dave10 wrote:
dave10 wrote:
Unless there turns out to be some overwhelmingly valid reason for these scenes, I'll probably end up pissed at DFW for including them, or at Pietsch for failing to carve through the manuscript pages with his blue pencil.
Having written this last night, I didn't foresee such a lively conversation. Let me add that I had just finished reading the section where Lenz slits the dog's throat and I was feeling riled and sickened.
I think you-all have done me a favor in showing that there is "some overwhelmingly valid reason for these scenes...." They still turn my stomach -- this is a visceral reaction, not an abstract or conceptual one. I am a tremendous lover of dogs, and ... wait a minute, so was DFW! Now that I think back over the bios that I've read, I remember reading that he was especially drawn to dogs that were in danger of being euthanized, or that had been abused.
All of which is to say that I appreciate the way you folks have helped me see the context for the Lenz atrocities in a way that makes very good sense indeed. The fact that you've done so without pounding me into the pavement says a whole lot about the character and graciousness of this Infinite Summer group. I am grateful (even though I'll probably still hurry through any further animal killings, if there are more to come).
I concur now
mostly, and I see the light
mostly, though I did have to take some time off to process this. I don't think that in my reaction one can read the similar reaction of PETA-types to the rabbit being cut up in Roger and Me vs. the human being getting hurt, as was mentioned earlier. I was upset about that human being getting hurt. I was upset about the people losing their jobs. I probably tend to get upset too much
at too much, in fact.
I
mostly feel like I just had a spat with a good friend who I love, but now I'm at page 720 and have stars in my eyes again:
The way Wallace handles Matty Permulis' rape by his father. He is spot-on about the way these types justify what they do to their kids. (With all the pedophilia in the book, would you say now that Wallace is positing this as an addiction?) Permulis' dad is another psychopath it was incredibly hard to read about, but it's more clear what Wallace is doing here and is comparable to what (I didn't see) he was doing with Lenz. I agree with what mynameisnotlinda said. Lenz' actions and psychology tend to demarcate the other characters from those who are truly evil; they're the kind of people that the rest of us read about in the newspaper to get our sleep disrupted by. This rounds out the world of the crowded novel and makes it more real/concerned with the evil that's really out there in some people, whether they are addicts or not, and points to the fact that those who try to blame their addiction for such actions are not different from those who are not addicts, just plain sick or criminal. DFW's dealing with human pain from the inside in many cases, in the animals' case he wasn't dealing with it from the inside. Of course, he might not be capable of that as most writers wouldn't. But I think that's what threw me. And the trying to be funny about the cat. It was a little smart-alecky. I think he could have left that out, I'm certain. Although I did get into another small internal beef with DFW over the picture of a fat woman's ass smeared with shit mooning people through a bus bathroom's window. But that's another thread....maybe "What's Eating Bruce Green?"
Thanks very much for all the discussion on this.