Dunderhead

 A new Isolarii arrived just now by post thrown in past the front screen door.  Dunderhead by Tomoko Yoshida.  (Didn't know I had the subscription still going but glad to see this volume arrive.) Text on the envelope makes it sound very special, very unusual.  She refused to allow her works to be translated.  This is the first.  Written between 1967 and 1977.  Note how we can use the word "landscape" to link her to our Handke:  "Yoshida's writing hardly lingers on tragedy, attending instead to the landscapes that emerge in its wake.  Beneath the starkness of her world, there is a deep empathy for the 'dunderheads' who carry it." Translated by Adam Sutherland.  Seventeenth Isolarii.  

these set pieces, don't know what else to call them---Rick Vigorous and Wang-Dang Lang meet in a bar and discover how closely connected they are as inside outsiders.  

sure enough chatgpt confirms  

In David Foster Wallace’s debut novel, The Broom of the System, characters Rick Vigorous and Andrew "Wang-Dang" Lang are deep "inside outsiders." Bound by their shared obsession with the same woman, they are both trapped by the rigid, hyper-constructed societal and linguistic roles they perform to assert their masculinity. 

Their strange, symbiotic connection is built on a foundation of neurotic competition:

The Love Triangle: Rick is the controlling, fretful boyfriend and boss of Lenore, while Lang—a loud, self-proclaimed "good ol' boy" frat boy from Amherst—becomes deeply infatuated with Lenore, creating a bizarre psychological rivalry. 

The "Amherst Man" Blueprint: Both men are caricatures of toxic, performative masculinity. They are heavily invested in projecting authority and dominance, yet both feel inherently inadequate and isolated within the abstract systems of their own language. [1, 2]

Mindy Metalman: Their bond gets uniquely twisted because Lang is newly married to Mindy Metalman, a woman who grew up across the street from Rick in Scarsdale and whom Rick was previously infatuated with.[1, 2, 3]

Self-Awareness as "Outsiders": Rick is intensely aware of the narratives that shape his life (even reading his own short stories to Lenore to control reality), while Lang navigates the world purely through Texan machismo. Meeting in a bar, they would likely realize their mutual anxieties; despite being at the center of Lenore’s life, they are fundamentally locked outside true, meaningful human connection. [1, 2, 3, 4]

sure enough chatgpt confirms  all of this  ----  I would not quite have been able to unpack it so fully and

neatly, or it would have taken me much work to have done it --- again, in Cliffs Notes days they would

have done it.  It still exists, online now "  "The original (and the most widely imitated) study guide."

The original (and the most widely imitated) study guide

The original (and the most widely imitated) study guide

The original (and the most widely imitated) study guide