Words, Words, Words

I read Infinite Jest a couple summers ago, but I've been following with some interest the Infinite Summer project, in which a bunch of people read this gargantuan novel together and try to make sense of it on a blog. Their reading schedule is somewhere around page 450 right now. I was looking back at some notes I took while reading the novel, and I found that at around this point, I made a big list of themes, keywords, motifs, etc., that I'd noticed in the novel so far. Some are pretty obvious, but I notice that even now the list is somewhat helpful to me in recalling the book and reviewing it mentally. Here it is:

Themes, Keywords, Motifs, &c. (@ pg. 450)

maps

dependence/independence

the truth of cliches

obsessions

America

fathers and sons

farts

turds

secrets

film (why cartridges? ammo ref?)

suicide

psychiatrists

parody

ephebes

deformities

convexities/concavities

teeth

tattoos

mothers

cages

buildings and bodies

Boston

Arizona

grammar and usage

[sic]

waste

entertainment

freedom

terrorism

ambition

class

slapstick/gonzo

stasis

advertising

corporate history

academia

booze/drugs/sugar/nicotine

sports

masks

spiders

irony

infinity

masturbation

urban legends

shadows

halation

cardioids

copia (a basic rhetorical method for this book (see 172-76 and 200-04)

Marlon Brando

Bob Hope

April (Fools Day)

November

Depend Adult Undergarment

Glad (Trash Bag?)

annular

interdependence

blacks/whites

skin problems

argot

masculinity/femininity