Comments on: I Got This Fire In My Heart, Won’t Let Me Sleep, Can’t Concentrate…

By: Anne

Anne — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:30:45 +0000

Count me in the “disappointed” camp for the ending. I at least wanted to find out what caused Hal’s problems in the beginning (I’m assuming it’s that super-dope stuff that they found and they’re going to do in the next weekend or so, but would be nice to know for sure)

On the other hand, I auppose he’s saying “life doesn’t wrap up neatly” … but some kind of end to some kind of thread would have been nice for those of us that make it all the way through.

So I’m a #3 still, even though have been done with the book for weeks.

By: BrendaH

BrendaH — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 08:14:15 +0000

Oh, man. Thanks for the link, Kevin, I needed that!

By: redsock

redsock — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:08:05 +0000

the last line is, i believe, gately hitting rock bottom. he will soon Come In.

By: Matt Mc

Matt Mc — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:50:32 +0000

Yeah I think Lenz and Poor Tony and probably poor Kate G. probably all get their maps eliminated for keeps (I’ve been looking for a chance to use that expression) at the hands of the Entertainment / A.F.R.

And I also think that John “N.R.” Wayne dies too. Or at least Hal’s mention of him in the Year of Glad seems to suggest that has died, although there is nothing to give us a clue about when or how.

By: amanda.a.o

amanda.a.o — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:03:14 +0000

I believe Lenz met his end in the Antoili bookshop. There was that passage (don’t have my book in front of me) about a wigged man (Lenz) who cut off another Subject’s fingers (a man dressed like a woman, Poor Tony), and tried to pass them off as his own, in order to see the Entertainment again.

By: itzadrag

itzadrag — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:05:16 +0000

i can ID. started with library, had to get a copy… but still didn’t mark a page. could kick myself. maybe next time.

please don’t kick yourself. you could end up in the hospital with many of our protagonists.

By: itzadrag

itzadrag — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:00:51 +0000

re: sons, possibility.

One of the 3 sons is not JOI’s bio-kid, or not recognized b/c of his physical attributes. Other times in the work, we are led to overlook or discount persons with “physical difference” as being agents of plot, eg, persons of color at Ennet House as being potential ETA employees (agents in hire of Canadians).

btw, can anyone out there tell me where the term “Nucks” comes from?

By: josh71

josh71 — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:04:58 +0000

Great!

By: Randy

Randy — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:45:05 +0000

When Twin Peaks ended, I read that Lynch more or less threw the last few episodes together: the network lost interest in the series (ratings were really low) and he was more or less forced to wrap it up. I don’t think the final few episodes are exactly what he would have done had he been given the artistic freedom to run with it for a while. I can’t remember DFW’s take on that–I read that essay when it came out.

The Lost Highway also has a very looped ending: the opening scene where Bill Pullman’s character get’s a call from himself (revealed later) is also the final scene, but it can’t be. A loop that is perfectly flawed. It does your head in trying to figure out how it fits, yet it can’t fit. And then there are the two different women who are the same woman and Getty’s character who is Pullman’s . . .

I always wondered what Lynch thought of Wallace too; anyone have any sources out there?

By: Matt Mc

Matt Mc — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:19:52 +0000

I didn’t mean to imply that there it is pointless or futile to sort through the given information and find support for various theories regarding the “ending” and all of its necessary questions. My gripe was more with people who try to avoid the obvious for the sake of their own comfort. E.g., I am not totally comfortable with the logic of JOI appearing as a wraith to Don Gately, nor with what is apparently a type of prophetic dream that Gately has while in the hospital. But there is little in the text to suggest that those two things are anything more or less than what they are presented as. In other words, I may not like it, but I can find nothing to suggest that the wraith is not really a wraith, and really present in Gately’s room. People try to stretch the book in order to have it “make sense” to them, and I find that kind of argumentation invalid.

I struggled at first with the question of whether Gately died at the end because it certainly feels that way, as you say, from the tone. But then there is Hal at the “beginning” of the book in the Year of Glad remembering he and Donald Gately digging up his father’s head. And plus there didn’t seem to be any indication on the last page of the book proper that the narration has left Gately’s flashback and returned to his present.