IJ

[Will Layman]

I can't speak with total authority about this, but I'm pretty sure that I
read somewhere that IJ came out of some pretty personal experiences.  My own
guess is that Wallace takes AA very seriously.  Which is not to say that his
art doesn't have some distance from it.  That is, I don't think you read a
ton of skepticism into the Gately stuff.  I think Kyle mostly gets it right,
however, re: how the AA meetings are full of the kind of genuine feeling and
sorrow that Wallace was trying to counterpose to all the po-mo
smart-aleckyness and irony that pervades the ETA stuff.

-- Will Layman

On 3/18/06 6:18 PM, "Kyle" <kybrow at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yeah, I didn't get the impression that he was exactly pro-AA, but more into
> exploring the feeling of "lost will" (within a culture of easy and discreet
> access to entertainment).  Also, for DFW, I can imagine the kind of genuine
> sorrow and submissiveness people express in AA meetings would certainly seem
> interesting, as one of the big points in IJ is about the other half of the
> novel's characters' (especially the ETA kids') inability to be genuine.
> Which, in my opinion, the whole question of genuineness that he directs toward
> pop culture and the way he twists through the novel, balancing between the
> ironic and genuine, was probably the most enjoyable thing for me (besides
> pondering on what went on with Hal and the samizdat).
> 
> On 3/18/06, MalignD at aol.com <MalignD at aol.com> wrote:
>>> <<I think it was the AA stuff -- which seemed to me to be practically the
>>> whole book -- that put me in such a bad mood. Twelve-step programs are right
>>> up there with Scientology on  my list of boring experiences to read about.
>>> Maybe it's just me.>>
>> 
>> What's interesting in this for me is that I find AA programs a   total crock
>> of shit -- well, not total; they work for who they work for -- but not a cure
>> to what is not a disease.
>> 
>> In any case, I liked he writing about it   in IJ.
>> 
>> 
> 
> 


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