Looking back, I should have been more skeptical, but I was young and naive. It was almost a year ago….

“Wanna make a loyd a dough?” was the greeting in my inbox from a man named “John.” I had never seen the name before, but he signed it VirusWithShoes. Aha! I thought, I know that name.

It’s been about a year, but I now feel comfortable telling my story about my time as a Wordsmoker intern.

Wraith

Well, VirusWithShoes will enjoy the discussion of the wraith. According to my uncle Wikipedia and OED, the word’s origin is a Scottish dialectical word for ghost or apparition. Occurring in the hospital room, where Don Gately, intubated, unable to speak and writhing in so much pain that he’s really unable to use any pantomiming to communicate, the wraith appears and disappears so often that Gately himself isn’t sure if it’s real or not.

Time

Occurring in the future, but based on approximations, not off from our current place on the good old Gregorian, the years have given way to being numbered. Rather they are subsidized and purchased by corporations. Thus naming rights are afforded to these corporations.

This concept cements the reality that corporations can purchase (and name) just about anything; sports arenas, sporting events.

Math

Though double majoring in English and philosophy, his studies had a focus on mathematics and logic. DFW was a mathematical genius. I think he saw the beauty in the predictability and the unpredictable in math; he liked the rules and the broken rules. Truly dichotomous.

Addiction

The main character at Ennet House is counselor Don Gately, former Demerol addict (Percocet in long-term use aggravated the backs of his eyes too much. The evolution of addiction described by Gately is not one uncommon to many. Beginning at a young and impressionable age, marijuana, pills.

Suicide

A number of characters in the novel commit suicide; that is to say, in, DFW lingo, “eliminate their own maps.” The methods employed by these characters displays quite the creativity by the author.

For anyone who hasn’t read it, stop reading this ridiculous review and go buy it. I’ll wait.

—–

Ok. Everyone else, gather round, let me tell you my story about DFW and IJ.

(There will be spoilers, so if you haven’t read it, please know that.)

First off. This is quite the book. At 1,078 pages, including voluminous footnotes, it’s an undertaking. I have been eyeing this book for more years than I care to count, but have always been intimidated, too busy, reading something else; essentially, I’ve always come up with a reasonable excuse to not read it.

1). I work in the medical field and see things on a daily basis that both amaze me and sadden me. What some people are capable of is truly unbelievable.

2). My mother works in the medical field and warned me about #1 but I didn’t believe her.