In endnote 110 we get a lot of detail about a lot of stuff which Mr. Ashdale says became endnoted because it was deemed unnecessary. On the one hand I agree, for the most part the long endnotes do not leave gaps in the novel proper. However, I must be getting addicted to DFW and all of his detail and riffing - and could argue (despite my complaing about the book's Thickness) that the details are necessary and add to the reading experience and are not to be missed. For instance if I hadn't kept reading through endnote 110 I would have missed out on the great descriptions of the technology in Hal's dorm room: "Hal's voice is muffled and has the strained pitch of someone trying to clear nests of dust-bunnied wire to find something." I know from personal experience what it's like to clear those wires which - as you will remember from an old (but pre-O.N.A.N.) wpbhl email - in my case were also coated in countless layers of gizz stuck to various brittle kleenexes.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Not unnecessary. Just tangential.
ReplyDeleteApologies my dear Mr. Ashdale. I had only my handblogger with me. Now that I am at my blogmachine I can more readily revisit the totality of our posts and correspondences. Tangential it is. They are. Those errata. Or notes that have no end.
ReplyDelete