wallace-l: the last moments...

[George Carr]

Oh, Brenda, you got me thinking again, and that's dangerous in this
state I'm in.  I got to thinking about anhedonia and its paradoxical
result: how the lack of feeling becomes a feeling of pain.  I went
back to looking through my notes on IJ (which is all too easy with
Gmail) and found my discussion of anhedonia from more than two years
ago.  Even though it's in the archives, I'll repost it here in its
entirety, because I latched on to something while writing this that
excited me, and I want everybody here to remember that feeling of
exultation and excitement that can result from fucking brilliant
literary work:

===================================
Then we get into the Hal dilemma (p. 838): how Hal is becoming more
'hidden' as he grows older.  The real dilemma is the central one that
philosophers have puzzled over: how can anyone ever see another's true
self?  Expressed here, it's the paradox between the JOI/Schtitt
attitude that self-denial is the path to success (Stephen Burn writes
trenchantly about this w/r/t all the references to successful people
being 'machines'), and the pragmatic effect of this self-denial:
anhedonia.

And this paradox exists at all levels of maturity and accomplishment:
JOI-wraith makes clear that the only way to truly communicate is to
"concoct something the gifted boy couldn't simply master and move on
from to a new plateau." (p. 838-39).  And that deep engagement, as
we've discussed on this list before, is the hallmark of true art: that
even when divorced from its author, it creates a new dialogue with its
audience, every time it is experienced.  E.g. see a brilliant
painting, or read a brilliant book, or see a brilliant play, or
whatever, at five widely spaced times in your life, and you'll have
five different experiences that change you, alter you, give you new
insight.  And that challenge to artists is also a challenge to
audiences, that one can't close down and fall into repetition and
reiteration; engaged audiences must always seek new things, reconsider
assumptions and long-held beliefs, and actively dig into what it means
to be human.

And Gately and JOI-wraith agree, then, on a major danger to this
communication and engagement: abstraction (p. 839).  To JOI and
Gately, the major philosophical function of AA is to shut down the
abstraction function, the dreaming of levels and layers of meaning,
and to focus on One Day At A Time.  That anti-abstraction loops back
into the authorial project, then, for DFW, as DFW's nonfiction
writings emphasize that literature that changes readers' lives has its
feet on the ground, doesn't get too complex or meta-fictional, and
simply tells a Great Story.

And so then Gately asks the question we've all asked during IJ: once
the wraith knows how to travel and affect the quotidian affairs of
still-living people, why doesn't it visit Hal and do something? (p.
840).  And just then, once the question is asked, Gately is forced to
confront his own not-yet-a-wraith life, why he didn't do something
about his mom, or about her boyfriend, or about his schooling, or
about putting maimed houseflies out of their misery, or about anything
that he arguably could have influenced.  And that extends right up
into the present: why didn't Gately do something about Lenz that would
have influenced the unfortunate situation he's just experienced? (p.
843).

And then Gately wakes, from the dream and the memories and the
wraith-conversation, and gets a visit from the sober guys.  This focus
on the real moment distracts him from the worries and regrets he's
been harping on, and makes him realize that he's more in control of
his own attitudes than he realizes.  And yet, even with his newfound
control, he's still just a citizen of an insane world: he gets forced
in and out of sleep (p. 845), he gets forced in and out of
conversations and visitors, he gets forced in and out of situations.
But his challenge for the future is to avoid mute figurant status: to
talk and mean what he says, and to listen to what other are really
saying.  JOI maybe lost touch with Hal b/c both of them were getting
solipsistic: communication is a two-way street, after all.  And here,
after contact with the wraith, both Gately and the reader are starting
to glimpse the shadows of DFW's ambitious Project: to quit living in
regret and abstraction and shallow communication, and instead to focus
on love, companionship, communication bewteen souls, and influence
over the course of events.  To wake up, and live.
===================================

I'm going to take a break now.  The weeping is coming back.

George