Infinite Summer

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"It is easy to put on a show & be cocky. . . Or I can show you some really fancy movement. But to express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself. . . now that, my friend, is very hard to do." --Bruce Lee

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First read.
Reading on Kindle and iPhone.

Thanks for the correction. My reference was to my recollection of an old interview with Hitchcock, in which I recalled him giving an example of a MacGuffin along these lines: on a crowded train, the camera repeatedly focuses on a box under one passenger's seat, until the audience begins to suspect that it contains a bomb or the like, but it is never revealed what it contains and it doesn't matter. I was thinking of Lemon Pledge as something that draws the reader's attention, so we suspect it means something, but it really doesn't.

Ron Kershaw

Just curious if anyone else though that the collection of pledge husks kept by Orin on page 223 was meant to evoke the masks that were in vogue for video telephony.

In a more reptilian context, the husks also reminded me of shed snake skins - an indication of growth and transformation, perhaps.

Lemon Pledge is just a touch of absurd humour, surely? And maybe DFW wants us to see that even in the imaginary world of IJ, it's bollocks... a bunch of kids clinging to an urban myth, just like previous generations may have made nutmeg tea or smoked bananas in the vain hope of getting high

i'm with adrianclark. all these interpretations are perfectly valid and compelling, but my personal take on it was that it was just an urban legend. another incidence of DFW's unique and hilarious brand of product placement (pun intended), if you will.

It seems to me that the idea of kids clinging to an urban myth is not necessarily mutually exclusive of the rite of passage idea evoked by raklaw's shed snakeskin. American adolescent culture is, historically, full of various rites of passage that somehow mock, mimic, or otherwise ritualistically prepare one for the greater adult world beyond; the lives of the ETA's is certainly defined by the historic and evolving rituals of their community. In a near-future world in which time itself is product-subsidized, adherence to such engrained rituals as Lemon Pledge sunscreen seems both culturally natural (if sad in its contemporary interpretation) and developmentally necessary for these boys, if they are to adapt to the world outside/post ETA.

Regarding the "Macguffin" issue, I think the term we mean here is "red herring," something the author is suggesting might be an important piece of information but later turns out to be nothing more than a clever distraction.

I was really hoping the LP myth was real, as I wanted to try it out myself. However, it's nice to suspect that the shedding skin purposefully evokes Kafka and the transitions of the characters. Yay.