DFW - The Broom of the System (group read) discussion
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The Broom of the System
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I picked it up yesterday and flew through the first 3 chapters. It's good to have DFW back in my life.
For starters, I love the fact that the character names will absolutely not allow any drop into "Realism" even when I start to question what it is if not realism. I mean, who gets away with Doug Dangler, Wang-Dang Lang, Biff Diggerence(!),
and Frequent and Vigorous Publishing?
The first "scene" (1981, at Mt. Holyoke) made me think of "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men," so I decided to check out the splash on the film. It looks quite wonderful, actually, like having skillful actors read the book out loud. By making the whole film rest on actual interviews, Krasinski at least had the good sense not to try to build some banal narrative around the monologs.
and Frequent and Vigorous Publishing?
The first "scene" (1981, at Mt. Holyoke) made me think of "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men," so I decided to check out the splash on the film. It looks quite wonderful, actually, like having skillful actors read the book out loud. By making the whole film rest on actual interviews, Krasinski at least had the good sense not to try to build some banal narrative around the monologs.
Juanitapat...agree with your "realism" point on character names. Yet the situation and scene in the dorm room felt like many that I have been in.
Juanitapat wrote: "For starters, I love the fact that the character names will absolutely not allow any drop into "Realism" even when I start to question what it is if not realism. I mean, who gets away with Doug Da..." Pardon my ignorance, but what film? Please explain.
Mod
There's a film adaptation of DFW's "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men." Here's the IMDb page for it:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790627/
I read somewhere (maybe in the introduction the "The Pale King") that DFW found it easy to come up with character names and would jot them down as they occurred to him, in case he might want to use them later.
I love the character names. Also, if you invert the double FFs and double GGs in Biff's name, it is Bigg Difference.Speaking of characters, it always helps me understand a book, its structure and flow, etc, if the characters are fleshed out well. I took a few notes down while reading chapter one, so my next post will look into the introduced characters so far. I'm sure I'm wildly missing out on something, so please add to/take from.
According to my reading of chapter 1:Lenore strikes me as curious -- she seems very attentive &
spongelike, soaking up the atmosphere around her (much of it
is new to her). This curiosity is perhaps anchored by her naivete --
though she is not without intelligence, as the text points out.
Mindy seems to solidly embody the college girl cliche -- the girl that
knows she's 'all that' -- and craves the attention constantly
given to her. Mindy's room is adorned with the expected decor
found in all college movies.
Sue seems a bit passive; an example being her reaction to the
possible rape of Nancy S., "I think it kind of messed her up."
Clarice fulfills the role of the cautious older sister of
Lenore. She, according to Lenore, witheld the supposed "dark
side" facts of college life during a Christmas break visit with
the Beadsman family.
The group of girls are in their apartment (Lenore merely
visiting her older sister) and these character dynamics play
out in a scene involving boys visiting (or intruding, according to Clarice) from a different college. The boys were attending a party below the girls' apartment before heading up
unannounced.
Lenore, before the boys appeared, desired to go to the party
to see what it was all about (her naive curiosity). She had a new violet dress and wanted to show it off. Lenore is seeking, in Mindy's words, a "condensed liberal arts education." Clarice intervenes sisterly, speaking of parties as nauseating.
Enter Wang Dang, our charming misogynist, and his friend Biff,
our scary and violent misogynist. It should be of no small
import that Biff is from Shillington, where John Updike grew up. DFW has on a few occasions criticized the work of Updike, a "Great Male Narcissist." The boys speak down to the girls in forceful, imperative tones, or "alcoholically articulate."
Near the end of the chapter, both Beadsmans take a stand
against the masochism. Clarice is first, as she's been around
the block in college. She takes a stand using words, while
also criticizing all males from the nearby colleges, while Biff gives the regrettable and vapid rationalization which is similar to the "you're asking for it if you dress that way" type of response.
Lenore tried to leave, and a nice phrase -- both descriptive and
showing camaraderie -- "everyone is standing with Lenore." Lenore
gains courage, and flings her high heel at Biff after seeing
him in the buff. The heel sticks to the door. Wang Dang has
slowly gained the attention of Mindy of chapter's end. Lenore
breaks on through to the other side, and escapes the
entrapment.
Section F in Chapter 3 (or: the hairbrush scene) is the type of writing that I relate most heavily to what I know of DFW's work. The abrupt, evocative, and sensual paragraph involving an anonymous person dreaming of Queen Victoria in the absence of Lenore provides an awkward truthful telling of someone who physically and emotionally yearns for someone.These types of passages are often his riskiest; therefore, they either really work or really miss. This one worked for me.
I was intrigued by Mindy's apparent exhibitionism, and Lenore's curiosity and reaction to it. At first I thought there might be some level of attraction there, or some sexual tension, but it never went in that direction.I also thought the choice to set Chapter 1 nine years prior to Chapter 2 was an interesting one. I'm still not entirely certain how this opening scene relates to the rest of the novel, other than by giving us a glimpse of Lenore (and Clarice, though she seems to be purely a secondary or maybe even tertiary character) in her formative years.
I also loved the names - especially Biff Diggerence (which I also read as a play on "big difference").
The chief joy of Chapter 1, as with much of DFW's work, was for me the sheer joy of the language, the entire bit with blissphemous, blousephemous, boisterous, bucephalus, barney rubble, baba yaga and bolsheviks; the use of "shlomps" as a verb; phrases like "Godfrey Jaysus" and "Idle know". Just so much fun to read and wallow around in all those words.
Jack wrote: "According to my reading of chapter 1:
Lenore strikes me as curious -- she seems very attentive &
spongelike, soaking up the atmosphere around her (much of it
is new to her). This curiosity is perh..."
Chapter 2 - I really enjoyed the appearance of a "pseudo short story" here. It seems somewhat oddly placed, occurring before the kick-off of the plot proper in Chapter 3, but once you get a little farther in, you start to see what DFW is doing with these. The second-order vanity thing is such a DFW concept, and I get the feeling these little stories are either short stories that DFW junked without actually completing as stand-alone stories, or parodies of the type of stories that are ubiquitous to literary journals, or some combination of both. Favorite line of chapter 2: "My younger brother has a really mammoth pelvis."
Brady wrote: "Section F in Chapter 3 (or: the hairbrush scene) is the type of writing that I relate most heavily to what I know of DFW's work. The abrupt, evocative, and sensual paragraph involving an anonymous..."I also immediately took notice of the Queen Victoria dream. I think you're right, DFW is known for writing risky passages like this, and I think that he pulled this one off flawlessly. It's what makes him such a good feature writer as well. His descriptions of the whole terrifying scene are so vivid and extended and detailed , and yet he brings it all to a point with lines like "there are odors".
I also enjoyed DFW's use of the 'royal we' in this section ("We are not aroused") ...DFW purposefully mixes the natural body with the political body here...all the consequences associated with the anonymous person's inability to stimulate Queen V. become very real and very violent. Clearly this person has some kind of complex and I can see this being a recurring theme throughout the story
There are two thing I like the most about Chapter 1. DFW makes the generic aspects of college life so personal - or rather, so relatable. Having just finished experiencing an oh-so-useful liberal arts education, the opening passage just flooded me with memories of my own countless experiences in dorm rooms and student houses through the years. The gossip, the casual pot-smoking, the familiar preoccupation with free food, the extended discussions and debates over what the group plans on doing for the night...it's all so familiar. This is what makes college life so unique from highschool and from 'the real world' and the author captures it perfectly. This opening scene has obviously happened a million times before but DFW has an uncanny ability to make the richness of the whole seemingly mundane-yet-fleeting experience so apparent. Generation X American writing at its finest. The second thing I liked about Chapter 1 was the way the author set up the second scene with Wang-Dang Lang and Biff Diggerence (awesome names). Having only been a young lad at the time of writing, I will never have an idea of how pronounced sexual violence was in college culture in the 80's. That being said, the casual (and brief) treatment of the issue ("Clarice and Sue look away, all calm" pg. 9) sets the stage for some considerable tension/suspense at the end of the chapter. DFW's cultural commentary is always there in his writing and always relatively subtle, but it is the way he mixes it in with the overall narrative of the chapter that is most impressive here. The shift from 1981 to 1990 after 1 chapter was quite interesting I thought. Were the events in the dorm room some kind of formative event for Lenore? Or will that night never be alluded to again in the story? DFW is known for writing novels that don't appear to have a linear plot and that contain characters that are briefly mentioned and then just as quickly forgotten (the Pale King, Infinite Jest) - and it works - but I hope this isn't the last we hear of Mindy and the Frat Boys.
Sorry guys, I'm up to speed but had no time to post a comment. Hope I will tomorrow!
Added comment on the discussion above: I do think that we learn alot about Lenore's unique and independent character from the surprising decisive physical action of throwing the spike-heel at Biff and then threatening with the other so successfully that she alone walks out uncontested.
No one has talked about the disappearance of Lenore's great-grandmother "with whom all the above clauses did take place." (Introductory sentence to /b/ of chp 3, 1990.) Is this his first half-page sentence --imitating German sentence construction?
In fact, 20 "residents" of the Nursing home and 4 staff have become "unavailable to access." Any responses to this?
We meet new lovely names: Candy Mandible and Judith Prietht. The Absurd-phone-problem segment also includes some entertaining enterprise names like "Bambi's Den of Discipline."
So far, except for the ugly behavior of the two male intruders at Lenore's sister's dorm apartment, the story seems designed merely to delight and entertain. Nothing serious. David Foster Wallace turned loose with his spirits high and his linguistic fascinations undampened. If this is going to take us to Wittgenstein, I could wish most of my study of philosophy had been conducted in this vein.
No one has talked about the disappearance of Lenore's great-grandmother "with whom all the above clauses did take place." (Introductory sentence to /b/ of chp 3, 1990.) Is this his first half-page sentence --imitating German sentence construction?
In fact, 20 "residents" of the Nursing home and 4 staff have become "unavailable to access." Any responses to this?
We meet new lovely names: Candy Mandible and Judith Prietht. The Absurd-phone-problem segment also includes some entertaining enterprise names like "Bambi's Den of Discipline."
So far, except for the ugly behavior of the two male intruders at Lenore's sister's dorm apartment, the story seems designed merely to delight and entertain. Nothing serious. David Foster Wallace turned loose with his spirits high and his linguistic fascinations undampened. If this is going to take us to Wittgenstein, I could wish most of my study of philosophy had been conducted in this vein.
I can't add anything more in the way of analysis but I would love a job answering phones where I could say "Frequent and Vigorous" all day! I also like the contrast between the Bombardini Company and Frequent and Vigorous Publishing with the former being a serious company (see their receptionist) and the latter being a nonsensical front or tax loophole. Further schisms should be interesting.
Sorry I dropped off the face of the earth, but I just did not get a chance of doing ANY reading in the last few weeks. I was deluding myself thinking I could read while on holiday but it was a very tiring holiday!I guess I'll be behind with the discussions, but that's ok :-) I'll just read and lurk and post when I'm ready.
I'm behind too because I got sucked into The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, so you're not the only one catching up!
Here's the reading schedule:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/c...
Spoiler line for this forum is page 52 (end of Chapter 3)