deconstructing IJ

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

well, not really...
but I think the book has a lot of merits.
1st the interplay between the academy (Hal) and the street (the big lug, can't think of his name) isn't too far off the classical Pynchon dischotomy from "Entropy", and indeed echoes the elect-preterite dichotomy with enjoyable variations

2nd, the (semi-spoiler here) -------

way he tweaks expectations by starting out with a scene to flashback from, does the lead-up, but then never moves forward from the initial scene, I think is constructed deliberately - I started caring more about the big lug and less about Hal as I approached the end of the book (because just looking at the skinny remaining section I could tell we weren't going to get filled in on Hal very much if at all)
 Also, I got more and more rabid about reading the book, until I was like whatsisname on a binge, and then was deposited on the beach in the rain at the end of the book - which I think ole DFW may have planned, since the parallel is drawn between all forms of entertainment and all forms of addiction...
3rd, the effects of marijuana on a fragile psyche can be like those described in IJ - for instance, in Peter Lawford's last days there was some sad wackiness with his young wife catching him getting high on mj (and apparently him freaking out) and having doctors replace all his blood to get rid of the horrible THC... 
-- and the advisability of the whole 12-step thing is debated throughout the book...I liken it to war fiction: showing attitudes common among a distressed sector doesn't necessarily mean the author is trying to propagate those attitudes, only trying to depict them...
he's a good writer but (imho(tep)*) not a patch on Pynchon...
*(in my humble opinion, and the Pharaoh's)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Casseres [mailto:david.casseres at gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 03:47 AM
> To: 'Will Layman'
> Cc: 'Daniel Julius', 'David Morris', 'Joseph T', pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: Re: authors under the influence
> 
> On 10/16/06, Will Layman <WillLayman at comcast.net> wrote:
> > ... I just could not disagree
> > more with David assertion: "no nutritional content. Nothing to think
> > about, no change in your weather, let alone your life. It's empty."
> > I well understand people getting frustrated with the details, the
> > length, the endnotes, but JEST is just packed with "real" concerns --
> > addiction, family dysfunction, sibling rivalry. When you push past
> > all the hi-jinks it is a much more conventional, character-driven
> > novel than, say, GR. And, in fact, that was Wallace's intent. If
> > you read his essay about television and literature in the first essay
> > collection, it's clear that he wanted to write something that would
> > kind of transcend the cleverer-than-thou po-mo, Look How Self-
> > Conscious-I-Am "Lost in the Funhouse" type thing he had been writing
> > up to that point. JEST is an attempt, I think, to write the post-
> > modern classic that destroy post-modernism by, you know, actually
> > CARING.
> 
> But you know, he wound up writing a treatise against marijuana whose
> intellectual content is firmly rooted in 1950's propaganda of the most
> ignorant kind. And a portrait of 12-step recovery that has me
> screaming for something, anything, to get me high enough to escape
> that infernal drone of disinformation. And as for family dysfunction
> and sibling rivalry, can I please, please just re-read Faulkner and
> Shakespeare instead? OK, you've answered my complaint about "no
> nutritional content," and I'm saying Empty Calories.
> 
> > I think Hal's story is actually pretty heart-breaking.
> 
> It is moving. I give it that, at least if we strip away all the
> phoney baloney about his marijuana "addiction."
> 

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