I hope Lenz is eaten alive by feral cats
"Echt and Tavis were both standing, now, in there. Their handshake looked, for the first split-second he looked, like C.T. was jacking off and the little girl was going Sieg Heil." This is a throwaway detail, but I just wanted to point it out because the image of a tiny person (an American incapable of making decisions at a level beyond that of a child) giving a Nazi salute (a pledge of fanatical devotion) to a man masturbating (the pursuit of personal pleasure) seemed like it summed up a lot of what this book is talking about in a nice little image.
I'm pretty sure Lenz is just about the most despicable character I've ever read about; I hope he gets what he deserves, whether its from the owners of the last dog (who conveniently enough seem to be Quebecois separatists, so they could be sufficiently vicious) or from just random misfortune (it'd be poetic if he somehow found his way into the eastern Concavity and got torn apart by an angry mob of feral cats [or hamsters.]) Anyway, my point is, I hope Wallace brings him to a terrible end; I want it to be painful, I want it to be slow, and I want to watch.
Unrelatedly, from way earlier (somewhere in the 420's) Marathe and Steeply argue about how two people ought to decide who should get a can of pea soup that has just become free for anyone because the two people's friend, its previous owner, has just abruptly died. Something about the absurdity of this situation, the idea that your friend would die and you'd be there arguing over his pea soup, seems very intentional. As though Wallace is suggesting that Marathe and Steeply are arguing over the wrong thing, or arguing something irrelevant, or that Canada and the US are doing the same; it's hard to tell with Wallace. But in general, I don't think we're supposed to agree with either Marathe and Steeply, because they're both made completely ridiculous by the narration. I don't know what the third perspective is, or whether their argument really matters. I think Wallace has been hinting at something though, and that he might clarify it later.
Since we hear a lot in this class about how useful lists are, and since suicide is one of the major motifs in the books (up there with drugs and tennis, which we have discussed) I thought I'd make a list of suicides, w/o/r/t success and intentionality.
JOI
JVD (unsuccessful)
Clipperton
C (unintentional)
Kate Gompert (unsuccessful)
Tennis Player Who Injests Poison
I thought the list would be longer than that, so I may have forgotten some. Does anyone remember any others.
w/r/t what DFW is actually supposed to be saying with this suicide motif, my only real observation is that it may be connected to the idea of the Temple.
The Temple is supposed to be that for which you would be willing to die, and obviously if you will directly kill yourself because of something, it's probably your temple. JVD's temple of Too Much Fun leads to her suicide; Clipperton's temple is tennis success, and once he achieves that goal his temple seems taken away and he actually goes through with suicide; marijuana leads to Kate Gompert's suicide, just as heroin leads to C's unintentional self-slaughter. One can't be sure why exactly JOI put his head in the microwave, so one has to in turn wonder what his temple was.
Also, just as a note, I've had this thought for a while, but in case anyone hasn't thought of this, don't we think the ETA situation is somewhat Hamlet-like? This makes sense, since the book's title comes from the play. The father is the headmaster (maknig him a sort of monarch), he is dead, the son's uncle is the new monarch (is C.T. amorously involved with Avril? Or at least, was he at some point? I felt that this was implied at various points, though the new John Wayne development puts a bit of a twist to that,) and Hal seems sort of like a syncopation of Hamlet (just cut out the "m" and slice off the "et".)
I haven't thought about it enough to extend that parallel any further.
Hamlet and IJ certainly have themes of suicide in common.
I'm pretty sure Lenz is just about the most despicable character I've ever read about; I hope he gets what he deserves, whether its from the owners of the last dog (who conveniently enough seem to be Quebecois separatists, so they could be sufficiently vicious) or from just random misfortune (it'd be poetic if he somehow found his way into the eastern Concavity and got torn apart by an angry mob of feral cats [or hamsters.]) Anyway, my point is, I hope Wallace brings him to a terrible end; I want it to be painful, I want it to be slow, and I want to watch.
Unrelatedly, from way earlier (somewhere in the 420's) Marathe and Steeply argue about how two people ought to decide who should get a can of pea soup that has just become free for anyone because the two people's friend, its previous owner, has just abruptly died. Something about the absurdity of this situation, the idea that your friend would die and you'd be there arguing over his pea soup, seems very intentional. As though Wallace is suggesting that Marathe and Steeply are arguing over the wrong thing, or arguing something irrelevant, or that Canada and the US are doing the same; it's hard to tell with Wallace. But in general, I don't think we're supposed to agree with either Marathe and Steeply, because they're both made completely ridiculous by the narration. I don't know what the third perspective is, or whether their argument really matters. I think Wallace has been hinting at something though, and that he might clarify it later.
Since we hear a lot in this class about how useful lists are, and since suicide is one of the major motifs in the books (up there with drugs and tennis, which we have discussed) I thought I'd make a list of suicides, w/o/r/t success and intentionality.
JOI
JVD (unsuccessful)
Clipperton
C (unintentional)
Kate Gompert (unsuccessful)
Tennis Player Who Injests Poison
I thought the list would be longer than that, so I may have forgotten some. Does anyone remember any others.
w/r/t what DFW is actually supposed to be saying with this suicide motif, my only real observation is that it may be connected to the idea of the Temple.
The Temple is supposed to be that for which you would be willing to die, and obviously if you will directly kill yourself because of something, it's probably your temple. JVD's temple of Too Much Fun leads to her suicide; Clipperton's temple is tennis success, and once he achieves that goal his temple seems taken away and he actually goes through with suicide; marijuana leads to Kate Gompert's suicide, just as heroin leads to C's unintentional self-slaughter. One can't be sure why exactly JOI put his head in the microwave, so one has to in turn wonder what his temple was.
Also, just as a note, I've had this thought for a while, but in case anyone hasn't thought of this, don't we think the ETA situation is somewhat Hamlet-like? This makes sense, since the book's title comes from the play. The father is the headmaster (maknig him a sort of monarch), he is dead, the son's uncle is the new monarch (is C.T. amorously involved with Avril? Or at least, was he at some point? I felt that this was implied at various points, though the new John Wayne development puts a bit of a twist to that,) and Hal seems sort of like a syncopation of Hamlet (just cut out the "m" and slice off the "et".)
I haven't thought about it enough to extend that parallel any further.
Hamlet and IJ certainly have themes of suicide in common.
posted by Alexander Dove Lempke at 5:08 PM
5 Comments:
Amazing catch on that Echt/Tavis scene; before it just seemed funny to me, now it's... deep.
I'm pretty sure that C.T. is "amorously involved" with Avril, and I get the distinct feeling that he once mused over whether Mario was his child. (I'll post the page number if I find it.)
I'm not sure how relevant this is, but you reminded me that JVD tried to kill herself because of her Temple of 'Too Much Fun', which (coincidentally?) is the name of one of JOI's movies.
Now I'm off to write my own post.
I'll definitely second Jerry's first comment.
CT & Avril are *definitely* involved. I'd forgotten about the quote Jerry pointed to but I remember it now which is pretty direct evidence.
Doesn't the football scene also suggest that Avril/JW are weirdly involved?
Definitely true about Hamlet/IJ. I swear someone brought that up about CT/Avril before... was it you?
I'll quickly quibble about being able to unintentionally commit suicide: everyone could be blamed in some way for their death (probably), so what about C's death makes it "unintentional suicide"? This also doesn't seem to connect to C's emotional state/temple (anymore than it would for someone who accidentally falls off a bridge).
That said, there's another tennis player who kills himself with cyanide-laced quik (which his whole family proceeds to ingest via CPR, thus killing them). That's all I can think of offhand.
With the unintentional suicide I was just including C because his blind pursuit of his temple led directly to his death. True enough, that isn't legitimately a suicide.
Oh, and the football scene doesn't really "suggest" that Avril and John "N.R." Wayne are weirdly involved, it pretty much says it. I mean, he's wearing only a football helmet, socks , adn shoes. Sexual involvement isn't as much implied as stated.
I certainly agree that C's lifestyle leads to his death. I was just quibbling as we might've expanded the list if he counts but, really, it doesn't matter.
Point taken about "suggestions." :)
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