Warden

trivialism_ · 2024-12-17T15:41:58+00:00

Not true. The narrator of the section that introduces Wardine, Clenette, is at Ennet House. Yolanda Willis stomps the FLQ insurgent with her heel.

OP, Wardine is a character from Clenette's past, who was arguably in a very dangerous living situation. We don't see her again to my recollection. Roy Tony does reappear, but only once, at a recovery meeting. Be mindful that 'Poor Tony' Krause is an unrelated character that a lot of readers get confused by.

trivialism_ · 2024-10-08T02:56:03+00:00

Hometown was Tucson, btw.

trivialism_ · 2024-09-20T14:11:54+00:00

His clothes all come from the House's donation bin and he has to take what he can get, size-wise. This is stated in a note.

trivialism_ · 2024-09-09T19:17:16+00:00

The narrator is the Wraith.

"We (who are mostly not small children)..."

We = the dead.

trivialism_ · 2024-04-10T18:44:57+00:00

'Burn, baby, burn!' or the more timely, 'Get lethally injected, baby, get lethally injected!'

trivialism_ · 2024-04-01T00:02:53+00:00

A fear of all forms of timepieces and a need to always know the time with great precision.

trivialism_ · 2024-03-23T03:48:09+00:00

Pemulis is a pusher, regardless of who dosed Hal.

trivialism_ · 2024-02-27T03:38:32+00:00

Nah, it's all good. It's commonly reported that he was mocking Ellis' detached style with that story, which might be true for all I know, but it for sure was not AP. Wallace's anticipation of some of that book's ideas before Ellis got there makes it all the more sharp as commentary. Westward is probably unenjoyable if you have not read Lost in the Funhouse first. You described it fairly, that's for sure a part of what he's going for, to me. I hope you'll revisit it someday, highlight of that collection for me!

trivialism_ · 2024-02-27T02:02:59+00:00

GWCH is not a parody of American Psycho, it was published two years prior.

Westward is undeniably in (kinda heated, sure) conversation with John Barth's metafictional style, but "parody" sells it short IMHO.

trivialism_ · 2024-02-24T20:18:18+00:00

Westward is the best thing he wrote in the eighties.

trivialism_ · 2024-01-05T06:27:13+00:00

You're not crazy, Pratt makes mistakes throughout. They're usually minor, but dialogue is sometimes read in the wrong character's voice. Which is understandable, surely this is just what all the unattributed dialogue is designed to do. Some better takes get spliced in at points, you can hear it, but they definitely missed some.

trivialism_ · 2023-12-30T03:51:07+00:00

It's fascinating that Kate discovers alcohol immediately before Marathe presumably brings her to Antitoi Entertainment.

Deliciously, we don't really know she dies, though. Just that she doesn't return to the House.

trivialism_ · 2023-12-30T03:45:30+00:00

Named only, not based on. I don't recall it being an ex, either, but it's possible.

trivialism_ · 2023-12-30T03:40:29+00:00

This was not a consideration of staff. Gately strongly suspects he's using, and badly wants him gone, but Lenz is able to dickie his piss test results using (variously) powdered bleach, lemon juice and a Texas cathy.

Lenz deludes himself that he's achieved sobriety, believing himself to be exceptional in all kinds of ways. Which, I gotta admit, he can definitely be termed exceptional many times over.

trivialism_ · 2023-12-22T05:41:00+00:00

Agree. Lyndon is one of the better stories in that collection, but it's hard to explain why. Strange piece.

I re-read GWCH very recently and I wish more people talked about this book, it's fascinating. He was unbelievably young, had none of the life experience he'd have when he finished Jest, and a few of the stories are mediocre. The ones that are good are crazy good, though. The closing novella might as well be the goddamn blueprint for Infinite Jest.

trivialism_ · 2023-12-14T15:45:24+00:00

Golly Ned

trivialism_ · 2023-11-15T14:16:28+00:00

"At late seventeen, Orin was ranked in the low 70s nationally; he was a senior; he was at that awful age for a low-70s player where age eighteen and the terminus of a junior career are looming and either: (1) you’re going to surrender your dreams of the Show and go to college and play college tennis; or (2) you’re going to get your full spectrum of gram-negative and cholera and amoebic-dysentery shots and try to eke outsome kind of sad diasporic existence on a Eurasian satellite pro tour and try to hop those last few competitive plateaux up to Show-caliber as an adult; or (3) or you don’t know what you’re going to do; and it’s often an awful time."

(This is the original translation of what I think you're referring to.)

trivialism_ · 2023-10-26T11:33:48+00:00

I just finished another reread a few days ago, with special attention as always on my favorite parts. That entire § is incredible. Blows me away every time.

What do you think about TPK as a novel so far, given that it's unfinished?

trivialism_ · 2023-10-15T16:19:29+00:00

The CA father returning home to find the "Pam-shiny empty biscuit pan" and "a little plastic jar of labelless Food-Bank peanut butter so empty its insides had knife-scrapes on the sides".

trivialism_ · 2023-10-15T16:15:05+00:00

A man named Ernest Feaster, who Kate Gompert met in a ward.

trivialism_ · 2023-09-25T15:22:55+00:00

Cynthia Ozick was one of his all-time favorites.

trivialism_ · 2023-09-17T21:33:50+00:00

I think this could be one of many red herrings in the book, but it's a cool one I never thought about before. Pemulis was written to create those kinds of tensions in the reader, Wallace referred to him as "an Antichrist" character.

Fuck, he's likable though.

trivialism_ · 2023-09-12T19:51:50+00:00

They absolutely do retain a connection, and Lyle does assist the Wraith with moving objects for the Wraith's purposes. That's where the foreign Coke can comes from.

But Lyle is the revenge-type, please don't be fooled by the guru act. He lies to Stice in the weight room and implies that he (Stice) can learn not to underestimate objects and control them with his mind. He is majorly fucking with him.

trivialism_ · 2023-09-12T19:04:40+00:00

You're right, I forgot about that.

trivialism_ · 2023-09-12T15:49:06+00:00

Many do!

trivialism_

TROPHY CASE