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- 1: There is also a secret truth in here about writing technical documentation, if you're looking for it
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roadrunnertwice
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Date: 2009-12-05 08:40 am (UTC)Jesus. And I thought I'd read it early, back in my sophomore year of college. Of course, I didn't start reading on my own, for pleasure, until after I'd graduated high school, so I guess if I'd been so inclined earlier on I could have easily run into IJ.
Anyway, IJ was the first of DFW's things I read. I haven't gotten around to re-reading it since (I've done the first few dozen pages a couple of times, but I always stop and put it aside), but I remember thinking it was the most surreal, f-ed up thing I'd ever read, this sparkling hyper-realized dream world, inching along in excruciating detail towards disaster.
Damn those footnotes. I read an interview where DFW admitted he wanted to annoy the reader. To what end, I don't remember, but mission accomplished :/
I never understood what happened to Gately either. Isn't he beaten to death at the end of the book? I forget where that falls in the chronology. I didn't think to suspect Hal's story about digging up his dad's skull w/ Gately. As I recall, they were led there at gunpoint by the wheelchair assassins, who wanted to find the master tape, which was rumored to be inside James Incandenza's head. I think. Isn't this something Hal recounts in the first chapter (the end of the story, chronologically (?))? True, Hal is seriously messed up here, but like you said, he hadn't met Gately at any other point. Nor do I remember Hal being aware of the existence of the wheelchair assassins, but I could be wrong. Anyway, Hal's life is so f-ed up by the end, that the whole climax-worthy event (the head-digging) is basically just one tiny thing in a long string of ridiculous shit that's going on with Hal, alongside his being an infantophile and bleating like a goat at college entrance interviews. It's an annoying tease, though. I definitely would've liked to know more. Also, I'm still not clear on what messed up Hal so bad in the first place. Did he watch part of the tape, or was it all because of the mold he ate as a kid?
Coincidentally, I busted out A Supposedly Fun Thing last night to start reading DFW's essay on David Lynch, which I'd never gotten around to before. It was the first DFW I'd read in months, and a page or two in, I got hit HARD with nostalgia, and realized how much I miss him. Dumb bastard.