Also, why is Eschaton such a popular chapter? I thought it was good and all, but if I hadn’t been told about Eschaton a half dozen times prior to reading the book I’m not sure I would have paid much attention to that chapter at all.Also, what’s the point of the Raquel Welch anecdote? Is DFW just showing how far AA (he?) will go in saying that addiction should not be blamed on external circumstances? I can’t imagine writing a story like that and having people that I know in real life read it.Also, how on earth is Orin unable to tell that Steeply is a man, especially given the comic descriptions of Steeply’s disguise from early on in the book. Orin isn’t as smart as Hal, but he’s obviously not retarded.
>>24118964you fell for it.
>>24118964>Also, how on earth is Orin unable to tell that Steeply is a man, especially given the comic descriptions of Steeply’s disguise from early on in the book. Orin isn’t as smart as Hal, but he’s obviously not retarded.this was kind of stupid in retrospect. sometimes the book tries too hard to be funny.
>>24119052there's supposed to be some joke about Football having homosexual undertones but it doesnt really make sense since Orin is just a punter (another sex joke)
>>24118964>why is Eschaton such a popular chapter?Lots just find it funny but it is an amazingly well written bit, reread it and skip the end notes this time so the flow is not broken up. It also has a few very important details buried in it which many miss. >DFW just showing how far AA (he?) will go in saying that addiction should not be blamed on external circumstances?No, the scene is about Gately, we learn a great deal about him in that scene, parallel and contrast it with Hal and ETA. DFW is taking issue with that aspect of AA but not in the way you likely think, you got a ways to go before you have the required information to fully parse this bit.>Also, how on earth is Orin unable to tell that Steeply is a manThose descriptions of Steeply are Marathe's who knows Steeply as a Haitian and a Hari Krishna and who knows what else and even possibly knows the real Steeply so Marathe has considerably more perspective, he has many before images and is still coming to terms with this new iteration of Steeply. Were you not paying attention to the use of free indirect speech? You said you noticed it, did you not bother applying that knowledge to interpret the information you receive? If the narrator is using free indirect speech the narrator is being colored by that character's perception if not outright relaying that perspective to the reader.
>>24119136>Those descriptions of Steeply are Marathe's who knows Steeply as a Haitian and a Hari Krishna and who knows what else and even possibly knows the real Steeply so Marathe has considerably more perspective, he has many before images and is still coming to terms with this new iteration of Steeply. Were you not paying attention to the use of free indirect speech? You said you noticed it, did you not bother applying that knowledge to interpret the information you receive? If the narrator is using free indirect speech the narrator is being colored by that character's perception if not outright relaying that perspective to the reader.idk about all this. Orin describes Steeply in a masculine way too.
>>24118964I'm a little under 200 pages in and I keep saying I'm going to drop it but then I can't stop thinking about it once I do. My midwit guess at the moment is that Marathe's "choose your attachments carefully" is going to be a big theme if not the main idea of the book and is Wallace criticizing American culture and society. I've also noticed he uses the term "heads and bodies" to describe a lot as well and I wonder what that's all about.
>>24119138Only vaguely and far different from Marathe's view which is also heavily colored by his views of Steeply and Americans. >>24119149He lays out theme in the first chapter complete with all the ways he is going to support and explore theme, you are playing catchup. Not catastrophic or even bad, even if you had caught it all you are very unlikely to come away from your first read with anything more than a vague and nebulous sense of theme and you will likely change your views many times as you work through it, part of the fun of these big difficult books.
If I had any talent with photoshop, I would adapt this to be about Dr. Wo's hot shot, but alas
>>24119136>It also has a few very important details buried in it which many missInteresting. The only thing I caught on to was the discussion of a map being distinct from the thing. This seemed significant since the book uses the word “map” a lot in reference to different things. Probably not what you’re talking about though.>Were you not paying attention to the use of free indirect speech? You said you noticed it, did you not bother applying that knowledge to interpret the information you receive? If the narrator is using free indirect speech the narrator is being colored by that character's perception if not outright relaying that perspective to the reader.This makes sense and I agree, and I see your point that Marathe has more context than Orin in which to compare and contrast female Steeply, but even Orin’s descriptions of Steeply make it seem as though Orin has all the visual cues he needs to draw the conclusion that it’s no woman.
>>24119167>He lays out theme in the first chapterTo choose attachments carefully? Interesting, how do you figure? I guess I can see it with Hal losing his shit and not being able to communicate but I'm sure there's more to it than that
>>24118964Why don't you just like... laugh at the funny parts and stop asking /lit/ what profound meaning they have?
>>24119238Map is a big one but you can't forget the territory. This is a good example of how he gives you important information for the first half or so of the novel, he has a character jumping up and down screaming over and over "map not territory," he always does something to draw you attention to what is important and we never have to blindly try and make connections. Other big thing he does is that each section is primarily about giving you information about one character, he goes about telling which character to read for in different ways such as the use of free indirect speech and whose speech the narrator is affecting or he just tells you straight out as he does with the Eschaton chapter which opens with something like "If Hal was asked how to describe Eschaton..." but then he goes on and on about Eschaton and it is easy to forget that this section is about Hal. To make things easier yet, if he does something like have Pemulis jumping up and down screaming the same thing over and over in a section about Hal you can be reasonably certain that what Pemulis was screaming is going to be applied to Hal in someway. So, something about Hal's map and his territory.Which is not to suggest these tidbits are all that matter, they are also guides to aide in interpreting a given section, how that section fits in larger contexts and how to interpret later sections where he stops giving you such direct clues and instead nods towards past clues to let you know how it fits. How do you know Orin has the clues? We are told fairly directly how far Steeply and Unspecified Services go in taking on their identities, he had his teeth removed for one cover, they don't fool around. You also need to keep track of the timeline, the Marathe & Steeply sections are 6 months prior and shortly after Steeply took on this new identity so was still learning and not yet complete in his transformation which Marathe also takes note of. More importantly, do you think this information is of any importance to interpretation? Are you being led astray? IJ is filled with things to lead you astray and they are great fun to explore because most of them are well fleshed out and not just dead ends, they suggest something compelling. But nothing in the novel is completely unimportant, DFW just nudges our interpretations off track instead of providing useless information/lies/etc. Might be time for a reread. >>24119247You might want to give those first 10 pages a reread before you get too far into the novel but it probably won't matter, properly parsing 250,000 words on your first read is very unlikely to happen unless you ruin it with autism.
