Infinite Summer

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Forget your troubles, c'mon, get happy...
-Leland Palmer

Great stuff. I think it's pretty clear that DG is the character who is supposed to embody the opposite of all the stuff that gets satirized in the novel. He puts up with pain and suffering without resorting to escapism, into either sex or drugs or just tuning out. He is able to find nobility in his dedicated service to others. And he is super big and strong, like Hercules.

I think it's really important for a novel like this to be for something, not just satirizing all the meaningless crap in modern life. Interesting that DFW refers us back to the ideals of the ancient Greeks for moral guidance in our superficial modern world.

mjdemo.... an excellent analogy between Hercules and Don Gately. While Hercules had the assistance of Athena and Hermes, Gately has Pat Montesian and, in a different sense, Joelle van Dyne. His struggle to redeem his life through simply putting his head down and pressing forward in the hope that things will improve has made him my favorite character in Wallace's writings. Hal Incandenza, to me at least, pales in comparison to Gately as a human being. It's certainly no accident that Wallace places Ennet House and Gately and the bottom of the hill and Hal and the Enfield Tennis Academy at the bottom though each is headed in the opposit direction.

Fascinating post.
Let's try the feats (originally assigned 10, Hercules was given two extra because the Hydra and the Stables were done improperly):
1. Skin a lion (he strangles it first)
2. Kill the poisonous Hydra (doesn't count: he had help)
3. Kill Diana's pet deer
4. Capture live boar
5. Clean outrageously nasty stables (you got this one with the Shattuck Shelter)
6. Drive away a flock of birds
7. Chase away Cretan Bull
8. Capture man-eating mares (you gotta love Greek mythology)
9. Steal Hippolyte's warrior Belt
10. Capture cattle of Geryon (like herding cats, apparently)
11. Steal Zeus's apples (he traded jobs with Atlas and held the weight of the world for a while so Atlas would go get the apples)
12. Capture Cerberus from the entrance to Hades

So what do you think? Is it possible Gately just fulfills the two "uncounted" of Herculean feats? Or more? His handling of a few of the Resident bickering sessions evoke killing the hydra. His banter with van Dyne seems a bit like stalking Hippolyte for her veil, I mean belt.

Wish there was a meatloaf herculean feat...

Should we just leave the parallel at the square head and the stables?

Excellent catch. The 12 labors are on Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labours_of_Hercules .

Looks like the Augean stables connection is appropriate. And perhaps Pat Montesian's dogs are the Cerebus to be calmed. How about #11: Steal the Apples of the Hesperides--They give immortality or, alternately, (via wikipedia) "They are considered by some to be the same "apples of joy" that tempted Atalanta, as opposed to the "apple of discord" used by Eris to start a beauty contest on Olympus. On Attic pottery, especially from the late fifth century, Heracles is depicted sitting in bliss in the Gardens of the Hesperides, attended by the maidens." Hmm. What could Gately possibly steal that might lead to sitting around in bliss?

But even more fun: Athena invented the Chariot, which she let Hercules borrow on occasion (http://www.goddess-athena.org/Museum/Vases/index.htm). I wonder if the shift knob dug into Hercules' leg when he drove it?

ETA: even better possibility for the Hercules reference may be "The Choice of Hercules," which I was not previously familiar with. In brief (via Wikipedia)*: "After killing his music tutor Linus with a lyre, he was sent to tend cattle on a mountain by his foster father Amphitryon. Here, according to an allegorical parable, "The Choice of Heracles", invented by the sophist Prodicus (ca. 400 BC), he was visited by two nymphs—Pleasure and Virtue—who offered him a choice between a pleasant and easy life or a severe but glorious life: he chose the latter."

*You can find a fuller text by searching the interwebs for Xenophon's Memorabilia or Choice of Hercules -- apparantly we know of Prodicus' invention b/c of Xenophon's telling of the story.)

Dang! Doubtful geste, I bow to you. The chariot catch is outstanding!

Except now I have to go on a rampage reading all the Hercules stuff I can get my hands on...

Hmmm, virtuous struggling and suffering, yes. Obviously, the square head of Hercules has some role. But I don't find any of the "labors" of Hercules to be especially convincing in parallel to DG.

Let's keep watching for square heads. One of them is Lord in the headmaster's office, who still has his head enclosed by a monitor. Another is "The Infant" that Lenz rambles on about, whose head sans skull conforms to the box in which it lies.

In both these cases, the crucial reference is to the televisual (or the TP) as a replacement for one's head.

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