So this thought just occurred to me (and then I have to get up off my ass and get my run in before the end of the day)...
As (re)readers, do we do ourselves a disservice in using readers' guides, wikis, graf-for-graf discussions too much when reading IJ (or any book, for that matter)?
One side of the argument says that the tools lead to increased understanding of the themes and ideas DFW was trying to deliver (or at least that a large group of people think he was trying to deliver
) The other side says that in accessing the tools, we're not forced to build our own structures of meaning within the book and that we mentally don't do some/a lot of the work we're supposed to as readers.Put another way, did DFW build us a grand puzzlebox to be solved and deciphered? Or did he build a massively rambling house on a cliff by the ocean, with rooms where he wanted them, recursive hallways and weird wallpaper in which we're welcome to fall under the spell of the individual components but risk missing the twisted genius of the whole?
It's probably not that clearly delineated, but it's helpful to remind myself that in picking up the book, I have to be willing to hand over whatever my notions are about writing/stucture/etc. if I hope to get close to what the author was trying to say. Put another way, sometimes, I have to put down the tools, quiet the senior writing seminar in my head and read what I think the author was trying to say.
But that's just me. You?