Comments on: The Misspelled Assassins

By: Sorrento

Sorrento — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 16:45:41 +0000

Someone needs to remind all of you smart people to blog about the narration in the novel once we’ve completed it. I think that there are enough threads in the novel to connect the quirks in the narration satisfactorily. The bad French, use of the word ‘faggot’, and other questions that may seem as authorial negligence to some people can be explained pretty neatly. I want to talk about it, badly, but I don’t think it is possible with spoiling things at this point.

By: MC

MC — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:24:13 +0000

Apologies, that should have said (p.109)!

By: MC

MC — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:23:08 +0000

Here is evidence for the ‘mistake’ theory: after referring to the organization repeatedly as the “Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents” throughout the whole scene, there is also an occurrence of “Assassins des Fauteuils Rolents” (p.108) by the same narrator (one assumes), in the same scene.

By: Daniel Richter

Daniel Richter — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:39:25 +0000

I was reading the Wiki discussions a while back, and remember someone pointing out that it might be a simple reference or deeper connection to the Perec novel La Disparition. I also just hit page 664 and noticed that Marlon Bain misspells Steeply Steepley. He does same in footnote 269.

By: thedmo

thedmo — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:09:56 +0000

I agree with Isaac and Jeff here, that the language of each section is integral to the POV. Gately’s malapropisms are interesting compared to Hal’s; for all of Hal’s hypermnesia, he may be no more a reliable narrator (although, like Gately, he tells the truth as he sees it–one exception below). Of course, there are many other parallels between Gately and Hal, who are also linked by “the wraith” and Mme. P.

Hal is, after all, by the “end” of the narrative (20 Nov YDAU–months before “action” is “resumed” at the beginning of the novel), preparing for his immanent board exams in English and (Parisian) French.

Wallace is too meticulous, and “errors” like “rollent” too droll, for me to just shrug off these choices as bad, or the usage as simply incorrect French. I agree that the language is integral to POV.

(That said, I do feel that Wallace’s withholding of Hal’s awareness of the Moms’ sexual history is more than a bit of a cheat. His apparent lack of awareness on this topic earlier in the novel creates tension, particularly w/r/t the John Wayne episode involving Pemulis’ Tenuate spansules. This smacks of a “trick,” and I felt quite a letdown when I came to this part. )

By: Aaron Swartz

Aaron Swartz — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:04:35 +0000

Name a usage error in his essay on English. Every one I’ve heard people claim always turns out to be bogus upon investigation.

By: Matt Guthrie

Matt Guthrie — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:38:22 +0000

On a similar note – what about the metric system? There are several times that a character is described as weighing >200kg, when it seems absurd that the character could be that large. (One fer-instance: Millicent Kent, an ETA female student is described suchly. While she’s obviously supposed to be large (hence her nickname “The USS M. K.”) the idea of a 440lb pubescent female tennis champion seems absurd, given that there are no NFL linemen who top 400. So is this a) unreliable narrator at work, b) (which I find unlikely) a DFW brain fart, or c)some really odd continuation of the pattern that ETA females have extremely physically abnormal bodies. (In which case what, if anything, might this “mean”?) Thoughts?

By: nota bene

nota bene — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:53:18 +0000

It’s deliberate. As much as humanly possible, every word in the whole book is deliberate. There are lots of malapropisms, because when people in real life speak to each other, they occasionally bungle things. DFW’s writing is very much free flowing, like speech.

I suspect that sometimes DFW throws in odd or subtle little things (like the iffy French) to see if anybody would notice.

Also, the bad French is part of the narration/voice stuff. IJ is constantly shifting narrators (constantly be asking yourself in every passage, who’s telling me this? sometimes you won’t be able to tell until later). If a particular narrator has some sort of identifiable linguistic trait (a regional accent, for example) or some sort of belief/bias, that will show up and be presented as fact. Some characters are more likely to have malapropisms and outright misspellings than others. (There’s a hilarious endnote about calculus where Hal is supposed to be taking dictation from Pemulis, for example.)

Another example: I seem to recall at some point the word “irregardless” is presented in italics. He will deliberately call your attention to things that are wrong all the time, which I suspect is his way of puncturing and deflating his own erudition.

Yet another example: at some point late in the book, there is an endnote whose sole content is “[this character] didn’t literally say [this five-dollar word that DFW used].” Which begs the question, who’s narrating this endnote?

All of this plays into the addiction theme, too, in a deep way that’s hard to understand until you’ve read the book for the fifth or sixth time….

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:21:20 +0000

He did? I don’t remember this at all and can’t imagine how I would have failed to notice it (though I suppose there probably is bad French beyond my ability to notice it).

By: Criminally Bulgur

Criminally Bulgur — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:23:00 +0000

As noted, there are a lot of fake English words in the text as well. He’s just playing.