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

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First-Time Reader
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.

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.