returned at all (Tiny Ewell, Wardine & co.). What significance does it have for a character to recur/not recur?
2) Why have characters that don't recur?
Sort of in relation to #1, we've seen a few characters who somewhat vaguely appear and reapper throughout the story. As noted above, the dealer, Mildred Bonk & her hubby, and James I. are a few. I also thought that Poor Tony was the one who stole that lady's heart (literally) as they mentioned something about a feather boa but it was hard to be sure.
3) As somewhat of a checkup, are there any others who seem like they could have been mentioned before? The people at the Ennet House could certainly be people mentioned a while back. Just sort of wondering about the other ones that people noticed.
These characters often seem to play the odd role of connecting stories that would otherwise be disparate (add in the Medical Atache to that list).
4) Why connect the stories? Why not connect them more? It seems as though (currently) there are a number of vaguely connected plot lines running around, but none really latch onto the Incandeza plotline.
Finally, if some characters, as seems likely, do not come back to visit, they must somehow connect to a broader theme in the book.
5) What are some things all these characters have in common?
[To the above I would tentatively note that a large number seem to be concerned with coping in some sort of way. The ETA is all about coping & so is the Ennet house. Erdedy has interesting ways of "coping" (or not). Much of the Incandeza family (except Mario??) seems to be coping with something although exactly what isn't 100% clear to me.
I also liked Alex's point as it does seem to connect a lot of the stories.]
Just some thoughts, looking forward to seeing the rest of the posts.
1) We've seen some strongly recurring characters (Hal, Mario, Pemulis...) and some who come back quite a bit less strongly (dealer in the trailer with the snakes, Mildred Bonk & her husband) and some who, as far as I can tell, have not returned at all (Tiny Ewell, Wardine & co.). What significance does it have for a character to recur/not recur?
2) Why have characters that don't recur?
Sort of in relation to #1, we've seen a few characters who somewhat vaguely appear and reapper throughout the story. As noted above, the dealer, Mildred Bonk & her hubby, and James I. are a few. I also thought that Poor Tony was the one who stole that lady's heart (literally) as they mentioned something about a feather boa but it was hard to be sure.
3) As somewhat of a checkup, are there any others who seem like they could have been mentioned before? The people at the Ennet House could certainly be people mentioned a while back. Just sort of wondering about the other ones that people noticed.
These characters often seem to play the odd role of connecting stories that would otherwise be disparate (add in the Medical Atache to that list).
4) Why connect the stories? Why not connect them more? It seems as though (currently) there are a number of vaguely connected plot lines running around, but none really latch onto the Incandeza plotline.
Finally, if some characters, as seems likely, do not come back to visit, they must somehow connect to a broader theme in the book.
5) What are some things all these characters have in common?
[To the above I would tentatively note that a large number seem to be concerned with coping in some sort of way. The ETA is all about coping & so is the Ennet house. Erdedy has interesting ways of "coping" (or not). Much of the Incandeza family (except Mario??) seems to be coping with something although exactly what isn't 100% clear to me.
I also liked Alex's point as it does seem to connect a lot of the stories.]
Just some thoughts, looking forward to seeing the rest of the posts.
posted by Cory at 7:12 PM
3 Comments:
What else can be said about the connections between ETA and EH? Do the students at ETA seem to enjoy playing tennis? Do the addicts like the home?
wardine has kind of been mentioned, in a roundabout way: during the transcripts from the ennet house, there's something about clenette, so...
Makes sense. Sam also mentioned Erdedy.
In answer to you, Graham, I guess I would say that the ETA students are sort of forced to put their love of tennis on hold in that they have to keep drilling in order to become good.
The addicts don't seem to particularly like the home (suicide, scared of things in the toilet, scared at/annoyed with each other...).
Both were also founded in somewhat similar ways (ETA by a Tennis prodigy & EH by a former addict).
Both also mention the group dynamic ("I know part of the process is learning to live in a community" 178 is similar to "Ah, but then so notice the instant group-cohesion..." 113). On the other hand, this dynamic seems to be achieved in ETA while at EH it fails (fork stabbing, suicide, stabbed guy not really liking anyone else etc. all make it seem like a disconnected community if even a community at all).
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