Infinite Summer

So if I were referring to someone who was dead in Wallace terms could I say he was "erased from the map"? Is that the proper use of that term? Or would it be he was "demapped" or he "erased his map"?

Chad

The way Wallace uses the term, "demapping" and "erasing a map" is something that happens to a person. So using your examples, you'd say something like someone "had their map erased" (is dead) or "was demapped by person x" (was killed) or "eliminated their map" (committed suicide).


--Todeswalzer.

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Started: 26 June 2009 | Finished: 25 July 2009

Map = face

Does map always = face? I think it's past the spoiler line, but sll the quibbling about the map vs. the territory in the Eschaton section got me thinking that maybe when Wallace uses the word map w/r/t a person, what he's really talking about is their physical selves as a representation of their inner selves, histories, beliefs, ideas, etc. And the relationships between those things.

So person A uses all the observable traits and behaviors of person B to read the unobservable (and incommunicable) aspects of person B, like you'd use a map to navigate the territory of a place you've never been to.

Good point. It also relates to the conversation at the party where Joelle attempts suicide. On pg. 232, someone argues that "this, this whole thing, what you and I are discoursing within, is a technologically constituted space." On 233, his companion says that the "more interesting issue from a Heideggerian perspective is a priori, whether space as a concept is enframed by technology as a concept."

At least, I think it does. I don't have any idea what Heidegger's views were on space. It just seems like space vs representation of space is brought up a few times, like how we identify it, signifiers vs signified, etc.

I'm not saying that stuff isn't interesting, or that DFW couldn't be playing a little bit with the term, but it's not something he invented. "Map" is slang for "face." It's in dictionaries.

While "wiped off the map" is a familiar idiom, I'd presumed its ubiquity in the world of IJ was a bit of gallows humor stemming from Continental Reconfiguration.

I'm inclined to agree. Also, the endnote with JOI's filmography references a film called "No Troy" which concerns the literal removal of Troy, NY from the map during the creation of the Great Concavity.

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