Reading Goal #4 (June 17) - up to p. 169: Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment

[Davy]

Let's keep talking. What is everyone think so far?

[Karen]

I think the chapter about "Videophony" is my favourite not-related-to-the-main-narrative-but-so-part-of-DFW's-writing-style section yet! Insightful and hilarious.

[Heidi]

I liked the Videophony "bilateral illusion of unilateral attention" too, it's a funny and sad commentary.

I also found Steeply and Marathe's discussion about love interesting.

[Scarlett]

I wouldn't worry too much about the sections written "in dialect;" I had some trouble with those as well the first time I read it. If you can't make it through, I seriously doubt it will affect your enjoyment of the book as a whole. I will say one thing I noticed this time through is that while the "Wardine be cry" section is written as though it's someone speaking, the section whose narrator is "yrstruly" appears to be written, as the grammatical/spelling errors are more indicative of a poor writer rather than someone speaking. Not really sure if/why this is relevant but it sticks out on repeat reading.

[Alec]

I think the way DFW presents different points of view, the way almost every chunk of text written around a character reflects this character's manner of speaking (French accent in text around Marathe, misspellings around Randy Lenz) etc. is meant to erase the boundary between written text and speech (and "streams of consciousness"). Every character's telling leaks into writing; everyone of them is an author in some way and as such has some privileges concerning written text.

I realize this is some seriously naive interpretation, but that's what I have arrived at by now.

[Mike]

The most recent bit (the Brando/tennis lecture) also appeared in James O. Incandenza's filmography:

“As Of Yore” - Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad. Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited. Cosgrove Watt, Marlon Bain; 16/78 mm; 181 minutes; black and white/color; sound. A middle-aged tennis instructor, preparing to instruct his son in tennis, becomes intoxicated in the family’s garage and subjects his son to a rambling monologue while the son weeps and perspires. INTERLACE TELENT CARTRIDGE #357-16-09

Enjoying a lot of the little connections between the story threads so far, but I feel like I should be taking notes to keep track of it all.

[Mike]

My overall impression is that the book has a strange 1950's vibe to it, even though it's set in the 21st century. It's something about the personalities and manners of speech. Also, the future tech stuff is remarkably inaccurate (intentionally or not?) -- everyone still uses "cartridges" to watch videos, there's no internet, cell phones aren't commonplace, etc. I think that contributes to the old-fashioned feel of it.

[Karen]

I'm really starting to see why so many people read this book more than once!

[[deleted user]]

Yeah, I like that. He has a composite of analogue equipment with digital-age power. Interesting considering where all this was in 1996 and how he saw all of this going.

[Alec]

I think that somewhere along the way there is a slight hint at some kind of suppression of IT by the authorities and InterLace and such, but I am not sure anymore.

[scott]

Passed the page 169 milestone.

The yrstruly/heroin section is incredibly well done.