Questions/ Notes “Signifying Nothing” [David Foster Wallace]

–TITLE (Why the title?). (1) The narrator an “idiot” who tells a meaningless story? (does the story otherwise suggest Macbeth?) (2) The story does signify something, but about signifying nothing; for example — how treating exceptionally weird outlying events as if they were nothing is a successful strategy for coping with such events (the story concludes— “it was good”.) (3) The story may signify something but the characters themselves do not: they don’t openly express what they’re thinking or feeling. (“His face had zero expression” = his face signifies nothing.)

Plot/ structure. Four Scenes: (I) the protagonist is a young man packing to leave home for the first time when he has a memory of an incredible event from his childhood; (II) in the moving van with his father, in transit to his first living on his own situation, he discloses this memory to his father and becomes enraged at his father’s response; (III) this rage continues for a year during which (living away from home) he doesn’t speak to his parents; (IV) he reconciles with his parents during a dinner at an Italian restaurant.

Time. The narrator (21) is telling of an event that occurred “two years ago”, when he was 19. The event he remembered when he was 19 occurred when he was “around 8 or 9.” We don’t know how much time elapses between the story’s first scene (packing up boxes) and the second (transporting them to the narrator’s first apartment.) But it’s probably brief. “Over a year” then passes before the story’s final scene at the Italian restaurant. (And, I guess, another year passes before he gives this narration.)

Of the passage of time, we know that between the time the narrator was “8 or 9” and the time when he was 19, the TV set had been replaced by an “entertainment center”, while the mother’s TV afghan has remained the same (“the same as in the memory”) (We don’t know at all that the past and the narrator’s memory of the past are the same or rough equivalents –indeed, he is unsure himself). Also his younger sister has come to adopt the same restaurant as her special birthday dinner spot that he once had…. The one specific date mentioned in the story is July Fourth –his sister’s birthday.

Repeated words, phrases, concepts. “Wierd” (very often); “pissed off” (very often); “chicken”; “get the fuck outta here” […] the idea of being expressionless; the idea of not saying anything […]

psychology. A general psychological landscape of the feelings that might attend a young man’s leaving home for the first time –the menacing intercession of his father between him and his TV (he has to leave the house), his mother’s comforting afghan (it’s okay to sit around and watch TV); the narrator’s growing resemblance to an engorged penis (he’s pissed off, red, then pink)… Does “to leave the nest” mean for a young man to “become a dick” in some sense? […] the wax candles, the mention of shitting in public, the feeling of wanting the van to “swallow him whole” … Does the long hair of his sister’s boyfriend correspond to the narrator’s own early obsessive interest in wax candles — a young woman responding to signs of womanhood as a young man does to more masculine signs?

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Conclusion My baseline view is that the story is a condensed and mysterious form of bildungsroman –a young character encounters and passes over a major hurdle to his personal growth; but, different from traditional narratives of this sort, the challenges the protagonist face more involve troubling “impressions” than concrete physical or professional hurdles.

I’m noticing a sort of parallel construction here with the two phrases of the line each beginning with prepositions (epi and ek although what is the “ek” doing?) chiasmus is it almost? with Odysseus dropping and the night coming and with the night smelling fragrant and Odysseus fighting for his life (as if the night’s fragrance suggested its own continuing struggle to exist?):

And out I fell, fighting for my life, and on came the fragrant smelling night.

εκ δε επεσον θυμηγερεων, επι δ’ αμβροσιη νυξ ηλυθ’.

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θυμηγερεων: endeavoring to rally one’s spirit, making a fight for life. αμβροσιη: sweet-smelling, fragrant.

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[And I fell, fighting for my life; and the night came, smelling fragrant.]

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Lat.: I came out and dropped, nursing a hold on life, and immortal/ night came on..

Fag.: So, fighting for life, I flung myself ashore/ and the godsent, bracing night came on at once.

Stagefright ; Michael Wilding ; Laziest Gal in Town (Porter) ;

prolusion ; adduct, Tulsa Sound, compendious, schlaft

homo sacer ; ; ἐξαπίνης (on a sudden) ; knot / nautical mile ;

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Cypress (cupressus): (Ep.5.17).Fig tree, wild (caprificus): (Ep.5.18).Fig (ficus): (Ep.16.46).Garlic (allium): (Ep.3.3).Grape-berry (uva): (Ep.2.20).Grape-vine (vitis): (Ep.2.9).Grass (gramen): (Ep.2.17).Hemlock (cicuta): (Ep.3.3).Ivy (hedera): (Ep.15.5).Mallow (malva): “that eases an overloaded body” (Ep.2.68).Oak (ilex): (Ep.2.23); (Ep.10.8); (Ep.15.5), (Ep.16.47).Olive (oliva): (Ep.2.56); (Ep.16.45).Pear (pirum): (Ep.2.19).Poplar (populeus): vine married to(Ep.2.10).Sorrel (lapathum): “that loves the meadow” (Ep.2.57). “Tree” (arbor): (Ep.2.56); tree on hillside (Ep.12.20), (Ep.16.46).

General References: slip, shoot (propago) (Ep.2.9); branches (ramos) (Ep.2.13); fruit tree (pomus) (Ep.2.17), woods (silva) (Ep.2.17), fire wood (lignis) (Ep.2.43), branches of trees (ramis arborum)(Ep.2.56), “blades, leaves” (herba)(Ep.2.57); “salad” (herbis) (Ep.3.7); herba (Ep.5.21), herba and root (radix) (Ep.5.67-68); woods (nemus) (Ep.6.9); woods (silva) (Ep.11.6); woods (silva) (Ep.13.2), “nard” (nardus) (Ep.13.2); Ceres, floreo (Ep.16.43-44), vine-garden (vinea) (Ep.16.44), branch (termes) (Ep.16.45), seed (semen) (Ep.16.55).

Citron (citreus): citron roof (4.1.20). Cypress (cupressus): Achilles compared to (4.6.10). Grape-vine (vitis): (4.5.30). Grass (gramen): ((4.7.1), (4.12.9). Grassy (herbosus): herba (4.2.55). Ivy (hedera): (4.11.4). Laurel (laurus): of Apollo (4.2.9). Oak (quercus): (4.13.10). Oak (ilex): roman people are like (4.4.57). Palm (palma): (4.2.18). Parsley/ celery (apium): (4.11.3). Pine (pinus): Achilles compared to (4.6.10). Pine / Pitch-pine (taeda): (4.4.43). Rose (rosa): (4.10.4). “Spikenard” (costum) *: (4.12.16), (4.12.17). Thyme (thymum): (4.2.29). Tragopogon (come): (4.7.2). “Tree” (arbor): “unmarried” (4.5.30); ((4.7.2).

General References: flos (4.1.32); nemus (4.2.30); leaves (frons) (4.2.36); folium (4.3.7), nemus (4.3.11); frons (4.4.58); Ceres (4.5.18); “crops” (frux) (4.6.39); pomifer, frux (4.7.11); vine-leaf (pampinus)(4.8.33); “blossom, flower” (flos) (4.10.4); garden (hortus) (4.11.2) leafy twig (verbena)(4.11.7).

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Ash (ornus): (3.27.58). Ash (fraxinus): (3.25.16). Balsam (balanus): (3.29.4). Grape-vine (vitis): Falernian (3.1.44); (3.23.6). Grass (gramen): (3.7.26). Grassy (herbosus): (3.18.9). Laurel (laurus): (3.4.19); (3.14.2); (3.30.16). Myrrh (myrrha): myrrh scented (murreus) (3.14.2). Myrtle (myrtum): (3.4.19); (3.23.16). Oaken (robustus): (3.16.2). Oak (quercus): (3.23.10). Oak (aesculus): (3.10.17). Oak (ilex): (3.13.14), (3.23.10). Palm (palma): (3.20.12). Pine (pinus): to Diana (3.22.5). Rose (rosa): (3.15.15); (3.19.22); (3.29.3). Rosemary (ros marinus): (3.23.15-16). Seaweed (alga): (3.17.10). “Spikenard” (costum) *: (3.1.44). “Tree” (arbor): (3.1.30); (3.4.27); “almost sent to my grave by a–“(3.8.8).

General References: arbustum (3.1.10); vineyard (vinea) (3.1.29); grove (lucus)(3.4.7); leaves (frons) (3.4.12); “glade” (saltus) (3.4.15); “trunks” (truncus)(3.4.55) [see entry for “tree” in book ii]; thicket (dumetum) (3.4.63), woods (silva) (3.4.63); Flower (flos) (3.8.2); turf (caespes) (3.8.4); cork (cortex) (3.8.10); cork (cortex) (3.9.22); nemus, satum (3.10.5-6); woods (sylva) (3.11.13; thicket (fruticetum) (3.12.12); Flower (flos) (3.13.2); “garland” (corona and vitta) (3.14.8,17); flos (3.15.15); silva (3.16.29); woodland (nemus) (3.17.9), leaf (folium) (3.17.9), firwood (lignum) (3.17.14); woods, leaves (sylva, fronds) (3.18.14); “Rosy” (Rhode) (3.19.27); woodland (nemus) (3.22.1); fruit (frux) (3.23.4), fruit bearing (pomifer) (3.23.8), crop (seges) (3.23.6), herbage (herba) (3.23.11), “a sort of grain” (far) (3.23.20); fruit (frux) (3.24.13), Ceres (3.24.13); woodland (nemus) (3.25.2); vine-leaf (pampinus) (3.25.20); Flower (flos)/ garland (corona) (3.27.29-30), pluck (carpere) flowers (flos), (3.27.44), sap (sucus) (3.27.54); flos (3.29.3), Sylvanus, thickets (dumetum) (3.29.23), stock, stem (stirps) (3.29.37).

Ash (ornus): (2.9.8). Cypress (cupressus): (2.14.22). Elm (ulmus): (2.15.5). Grape-berry (uva): “immitis” (2.5.6); (2.6.16). Grass (gramen): (2.3.6). Laurel (laurus): (2.1.15); (2.2.22); (2.7.19); (2.15.9). Myrtle (myrtum): (2.7.25); (2.15.6). Oak (quercus): quercetum of Garganus (2.9.7). Olive (oliva): oliveta (2.15.7). Parsley/ celery (apium): (2.7.24). Pine (pinus): (2.3.9); (2.10.10); (2.11.14). Plane Tree (platanus): (2.11.13); “bachelor“(2.15.4). Poplar (populeus): (2.3.9). Rose (rosa): (2.3.14); (2.11.14). “Tree” (arbor): tree (arbos) almost killing Horace (2.13.3) same tree referred to as “truncus” in (2.17.27); [truncus again (2.19.11)]; (2.14.22). Violet (viola): violarium (2.15.5). Willow (grove) (salictum): (2.5.6).

General References: branches (ramus) (2.3.11); “blooms” (flos)(2.3.14); “woodland” (saltus)(2.3.17); “green meadows” (virentis compos) (2.5.6); “berry, round fruit” (baca) (2.6.16); garland/ garlanded (2.7.7/24); leaves (folium)(2.9.8); flowers (flos) (2.11.9); lumber (lignum) (2.13.3); branches (ramus) (2.15.9); thyrsus (2.19.11).

“The most plausible reason why tax havens defend bank secrecy is that it allows their clients to evade their fiscal obligations, thereby allowing the tax havens to share in the gains. Obviously this has nothing whatsoever to do with the principles of the market economy. No one has the right to set his own tax rates. It is not right for individuals to grow wealthy from free trade and economic integration only to rake off the profits at the expense of their neighbors. That is outright theft.” Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, pp.521-522. (Trans. Arthur Goldhammer)

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To the extent that Capital offered an actionable, politically plausible way forward, I thought this was it: to abolish or comprehensively regulate tax havens, or at least bank secrecy (in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, etc.), which would first of all help to ensure that everyone was paying their fair share of taxes, and, secondly, give us a better idea of the size and disposition of global wealth.

I can imagine a number of good or at least lawful reasons for people to want to keep their financial information a secret — however, in the main, these accounts can hardly be thought to serve a legitimate function.

… I believe the main purport of these States is to found a supreme friendship, exalté, previously unknown
…Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.
……………… Song of Myself

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[Kafka] sought “the right thing” elsewhere [than in zionism]; the right thing was direct, authentic, genuine expression, in writing, onstage, and in life; even the wrong thing could emerge as “the right thing” in the proper context.… Kafka The Decisive Years, Reiner Stach.

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Their pilos cap identifies the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, in sculptures, bas-reliefs and vase-paintings; their caps were already explained in Antiquity as the remnants of the egg from which they hatched… pilos

Arbutus (arbutus, *): “viridis” (1.1.21); (1.17.5). Ash (ornus): (1.9.12). Blackberry bush (rubus): (1.23.6). Cornfield (seges): (1.31.4). Cypress (cupressus): (1.9.11). Elm (ulmus): fish in the tops of (1.2.9). Endive (chickory) (cichorium): (1.31.16). Grape-berry (uva): (1.20.10). Grape-vine (vitis): (1.18.1); (1.20.11); (1.31.10); (1.38.8). Grass (gramen): deer’s food (1.15.30). Ivy (hedera): (1.1.29); (1.25.17); (1.36.20). Lily (lilium): “short lived” (contrasted with apium) (1.36.16). Linden tree (philyra): (1.38.2). Mallow (malva): (1.31.16). Myrtle (myrtum): “viridis“(1.4.9); (1.25.18); (1.38.5), (1.38.7). Oak (robur): (1.1.3). Oak (quercus): (1.12.12). Oak Forest (aesculetum): (1.22.14). Olive (oliva): (1.7.7), olive oil (1.8.8); (1.31.15). Palm (palma): (1.1.5). Parsley/ celery (apium): “long-lived” (1.36.16). Pine (pinus): Pontic pine (1.14.11). Poplar (populeus): (1.7.23). “Sacred Bough” (verbena): (1.19.14). Rose (rosa): (1.5.1); (1.36.15); (1.38.3). Thyme (thymum): (1.17.6). Tragopogon (come): (1.21.5). “Tree” (arbor): “glory grows like” (1.12.45); (1.18.1); (1.22.18); “lyre once heeded by trees” (1.24.14).

General References: Flower (flos) (1.4.10); grove (lucus) (1.4.11); grove (lucus) (1.7.13); orchard (pomarius)(1.7.14); garland (corona) (1.7.23); woods (sylvae) (1.9.3), logs (lignum) (1.9.5); “carpe diem” (carpe has sense of ‘cull’, ‘pluck’) (1.11.8); woods (sylvae) (1.12.8), grove (lucus) (1.12.60); “rosy” (1.13.2); sylvae (1.14.11); woodland (nemus) (1.17.5), “garland” (1.17.27), leaves (frons) (1.18.12); turf, cut sod (caespes) (1.19.14); woodland (nemus) (1.21.5), silva & viridis (1.21.8); Sabine wood (sylva) (1.22.9); sylva (1.23.4), leaf (folium) (1.23.6); leafy branch (frons) (1.25.19); flower (flos) (1.26.7), garland (1.26.8); “woods of Venusia” (1.28.27); garland (1.38.2)

–The foyer to the Dambreuse residence has a red carpet (tapis rouge), Arnoux’s boutique has a green carpet (tapis vert).

–The foyer to the Dambreuse residence has a double stairway (escalier double), Arnoux’s boutique a “small stairway” (petit escalier).

–Both these spaces include porcelain objects, unspecified at Anroux’s boutique, at the Dambreuse residence “two porcelain globes”.

–The idea of “two” is frequently repeated in Sentimental Education. In the description of the Dambreuse foyer, it’s mentioned three times: the stairs, the globes, the strong boxes.

–The two strong boxes Frederic encounters in the “small room” of the Ambreuse house will make an important reappearance at the novel’s close.

–The idea of thin walls (first found in Frederic’s dorm room) will also make a reappearance.

–Description of Frederic’s room on the quai Napoleon has again the idea of two, [1.3.31].

–Like the Dambreuse residence, Arnoux’s “office” (an un-named room above the shop) has two candelabra… (The word two is repeated twice in this paragraph.) We also saw bronze objects at the Dambreuse’s (here a statue of Venus) and in the boutique downstairs. [1.4.39];

–Arnoux’s office, like the shop below it, has a curtained door (actually –two).

Surprised, though I don’t know that I should be, to find these Gaddis-like stylings of Faulkner here (The Hamlet, pp.288), the Texan detailing the fine points of a wild pony he is trying at the same time to hold down:

“Look him over boys,” the Texan panted, turning his own suffused face and the protuberant glare of his eyes toward the fence. “Look him over quick. Them shoulders and–” He had relaxed for an instant apparently. The animal exploded again; again for an instant the Texan was free of the earth, though he was still talking “–and legs you whoa I’ll tear your face right look him over quick boys worth fifteen dollars of let me get a holt of who’ll make me a bid whoa you blare-eyed jackrabbit, whoa!”

Coal lay in ledges under the ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass brings it to the surface. We may well call it black diamonds. Every basket is power and civilization. For coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta; and with its comfort brings its industrial power.

(Emmerson, Wealth). The unintended irony of coal as a “portable climate” and the unintended sense of it carrying the heat of the tropics to the poles of the world and of making “Canada as warm as Calcutta” was what caught my eye here.

It somewhat reminded of the Moby Dick chapter (105) where Ishmael says that fears of the whales’ extinction by human hunting are overblown (they can just hide beneath the ice caps, he says).

Anyway, no lesson to be drawn from this but that perhaps prominent nineteenth century American intellectuals had yet to guess at the capacity of humankind to negatively impact the environment.

…………..THE ANGLER
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….. Below lies the lake hushed and tranquil,
…..….. And I sit here with idle hands,
….. And gaze at the frolicking fishes
…..….. Which glide to and fro o’er the sands.
….. They come, and they go, and they tarry;
…..….. But if I now venture a cast,
….. Of a sudden the playground is empty,
…..….. As my basket remains to the last.
….. Mayhap if I stirred up the water,
…..….. My angling might lure the shy prey.
….. But then I must also give over
…..….. The sight of the fishes at play.

FRANZ GRILLPARZER (here) translator, William Guild Howard.

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…….,,…..,……“Thus Spirit is at war with itself; it has to over-
……………….come itself as its most formidable obstacle. That
…………….development which in the sphere of Nature is a
……………peaceful growth, is in that of spirit, a severe, a
…………..mighty conflict with itself. What Spirit really strives
………… for is the realization of its Ideal being; but in doing
………..so, it hides that goal from its own vision, and is
……… proud and well satisfied in this alienation from it.”
…………
……………………… Philosophy of History (Hegel.).

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The See’r

modernist platonic dialogues… to some extent modernism in writing is about abbreviating what needs to be written while increasing what needs to be read (according to whom) with respect both to the size of modernist works and to the amount of secondary material required to properly read those works (according to whom)

What the modernist would abbreviate/ do away with in Plato’s works is the whole conceit that his dialogues are sorts of drama, that philosophy is a conversation between people (the representation in writing of such a conversation): philosophy, the modernist would say, is truly a conversation between parts of one person’s own mind. (which modernists) (is philosophy –not written philosophy but philosophizing– the same if it doesn’t occur between people? if it occurs between ‘person’?) Even if Plato had been trying to recreate an actual dialogue that he had heard his written representation of it would nevertheless actually involve the different parts of his own mind, would say the modernist [What do you make of the fact that his dialogues are sometimes conversations about conversations? The Phaedo. Does that seem to you ‘modern’?]

The writer of the modernist platonic dialogue therefore would do away with the idea of characters but keep their statements, and keep intact that certain sorts of statements come from specific moods of the author or “places” within him. (explain if you are equating statements made by different sorts of “moods” –of the author– with characters? with different sorts of “assumptions” do you mean? What do you mean ‘places’, identities?) (Are Fielding’s Thwackum and Square examples of characters made from differing “assumptions” within him, within Fielding? Do you mean ‘categories’?]

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If the Meno (for example) were written in the modernist style [do you mean modern?] there would be no Meno, no Socrates, and no slave, (no character of meno no character of Socrates no character of the slave) but only Plato, or, more likely, a character who was basically Plato but called something slightly different, something like Ploto, and the statements made by Meno, Socrates, the slave, would each appear in a different font face maybe, so as to call attention to the distinctions that occur within the thinking of “Ploto” which wouldn’t otherwise have any marker. (Finnegans Wake?)

The modernist version of a platonic dialogue would be more realistic than the originals because they would strive directly to express Plato’s thought rather than to express them through the mannequins of characters [how would that be different from Kant?][does it matter how well Plato has drawn his characters?] [Do pseudonyms like Kierkegaard’s figure into this?] [Is realism necessary to philosophy itself or just to “modernist expressions” of philosophy?]

The next question for the modernist [which modernist] would be the realistic portrayal of the thoughts as they occur to one in one’s consciousness. Do thoughts appear there fully formed, as they do in Plato’s works, or do they rather appear as fragments of language which the consciousness intuits the whole of instinctively, or does it vary from consciousness to consciousness and from time to time …

A related question: how would we describe how one of Plato’s characters arrived at formulating his expressed thought? What occurs in the mind of such a character between two expressions of thought? What occurs in the minds of the characters as, for instance, they listen to one of Socrates arguments or questions? Why didn’t Plato portray this?