yes have read it before

 but did not understand how it demonstrates Wittgenstein, nor how it dramatizes Ortovertism, and much else.  Now on page 297 and ready to end it.  However.  Maybe take a day break from it and read more Handke or some of Dunderhead.  

Kim coming to see us mid-week this coming week.  Ordered a new kindle for Bela.  Need to find another Isabel Allende author.  

the talking bird, does it foresee AI even??  

330-331  These membranes withstand the onslaught of the countless Other-set, ceaselessly battering the Others, their heads coated with filth, their underarms clotted with fungus, they batter and the secure membrane/ovum waits patiently, strong, aloof, secure and, yes, occasionally with let an Other in, will suck it in, on the membrane's terms, will suck it in like a sperm, will take it inside itself to renew, to create itself anew. 

well at least AI assure's me I got the Key Passage, right here, right before your eyes!  Something I had no clue about thirty or forty years ago when I did read the book ---

is the membrane passage on pp. 330-331 the key to the whole meaning of DFW's Broom of the System? https://share.google/aimode/rpe4k3WnAnryzzKe2 

[1, 2]

While the novel's title points directly to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language (meaning is determined by its use, like a broom), Dr. Jay's hysterical psychological lecture on the "strong, clean membrane"provides the psychological and existential framework for every major character's conflict. [1, 2, 3]

The passage unlocks the core themes of David Foster Wallace's debut novel in several crucial ways:

1. The Conflict of Self vs. Other

On pages 330–331, Dr. Jay tells Lenore Beadsman that a healthy identity requires a membrane that acts like a "strong, clean ovum". He asserts that a proper membrane "chooses what to suck inside itself and lets all the rest bounce dirtily off" to withstand the "onslaught of the countless Other-set".
This is the central anxiety of the novel: Where does the individual end and the outside world begin? [1, 2, 3]

2. Lenore vs. Rick (Opposite Membrane Failures)

The entire narrative is driven by two characters with fundamentally broken, diametrically opposed membranes: [1, 2]

• Lenore's Broken Membrane (Total Permeability): Lenore is terrified that she has no internal self. She believes her thoughts, feelings, and life script are entirely dictated by the "Outside"—specifically by her great-grandmother's Wittgensteinian control and her family's corporate legacy. Her membrane lets everything in, leaving her feeling like a character in someone else's story. [1, 2, 3, 4]
• Rick's Broken Membrane (Total Isolation): Rick Vigorous suffers from the exact opposite pathology. He cannot let the outside world penetrate his membrane. He is completely trapped in his own neuroses and uses fictional stories (like his Monroe Fieldbinder drafts) to control reality rather than experiencing it. As Dr. Jay notes elsewhere, Rick is like a sperm without a tail—unable to break through and achieve real union. [1, 2, 3]

3. The Trap of Solipsism

Wallace uses the membrane metaphor to dramatize the "double bind" of postmodern life. If your membrane is too thick, you fall into solipsism (the lonely belief that only your mind exists). If your membrane is too thin or non-existent, you lose your agency entirely and get swallowed up by the systems around you. [1, 2, 3, 4]

4. Wallace's Satire of the Solution

Importantly, the passage is also a comedic trap. Dr. Jay is eventually revealed to be a deeply unhinged neurotic who is obsessed with literal, physical hygiene and scrubbing himself with antiseptics. By having a fraudulent, absurd therapist deliver the "key" theory of the book, Wallace is satirizing the very idea that human connection and existential loneliness can be easily solved by a clean, clinical formula. The tragedy of the book is that a perfectly "impenetrable" membrane keeps you safe, but it also leaves you entirely alone. [1, 2]

If you are writing an essay or unpacking this for a reading group, let me know:

• If you want to connect the membrane passage to the ending of the novel
• How this connects to Wittgenstein's ideas about the limits of language
• If you want to analyze how Gramma Beadsman influenced Lenore's broken membrane

• Our desires and reflections about the world are deeply entangled with the world and the things we do and experience in the world – even the most mundane things like listening to the radio or watching sports.   And so, we catch a glimpse of a vision of forming and re-forming culture from within.   The tragedy of Wallace’s life, however, is that despite his engagements with the culture around him – from the broader sorts of cultural engagement, like watching television or listening to the radio, to the more personal engagements like teaching students and dancing with the members of a local church – Wallace lived a fairly isolated life and one gets the sense that he saw humanity forging and being forged by culture primarily as individuals, as opposed to communities doing so in specific places.  One wonders, therefore, to what extent this philosophical – and to a lesser extent, lived – isolation contributed to the eventual taking of his own life.  His life was not that of Camus’s stranger Meursault, detached and floating through a life without meaning, but rather one of being deeply submerged in a life that was rich with meaning, but finding in that meaning a pain too much for one person to bear.

  Wallace’s philosophical explorations in Broom, which were enjoyable to me, can become a bit heavy-handed as the book wears on.   Broom does seem to fit its place as Wallace’s first novel, and as I understand it, is much rougher in comparison with his masterpiece Infinite Jest, but yet is a careful and probing piece of literature that still stands head and shoulders above most contemporary fiction.  Wallace (in Although of Course…) says that he is not proud of Broom, noting that it was “written very quickly, rewritten sloppily” and that he avoided “doing the hard work” that was suggested to him in the editorial process.  I do intend to read Infinite Jest in the near future (though I may first tackle Wallace’s soon-to-be-released essay on freewill, Fate, Time and Language), and hopefully my appreciation of it will be even deeper given the background of having worked through the text of Broom.

  Wallace’s life and writings represent one of the keenest minds of our times, and there is much that we can learn from his valiant struggles to make sense the world.  However, it is a great tragedy that the powers of individualism and displacement in our world formed him in a way that essentially left him to fight these battles alone, a fight for which even our best and brightest are, in the end, not fit.  by C Christopher Smith  in The Englewood Review of Books 

strategic misrepresentation

 is what they call lying at Amherst, which they do a lot "A really important part of being here is learning how to lie." 238  Wallace was there for five academic years.  Arrived 1980, medical leaves of abscence

Friday   Coffee with Dennis next door.  4.0 at the Columbia msw program and now taking a leave.  

Uncle got him into adult children of alcoholics meetings.  Very helpful.  Uncle was craft carpenter in Santa Fe for 25 years.  Now in retirement successful nature painter in Camden, ME.  Duck stamp his work for usps four years running.  Gary Winders, Belfast, ME.  Dennis just did a stairwell for someone, carpentry.  Asked him to do our bannister.  He's looking around, no longer urnning the food pantry town garden center.  Arlo now 6.  He made me an aeropress decaf, beautiful stoneware mug made in Amsterdam by one of their friends.  

ordered from cacao sol but just learned it is miami based!  last order.  Embue in Brattleboro and Ora in San Diego.  Ok.  

241 "The Antichrist was letting her touch the leg."  I think maybe I did read this book before, aeons ago.  

250  stolen from Larkin  "Just as he was fucked with in his turn, by fools in old-style hats and coats."

245 Geach and Anscombe translation   Elizabeth Anscombe  We saw her smoking a cigar, her raggedy children with her, in that coffee house on 57th Street in Chicago in 1971 or 72.  

the brother named John, the anorexic, shows up on 281

"He's like a stranger who drops in from Auschwitz every Christmas."  wants to write a book "arguing that Christianity is the universe's way of punishing itself, that what Christianity is, really, is the offer of an irresistible reward in exchange for an unperformable service." 

285  "Two inside outsiders 

286 "I cannot be truly inside you, close enough only for the risk of pregnancy, not true fulfillment."

287 "But then if you get to where you, you know, love a person, everything sort of reverses. . . . it's that you love the things about the person because you love the person.  It kind of radiates out, instead of in."

"I feel all public saying this stuff." 

288  What does fitting in have to do with anything?

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

Angine

 John Elkins told us about new French sensation Angine de Poitrine.  Listening now on YouTube.

Relief that the Sage booking on Royal Carib is real.  Messages and phone call from Michelle gave more relief.  Phil's 100 bills in foil spooked me about 4 am and I woke up worried we had been scammed.  

Went to Kirk's, gossiped with Beckie about town things.  Car working well, took bags to the dump.  Light on about tire being low but assume that is car computer not yet caught up with Reality.  

Reading more of Wallace.  Could stop, now on page 171 and have the idea.  Poor W.  Like reading Jim Carey and Robin Williams et al.  Angine sort of goes with it.  They all dressed in polka dots.  Look and sound dated instantly.  

Austen gave us clarity last night.  Watched the three episode version of Sense and Sensibility.  Got it, finally, the twisted tale.  

173 "They found out that what they needed to get their feelings of being themselves from was themselves."

whoa  did not expect this  190  Eastern Europe  "tended to view all non-family members as outsiders"

was Wallace reading Handke or something? 

195  green tree toad in neck story over  Mr Rick Vigorous told it to Lenore and their plane lands in NY

contestant on game show  dr joy mental health services 

201  Rt 9 in MA  Lenore and Rick going to Amherst 

209  I see Best Faces, faces I remember well.  (What a passage this is!!!) "I intuit that the Frisbee players, whom I continue to watch, are nonbelongers."  

210  "These alone are the faces that stare out, protected and imprisoned, from behind the barbed borders of their own structures, the faces that know that, but for the grace of a God distinguished for the arbitrariness of his grace, it is they who would be bound and muffled in the College closets.  The faces that are unreachable from this far away, and that look through you and digest you in a moment, against everyone's will."   whoa     what a passage    our old buddy,    Roy Andrews 

why is it the physical place where it happens that you hate ?  

20 years exactly

 I was going to say well at least The Broom gives us a good contrast with Handke.  And sure

enough, Wallace born in 1962, 20 years after Handke (and me, close enough).  The difference one generation makes in everything or especially in our speeded-up times.  No faster than any other times?  Railroads in 1900, AI in 20220?  

unbelievable emails from Phil  

explain to me "the package with money" were you sending blocks of cash in a box????  I asked him 

his reply --- 

Yes, a bunch of hundred dollar notes hidden in the pages of a book, wrapped in tin fo and put in a box.   All of this was done to avoid xray detection which should have alerted me that the process was bogus and the recipient a scammer.  But the scammer claimed the book and tin foil were to prevent detection by thieves in the shipping system.   I was so stupid to believe that.   

Now I have a new problem.  I opened a gmail account yesterday, and it can send emails but doesn't seem able to receive emails.   Is nothing simple any more????     P

just back from Norwich, fun lunch with John and Kathy at King Arthur.   They had ten days in Paris in April and then their first ever visit to Spain, six or so days in Madrid.  Loved it.  

after page 146

 we now understand the drawing on the cover is of Mr Bloemker's plastic doll companion, Brenda.

why does Rami Kaminski recommend this book?  Makes me wonder if DFW left a suicide note.  Is this one of the best portraits we have of mani-depressive existence?  If I ask this of chatgpt the answer is sure to be ridiculous.  

waiting for news of the car from Kirk's.  Assuming we will keep the rental one more day and use it to go to VT for lunch.  Get the cars swapped tomorrow.  Just chill.  Phil says he got scammed out of 10k over the weekend, so what's money any how?  He's to five million or six, on paper, still feel bad for him, his confusion and helplessness.  He needs to get himself into a care facility sooner rather than later but that is not going to happen.  Millions like him, like us.  Better to wander into the catastrophe head first.  

149 Has she done the thing with the broom with you? No? 

151 peudo-Wittgensteinian mafia 

ok  Cliff's Notes for today  --- interesting that Wallace knew all about Derrida  ---that's how far behind I was, still am  

Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea (1938) and David Foster Wallace's The Broom of the System (1986) both center on the existential dread of meaninglessness, but approach it through vastly different literary traditions. While Nausea uses a French phenomenological lens to explore isolation, Broom applies American postmodernism and the philosophy of language to dissect identity. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

Philosophical Focus

• Nausea: Heavily rooted in Existentialism, the novel explores the idea that "existence precedes essence". The protagonist, Antoine Roquentin, experiences a sickening physical and psychological revulsion when he realizes the world has no inherent purpose and that humans are terrifyingly, absolutely free. [1, 2, 3, 4]
• The Broom of the System: Heavily influenced by Wittgensteinian philosophy, the novel explores the boundaries of language and whether reality is entirely coextensive with what we can say about it. Wallace famously described the book as "a conversation between [Ludwig] Wittgenstein and [Derrida]".[1, 2, 3]

first system

 122  Gramma says any tellling automatically becomes a kind of system, that controls everybody involved. 

first appearance of that title word?  

if only I had taught Burke as the teaching of close reading, techniques for constructing the dictionary for each text/book where meanings revolve within the system of that book, each book a system unto itself 

Jew's harp mewed

 Handke likes the sound of the Jew's harp throughout his books.  Now Milosz has one already on page 13 of Amorous Initiation.  Will DFW have one too in Broom of the System?  What a strange book, so far, for Kaminski to feature on his site.  

Terrific rain a few hours ago.  Now bright and sunny.  

14   walking backward !  the three deplorables of the palace 

meanwhile in Broom luau party downstairs and joints upstairs  

1910 and 1987   both books as opposite Handke as possible  

bear resting in our oak tree

 11:15  our bear has been up in the tree for about two hours now.  Bela saw him climbing up during breakfast.  I went to pick up the rental car and later took stuff to the dump.  Bright and breezy after heavy rains all through the night.   

250 "this one being oscillated all night long "  "Infinite oscillation of love between the soul and God" 251

got four or five videos of the bear climbing up and climbing down the oak tree  

255 I love this triangular intersection more than the world.  "Silent awe and loud exclamation."

it is the soul's journey into the interior of the soul, her soul 

299 she wanted to ask the oracle, without actually posing the question 

the great war, the true one: the war with yourself 

301  she saw each person as someone special in his uniqueness, in his personal light, his nimbus

309  The ability to perform wonders while standing outside oneself, and furthermore seldom being understood, even by those closest to one: that was powerful.  

289 Walking along blind to find her way out of the labyrinth.  Eyes closed to see whether behind her lids that old reliable writing scrolled by.  

[missed some pages yesterday because after the eye appointment I tried to read with dilated eyes the rest of the afternoon and evening and I read some but didn't really get most of what my eyes were passing over]   super bright red lights scanning my eyes to check on macular stuff, that wrinkle at the edge of one eye, in spite of these clouds and spots of yellow in the red, told my vision was excellent amazingly so and all was well, is still well ]  

super heavy gray day, heavy rains earlier, heavier rains on the way, heavy dark greys, nearly all lights on in the house, touch of heat from the splits, back to st john's wort so see if it helps get from june to january

Handke was 29 when his mother killed herself at age 51 by taking an overdose of sleeping pills in 1971, November 19th.  

317  How his cheekbones gleamed.  How his apron billowed around his hips

318  We stateless people, here and today rid of the state, beyond the reach of the state.  All the rest turned into sects--states and churches---and . . . And we?  Time refugees, heroes of escape. We without a role, while the state folks stick to their role, steadfastly. We the eternally daunted undaunted.  The eternal hesitators and delayers. 

320 I don't want to know anything now.  The mother is responsible for resources.  And the father? For places.  

321  But better illegal than the legal crooks all over the world.  The sects everywhere.   . . . The more you get lost, the more you experience.  

what she had experienced in the three days of her journey into the interior of the country, and how every hour had been dramatic, even if nothing happened,  and how every moment something had been at stake

one bright summery strand in her dark hair: strange.  Or not strange after all?  No, strange.  Still strange.  Eternally strange.  

12:34 pm  wow  what a chill, a thrill, such perfection and nothingness else  over finished complete adam and eve brings us by a  riverun past eve and adam's brings us by a ?? recurrence hmm on our rings these 57 years but now can't recall the circle  have to google even that !!  "riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs."  forget that stateish baloney  Handke walks away from all that sectarian stateness, gets much more lost and finds much more, much more strange  wander further into the strange, away from all circles, backwards out of even spirals And yet that eternal stuff is there, strange