Comments on: The Floor Dodged His Foot And Rushed Up At Him

By: Mrs. Kennedy

Mrs. Kennedy — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:31:58 +0000

I love that quote, paraphrased or not. I wonder if the kind of “comfort” I have found in McCarthy stems from the way he sheds light on a particular kind of darkness of the soul — a darkness that doesn’t normally get the sort of intelligent treatment he gives it.

By: naptimewriting

naptimewriting — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:21:39 +0000

I wish I could find the Wallace interview right now so I could quote it properly, but DFW once said that he liked the advice of a writing teacher who said good fiction should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. I find that IJ achieves both. I’m afraid my efforts at McCarthy have left me feeling more disturbed in the balance than I can take. I definitely see the parallel you draw and appreciate it. I just find that McCarthy fails to comfort me as much as I’d like.

By: Joan

Joan — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:30:08 +0000

Thanks so much for the McCarthy connection. As a committed fan of his work I encourage everyone to read him. I started with All the Pretty Horses in a book group and immediately started working my way backward through everything he’d written and now read the new ones as soon as they come out. His prose blows me away and Blood Meridian is definitely my favorite. I’ve been saying for years that he’s my favorite living American author, and now, sadly, it still holds true. If I had read IJ while DFW was alive it would have probably been a tie. An interesting note since Roger Ebert has been mentioned in other posts/forums here for his blog piece on AA, he wrote a wonderful bit about McCarthy in his review of the film No Country for Old Men and specifically mentions Blood Meridian (if I’m remembering correctly!).

By: Julia

Julia — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:01:42 +0000

Regarding moments of true humanity, my favorite is Pemulis trying to cheer up Postalwaite in footnote #324, pointing him toward math as something that is true. I *think* that might be my favorite passage in the book.

By: Of Swine « Infinite Zombies

Of Swine « Infinite Zombies — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:13:55 +0000

[...] I had picked up a few weeks before Infinite Summer started) and so got a neat little thrill to read Eden’s post today linking Infinite Jest and [...]

By: Daryl

Daryl — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:07:46 +0000

I had queued up Suttree (my first McCarthy) before Infinite Summer landed, and now that I’m through IJ, I’ve gone back and am halfway through Suttree. It’s just great stuff, and I got a little thrill to see you tie the two together.

By: itzadrag

itzadrag — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:04:44 +0000

and so but: it was Blood Meridian I could not finish, while IJ did not hold me back. Further proof (??diagonal proof with expanding infinitudes??) that we change, the texts change with readers, and readings, through the axes both of readers and of time.

May have to go back to McCarthy. Thanks for this.

By: Infinite Tasks

Infinite Tasks — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:45:11 +0000

@ Todeswalzer – This might not be the place to discuss the wraith’s “existence”, but my blog is! I just posted the second half of a two-part post on “The Walk-On of James O. Incandenza.” I won’t link it here; just go to the main page and you’ll see them both. The first part deals with some ghostly Poetry, specifically of Percy Bysshe Shelley, in relation to the wraith/revenant. The second takes the wraith “at its word” in terms of being a figurant, and tries to understand some fundamental textual issues, such as why J.O.I. stuck his head in a microwave. And while I don’t make any special claims about “material” presence (after all, it’s a wraith, not extended substance), I do take it that it is “real.”

I’d love to hear your concerns and position! Always more room in my Comments!

By: Todeswalzer

Todeswalzer — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:16:38 +0000

I would have to dispute this claim. When I read that passage I understood it more as poetic licence to illustrate a point rather than something I thought the author expected me to accept literally. (I also intensely disagree with the Wraith-as-a-physically-existing-entity position, but of course this small comment box is no place to make the argument.)

By: Mrs. Kennedy

Mrs. Kennedy — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:22:41 +0000

And this is not the first time that I’ve regretted not having 36-hour days so I could keep up with the forums and blogroll. Thanks for that link, IT. I think part of my IJ decompression process will be going back and catching up.

Robert, I know! After reading Avery’s post I was pleased to recall that pre-wraith episode.