Every whole person has ambitions, objectives, initiatives, goals. This one particular boy’s goal was to be able to press his lips to every square inch of his own body. His arms to the shoulders and most of the legs beneath the knee were child’s play. After these areas of his body, however, the difficulty increased with the abruptness of a coastal shelf. The boy came to understand that unimaginable challenges lay ahead of him. He was six.
I thought this story/aside was just silly the first time I read it but this second time through it seems, well, maybe not profound, but at least more significant. Perhaps something to the effect of exploring in great detail a single experience, as Wallace is attempting to do with boredom in this novel?
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Jonathan D McMillan
