/lit/ - Literature

>>18460681
Addiction is one of the copes for the problem the book speaks of which you are poking at with your toe a fair amount in your second paragraph. You are almost there anon, remember what the Wraith tells Gately and what we learn about The Wraiths own childhood in earlier chapters. The few chapters which contain Himself/Wraith in the present tense are probably as close as there is to a key to IJ, professional conversationalist, the two young Jim chapters and The Wraith.

>>18460716
I kind of got that feeling. I'm probably going to reread it in a year or so. If I remember right, JOI's conversation with Gately is very much about his inability to communicate with his son right? and IJ the film itself as his way of bringing Hal out of his weird neurotic shell?

>>18460716
>it's that gay guy who thinks there's a secret key to the book again
are you the same guy who's obsessed with his german interview?

>>18460759
No! That's me actually. I haven't posted in the thread yet.

>>18460759
And he never fucking explains it either he just says 'you're close to the secret'

>>18460789
Oh you mean that poster. No I fucking hate that guy. We have had endless threads talking about the actual themes and sequence of events in the book and that anon just keeps trolling without ever explaining himself. After I read it I posted quite at length in a thread and that mother fucker had the audacity to tell me I was wrong without pointing out where my analysis went wrong. I'd have preferred someone just post SNEED instead of trying to bring some sort of mysticism into a book that's already complicated enough.

One of the interesting things about this book was how DFW was trying to straddle the lines of both commercial fiction and literary fiction, like how he often talked about in interviews of the different purposes and values of each. There's a whole passage that's taken near-verbatim from Harris's Red Dragon, and a section of the book that seems right out of a Tom Clancy novel. It's interesting to think about this book as a culmination of its influences, equal parts Gaddis/Delillo and Harris/Clancy The book is more accessible on a basic level after a certain stretch of it, but reveals depth upon closer reads

>>18460759
I don't think there is a secret key, I said as CLOSE to a key as there is.
>>18460789
? OP is 90% there, he needs no help, why would I tell him?

What is with you people? I have no idea who this anon is but you seem like you will be fun to jerk around. How much time do you guys spend here? Is this like a major portion of your life or something? I can not imagine being here enough to actually be able to identify anons, or think you can.

>>18460803
I finally got around to reading white noise after I finished IJ and I was kinda disappointed. Wallace was right to quote the barn scene in his essay on TV and modernity. (e plurbus whatever). It was the best scene in the whole book, but it really was just a bit taken from simulacra and simulation. White noise was so tongue in cheek about everything that even it's criticisms couldn't be taken seriously. IJ's commentary on the world was a little more direct in the dialogue as mouth pieces for Dave, and I'm not sure I liked that any better.

>>18460681
can you name an example of a dialogue like that? I can't quite follow you

>>18460817
>uses reddit spacing, isolated question marks, "you people", and 24/7 sad poster insults in order to dissuade us from him not being the "you are close to the key" anon
I see what you are doing, anon. I won't be led off the path to find your key.

what's the significance of the last chaoter being narrated in first person? does it mean that hal quitting weed lead to him connecting to his inner self?

>>18460878
Hal did the drugs that the ghost put on his toothbrush, reversing the effects of the mold when he was young. Inverting his cold and emotionless brilliance into overly emotional human existence. After this change occurs he is unable to properly communicate with other people. All his dialogue is only in his head. This is why people only hear his grunts, laughs, and crying. He's a real human bean, as they say.

>>18460860
It's hard to remember specifics, but I think some of the conversations between Pemulis and Hal, or Pemulis and the other kids, or even conversations between Hal and Mario.

>>18460911
one thing I noticed about dfw that he has these characteristic dialogue with multiple people where they complete each others sentences

>>18460866
That is not reddit spacing, that is a separate thought which is directed at both of you. You have poor language skills and see boogeymen everywhere.

>>18460878
Hal ceased talking completely and receded into his own head. The same as Himself did, remember there are almost no examples of Himself talking and only one example of him actually communicating (Orin and the porn). Hal became a figurant just like his dear old dad.

>>18460926
>>18460911
I distinctly remember most of the dialogues between two characters being ones where both characters talked past each other. No one ever met up. No one ever acknowledged what the other said. All the characters were waiting for the other person to finish. Like the Moms would just worry about the retarded kid and never actually answered his questions about feelings or family or history. Hal would just quote shit at people. Pemulis was always obsessed over where his drugs were. The buff dude that ran the house was always worried about his job and not what the residents actually said. Every resident was just stuck in their own little thing.

I think this is reflected by the radio show that everyone attentively listened to. because it was technology and one way, people actually listened.

>>18460960
Yes! That's what I'm getting. When the moms and Mario are never actually communicating with each other is one of them. There's never a unification of thought, a singular conversation between two people. It's always bouncing, or deflected by personal anxieties and such

>>18460945
>You have poor language skills and see boogeymen everywhere.
Right back at'cha, anon. *Wink* I'm -very- offended. Your keyhole is mine, faggot.

>>18460960
Everyone is fulfilling their role and meeting the expectations people/society has of them, instead of communicating, just like the figurants on Cheers, what happens if they do something unexpected? Same thing that happens to Hal in the first chapter, he was fulfilling the role his handlers had cast him in, when he stopped fulfilling that role they called an ambulance.

>>18460681
On round two now. I'm skipping end notes and just letting myself slip as far into the moment as I can. It's fucking nuts. Now that I know all the characters and and shit that happens, all the little breadcrumbs that were more or less white noise the first time through suddenly turn Technicolor and spiral inward and out through my brain. It feels so fucking good.

And god damn I've never cried harder from a book or really any art than I did after "so yo then man what's your story?". I've had so many fucking people ask me throughout my life why I'm so quite or why I just sent there silently looking depressed. The truth and what I want to tell them everytime is so massive and ineffable that I basically lock up and shut down even further. Whenever I try to tell them what's really on my mind I just get frustrated trying to properly articulate and put into some kind of logical phrase the reason I'm unhappy. Hals internal monologue being crystal clear while the folks on the outside only perceive what is directly the opposite is so horribly, tears of joy inducingly relatable.

Think of it like this: You want to kill yourself so badly but before you go you'd like to explain why so that your loved ones dont think it's their fault. How could you possibly go about doing this? You start writing and writing and more writing. Stories with characters experiencing the same flavor of loneliness that you are. You have to talk and dance around it because speaking about it directly doesn't fucking work. It just doesn't. On the surface it's absolute chaos. It's Wallace flailing about making gutteral noises and trying so desperately to put into words his truth. The more I read it the more I understand and am understood.

Please don't think I don't care.

>>18460681
Still reading, got to page 260 today.

So far it seems that the point of the book is exploring some sort of modern pathology of loneliness. The conversational structure is one thing I notice too, how sometimes characters speaking to one another don't even acknowledge what was previously said, as if they were isolated entirely.

Genius passages are interspersed with what feels like intentional drudgery, to lull you into that same quiet, lonely dissatisfaction characteristic of modern life before it drops another amazing section of insightful prose.

I was hooked as soon as I finished the section about the guy addicted to weed at the beginning.

>>18460759
I fucking hate this guy. The one who's always trying to "teach" people the "truth" about Infinite Jest. What a cunt.

>>18461123
Everyone should read it a second time without the endnotes, and probably a third time with the end notes. I was somewhat angry about the end notes after my second read, they seemed so pointless and just a gimmick which only detracts from an amazing novel. But I eventually read it a third time with the end notes and it all made sense.

>>18461195
For sure. No doubt in my mind that two reads won't be enough.

>>18461123
I'm gonna wait a bit til I read it again. I think my family and friends would have a fit if they saw me touting it around again. They all seem to think I only read authors that have offed themselves. Your take makes me very excited to read it again though.
>>18461185
You are hitting all the right notes of someone who's going to enjoy the rest of it. Those are some of the major consistent themes and the bit about the weed guy is always kinda the make or break point for people as to whether they will enjoy the book or not.
>>18461190
How many DFWs are you at? I'm at 43 myself. You got any rare ones?

>>18461235
God damn it, you cocksucker. Stop being so fucking pretentious and acting as if you were DFW himself talking about his motivations for writing the book.

>>18461195
I think his use of end notes in nonfiction were a good primer for IJ, but I also think he uses them to much better material content-wise effect in his non fiction. There, they really are little interesting asides that don't fit into the main part of the writing. In IJ it seems like they are used more as a tool to interrupt, plant seeds, re-reference, and only occasionally as the asides he's so well known for. The footnotes within footnotes were hilarious. The list of movies was pretty awesome, but so many of the drug data entries, like, not even the entries about their historical context which were funny (bob hope), seemed so pointless besides just the standard use of end notes he was going for.

I suppose I mean to say that his footnotes were really hit or miss my first time around. What did you get or not get out of them the third time?

>>18461256
S-sorry anon. Didn't mean to channel my inner 'the key' guy.

>>18461266
I saw one theory that the descriptions of the films in the endnotes are descriptions of the scenes in the novel in miniature. Any precedence to that?

>>18461266
On the third read I really saw his logic behind the end notes and he uses them for a variety of reasons throughout the book, a favorite of mine is Gately in the hospital with the endless drug names, you can't help but look because it might be something more this time and you can't bring yourself to read ahead in the footnotes to get them out of the way because you might accidentally spoil something to come, it reflects Gately's frustration wonderfully. He uses many of the seemingly pointless endnotes like this, to accentuate what is happening in the story. They all have a greater purpose beyond distraction and sometimes they can be very important. The main thing to remember is that the sections with few or no endnotes tend to be very important and it would not be a bad idea to go back a page or two and review after a long footnote, he likes to dump something important right before the long ones.

>>18461308
They have greater thematic parallels than plot parallels from what I remember.

>>18461341
Oh shit that makes total sense. That is what a hospital fading in and out of conscious would feel like. Neat shit.

>>18461365
A lot of what he's doing with the style of various sections and syntax is often to reflect the state of things in the novel

> free will doesn't exist, we are all caught in sin
consider the source: there is some evidence that DFW either had
- an endocannabinoid disorder
- anhedonia
So in fact, DFW may be someone who couldn't experience pleasure, i.e. sin didn't have its characteristic pleasant quality so for him, sin did not exist, free will was so powerful that it destroyed the ability of sin to act upon him!

>>18461365
This is more reflecting his frustration with the doctor offering him drugs he is afraid he can not turn down, when he clamps down on the doctors nuts. DFW does directly play with the fading in and out though, the switching between consciousness, The Wraith, dream and reflecting on his past often just happens, especially between Gately's thoughts and The Wraith, which are technically the same since The Wraith is speaking directly into Gately's consciousness, but also between dream and reflection on his past.

Gately's reflecting on his past his fairly important thematically. These parts of his past are what he always avoided, what he never could deal with and the things which would most likely get him back into drugs, the avoidance of them. He uses his most painful memories as a distraction from the pain, the only time he can be honest with himself is when he has no other choice.

>>18461388
DFW in interviews always avoids the drug questions, probably because of this. It's uncomfortable self reflection for him

>>18461501
He talked about his drug issues in interviews many times, I believe he goes into in the German interview if memory serves.

what's the meaning of wraith time being so slow? is it to make a point abiut how much effort it takes to connect to others?

>>18461517
The anon was saying that in his interviews when people ask him about his drug use he normally says something like "I don't know anyone under 40 who hasn't tried some drugs and drank a bunch at one time or another, but I don't really want to talk about my use of drugs or drinking because then this whole interview becomes a portrait of that person instead of about the actual things in the book"

>>18461526
Probably. Or maybe it’s a joke about how long the book is. Or maybe it’s to make the work out guy seem really impressive. Or that life after death is greater than our life experiences. I have no idea.

>>18461534
Well sure, he had answered those questions many times already.

>>18461526
Worthwhile communication takes effort, it is not always easy and fun.

It is interesting how IJ threads can be comfy or awful depending on whether they are initiated in good or bad faith. Here’s a bad faith example I see a lot:

>lol I thought you guys said this was difficult.

Anyway, enough on that. I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that DFW really wanted to be liked or appreciated in a Biff Loman sort of way. Maybe that’s an incorrect way to read literature but I kept wanting to give this dude a hug. Absolutely signs of compassion and sensitivity in the book, though.

Kino moment that snuck up on me: Poor Tony escaping from his mugging as the person in the alley says: “Go.” At this point, I didn’t like Poor Tony yet somehow in this very moment everything was reversed and this decaying vile addict was suddenly a superhero. Exceptionally kino.

Also I’ve never seen anyone discuss that the MIT building it shaped like a brain but the tennis facility is shaped like a heart and literally has a “Lung” that inflates and deflates with the season nearby. Was this DFW’s tender loving way to say his heart and soul could never leave tennis despite his mind being in academia?

>>18462896
>Maybe that’s an incorrect way to read literature but I kept wanting to give this dude a hug. Absolutely signs of compassion and sensitivity in the book, though.

way to fag up a good thread

>>18462896
>Also I’ve never seen anyone discuss that the MIT building it shaped like a brain but the tennis facility is shaped like a heart and literally has a “Lung” that inflates and deflates with the season nearby. Was this DFW’s tender loving way to say his heart and soul could never leave tennis despite his mind being in academia?
Holy based. I never thought of that.

>>18462896
That's the kind of awkward sincerity that DFW desperately wanted. The only fag here is the soijack tard.

>>18462924
>That's the kind of awkward sincerity that DFW desperately wanted.

pathetic to make this post to yourself

>>18462914
You could take it further and say that the brain building was used to send out communications. And the communications were garbled and indecipherable yet somehow engaging to others, as if the radio’s purpose was to allow people to self-reflect alone. Meanwhile the tennis academy was a blitz of social engagement

>>18462939
Could you also say that the lay out down the hill of where the halfway house was could be considered the limbs? The places where you inject the needle? I remember him describing them like two long arms going from down the hill. Maybe more like legs. I don’t know.

>>18462931
I guess only me and >>18462896 will know you're wrong.

>>18462944
Sure, let’s say whatever we feel. One thing that can’t be denied is the symbolism of the modern earth as as the body. There seemed to be something important about the excavation that was done near the halfway house. The way the earth had been ripped out and flattened for a new building or something. And then of course the massive trash dumps and the blighted area of eastern Canada.

Finally got around to reading this. I'm about 1/3 of the way through, and I'm not really enjoying it. After hundreds of pages, I feel like nothing is happening and none of the characters are interesting.

>>18462962
The first two clicks for me was (1) the description of the halfway house (2) the scene in the garage with the father fingering his flask. If neither of these moments felt like one of the the most sensitive things you’ve ever read, I’d consider moving on…

>>18462962
Nothing happens. The "plot" happens after the book. That's part of the joke. This doesn't make it a bad book. The first time I read it I dropped it after 60 pages. The second time I dropped it after about 300. I only finished it on my third attempt. Have you got to the silly nuclear tennis match yet? That was the bit that hooked me the third time I think.

It's just about to get good.
>>18462977
The part in the garage where he's describing women's lack of finesse is one of the greatest passages in western lit.

>>18460817
>I can not imagine being here enough to actually be able to identify anons, or think you can.
Don't lie! I see you post this same shit every day, anon.

>>18463033
I know frank, dave, john, and steve all post here. Fuck you herbert.

>>18460789
That is me, you autists keep me entertained while I wait for some other anon who is capable of discussion to respond. If i followed the thread correctly, I agree with that anon completely.

>>18463005
There no grand joke, its just not a plot driven novel and the plot primarily serves purposes other than story.

>>18463120
>book about entertainment and literary expectations constantly being questioned just so happens to be written in such a way that every major action scene, real interpersonal interaction between characters regarding those scenes, and all major discoveries regarding the mcguffin and it’s whereabouts are NOT included in the book but only implied through the bits between the time skips
It has to be a grand joke. The book focuses way too much on characters never meeting up mentally. Isolation. Habits. Repetition. Mundane aspects of life. The tropes of an adventure novel are avoided at every possible turn. Every time something is about to happen the section ends and it moves on to another person doing nothing and worrying about something. It’s a joke. The whole book is a sad plot cucking joke. I love it.

>>18462977
Those scenes did nothing for me. Completely forgettable.

>>18463005
Not having much of a plot is fine if the diversions and digressions are interesting. But everything so far feels dull and rambling and pointless.

I dunno. I wanted to like it, but I feel like I'm getting nothing out of this. Maybe I'll take a break and come back to it later.

>>18461501
Oh that's fine; suppose, however, that I equate sin and evil. Without the power of sin, evil is reduced to something trivial. Resistance to sin is resistance to evil.
Now: here is where it gets interesting. Since faith is meaningless and has no power to cancel the effects of sin, faith is reduced to a mere sensation, the so-called "oceanic feeling" of William James
Now, here is the tricky part: just because faith is something that brings people together and gives them a feeling, it thereby becomes sin itself! In this way, you can never run out of sin: simply identifying the process, of identifying sin as a sin itself, although of a trivial type only experienced in the antipodes, as a sin itself is the solution to the problem of the Mary Sue or Jesus Christ: the one who is without sin.

>>18463160
It is not about entertainment, entertainment is another substitute for honest communication and real human connection, just like drugs, reciting the OED or performing. Those plot elements are removed because they serve no purpose and are antithetical to the themes, they would only serve to entertain. Ironically leaving them out turned them into what the leaving them out was meant to avoid, people obsessed over what was not there at cost of what is there. Beyond that the structure of the novel relies upon their being missing, empathy with Hal during his final sections combined with what the Wraith tells is us brings us full circle back to the beginning and shows us what happened to Hal, if he had filled in that missing year there would be no need to empathize. He repeats this throughout the novel, the way a reader has honest communication and makes a connection with a character in a novel is through empathy.

never read any dfw
should i?

>>18463787
Sure, here is his shortest story, only a page long or so. Not exactly a representative example, but it shows some of his ways.

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a500/incarnations-burned-children-david-foster-wallace-0900/

>>18463795
well, youre nice

>>18463120
Lol you are such a faggot

>>18460803
Wallace included many commercial fiction books in his creative writing classes iirc. Also I think many great artists do this. Kurt Cobain for example didn't want Nirvana to be just another obscure grunge band listened to by a predictable (and small) audience so he tried writing music that had wider appeal. Same with Morrissey who said he wanted his music to be the kind that a housewife could sing along to while doing the dishes.

>>18460945
Interesting since one of the first things we learn that Hal inherits from James is his way of answering the phone; a method of communication. So Hal is like James in both his ability and inability to communicate.

>>18460681
DFW seems to be part of the American satanics. They are authors who, to a T, basically wrote books that seemed to be coated in misery and hatred of their own intelligence and awareness.
>Gass
>Pynchon
>A. Theroux
>DFW
They're forgettable to a T because they didn't have Christ in them.

What do you guys think about the scene where Hal tries to go get help for his addiction and shows up to the wrong meeting? Seems that DFW gives a really strong picture of AA and views it as being effective despite (or maybe because of) its platitudes and lack of rigorous intellectual engagement. The meeting Hal accidentally attends is presented in a cringe-worthy manner, where these grown men are acting like toddlers in order to heal their trauma, etc. Hal is horrified to see his brother's old doubles partner (iirc) crawling on the ground and babbling like a baby. Was DFW showing how these help groups can go too far/off the deep end? Something addressing the problem of the manchild phenomena? The fact that there are literally grown infants roaming the earth must be related.

>>18463769
Fuck you nigger did you even read the book.

>>18464475
Hal didn’t go to AA. He went to a completely different kind of meeting.

>>18464665
But what was the significance of the baby man meeting.

>>18460681
There were plenty of times I did not enjoy reading IJ but there were some really beautiful parts especially that last chapter. I'm happy I didn't drop it and just kept pushing through.

>>18464190
It is a simple way to deal with anons who are disruptive to the discussion at hand.

>>18464212
Remember how Himself (The Wraith) describes Hal, something like "the son who is so fearfully like me," he sees Hal following in his exact path, he is ceasing to talk (he just says what is expected of him instead of what he wants/needs to say) and he is experimenting with chemicals. Hal is just imitating his parents who never bothered to try and figure out what their children needed or even ask (they don't talk), they were just the sort of parents that they themselves needed/wanted. Hal only needs Himself to be what he was before he (Himself) stopped speaking, what he was for Orin but Himself can not longer see that because of what the chemical abuse has done to him and he blames Avril/his own mom (Infinite Jest V/VI for the whole thing and views himself as powerless.

>>18464475
The closest people come to honest communication is when it is highly structured and they are given a form to be honest within, they are not really being honest, they are still fulfilling the role. Remember that the inner monologue of Gately at NA/AA is largely just critical of people who do not follow the form, it is not about saying what you need to say it is about saying it in a way in which people can ID with you. The inner infant meeting is no different than the AA/NA meetings, the people are doing the exact same things.

>>18464575
Sure did, AMA.

>>18466231
What does bland elder cock taste like? Do you enjoy destroying your mind with Hegelian Brain Parasitism?

>>18466358
>What does bland elder cock taste like?
I would assume it tastes rather bland.
>Do you enjoy destroying your mind with Hegelian Brain Parasitism?
Not especially.

>>18466231
>The inner infant meeting

Peak of the book for me, in large part because it takes the DFW position re. authenticity and sincerity and tackling your problems and opens it up to ferocious criticism by making the beneficiaries of therapy pathetic, borderline subhuman. It's not only some great prose and an excruciating joke, it's also a writer working as a thinker, shitting on his own position.

>>18466516
How is he shitting on his own position?

>>18466577
bumping for curiosity

>>18466577
I'm not the OP, but in my opinion the "feral infant" thing that appears throughout the book prefigures the "inner child" meeting at which those who are "goo-prone" and "generally pathetic" play at being a child again. That is, being in the crib and having mom look over you and apologize for making you. It seems like an attempt to connect the infantile nature of excessive entertaintment consumption with the infantile nature of being quote-unquote sincere—the negative sphere of which containing things like gullibility, naivete, sentimentality.

>>18469089
Close. Now add in the stuff on parenting and communication.

>>18469089
.. and perhaps being prone to addictive behavior and substance abuse.

Highlight of the book for me was the sequence where Himself describes how he first became interested in optics.

Himself goes to AA and hates it but most of the book talks about AA in an extremely positive light. I think the inner child meeting is like the one anon said, DFW making fun of/checking himself. Genuine human connection is the goal (and in My opinion the thesis of the book), sometimes Therapy groups (like AA) can give that to you, sometimes they are full of repressed psychos. Almost every means of achieving human connection in the novel is shown as good and bad. Relationships: woman who runs the halfway house and her partner or don and the radio girl in juxtaposition with Orin and the radio girl (forgot her name). Sports: Lyle and Schtitt versus Hal.
Academics: The radio engineer guy vs himself.

I think pemulis is the most interesting character in the book because he straddles a lot of the binaries. DFW called him one of the “Antichrist”s (if I remember correctly) of the story.

>>18470380
I think Pemulis is great because he's such a cartoon early on. That hat. The highjinks. His name being dropped into random anecdotes. Then he turns out to be a mensch.

>>18460681
pretentious garbage.

>>18470380
>the book talks about AA in an extremely positive light.
It really doesn't, more shown as more a sad necessity. In IJ everyones problems stem from their parents, they are either left to figure out life for themselves or trained like a dog.
>Open this jar for me son, I am not strong enough.
>Ohhh! who's my big strong boy!
We get the best view of this through Hal's interaction with The Moms, she does it everytime they interact. Society has chosen to teach children through this sort of reward system, short sighted, just looking towards the next reward. You develop a tolerance for these sorts of rewards in fairly short order, just as Hal is developing regarding The Moms pretending to not know a word, so they seek out other simple rewards since that is all you were taught, drugs, tv, consumerism, mindless entertainment, etc, just find that next reward!. They never look to what their children need, never actually speak to them, they raise them to be figurants, most of IJ is exploring some of many reasons and ramifications, which all boil down to the same thing, the cycle continues. AA/NA/inner infant do not break this larger cycle, they feed it, they just move the reward to something more socially acceptable or to a cope which can be sustained longer. Look at Ferocious Francis, a man with geologic sober/AA time, when Gately needs him most, all he can offer is more cliches, he can't speak anymore than Hal or Himself can.

>>18470560
I had never thought about it like this. I can’t think of the best family depiction in the book.

>>18470560
How does Remy Marathes drunken speech fit into this endless cycle? Can we choose the “plug” to fit this bottomless hole?
I also think Gately is really important. I hear you about the platitudes in gatelys time of need but there also was that whole spiel about platitudes being the only means of accessing deeper meaning. The inaccessibility of language to fully grasp deeper meaning could factor into the footnotes too. The more trivial footnotes serve to “cut up” the deeper meaning of the text. Have you read Broom of the System?

>>18470560
Nice post. I guess the idea of this ritual behavior hopefully leading you to a place of peace like Gately maybe has at the end, like the other AA guys presumably have but can't articulate, is also what Pale King was about.

>>18470920
For the given context, Thanksgiving with the Incandenza's, pretty much gets it all.
>>18470943
DFW uses Remy to take this to the extreme, his reward is that which comes from acts of self sacrifice, he sacrificed his legs for the AFR, he sacrificed his love for a woman who can never return it, and his final sacrifice, everything he believes in and what most of prior his sacrifice were for. He knows it is unlikely he will ever be able to top this one, he is about to summit Mt. Dilaudid, he is about to hit rock bottom as AA would put it. Remy has built his life around avoidance of honesty and he found a wife that could not mess that up but has become dependent upon her for the lies he tells himself. The speech and the drink is his attempting to deal with it and decide which path to hell is better. The hole is plugged by ignoring the short term and focusing on the long term, set the goals, attain the goals and most importantly being honest to yourself and others about it all.

The platitudes do not actually offer a deeper meaning, they are platitudes. No one in AA/NA shows any sign of deeper understanding, Gately thinks he does but we find out he was lying to himself all along. When it comes down to it IJ is not especially deep, it is pointing out a banality of life which has terrible consequences and most everyone ignores, so he chose breadth over depth, he shows how it affects everyone in some way regardless of class, social standing, race, rank, what ever. Ultimately, depth is just another way to avoid honest communication.

>>18471023
Ritual behavior in place of honesty will never lead to a place of peace.