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Dazed. That's why I'm writing these lines, to share a bit of disorientation, like after a long conversation with someone who's not quite all there in the head and you're tired and you need to talk about it with someone, about this conversation, maybe you'll feel better, even if it was a long, interesting, and at times funny conversation. Because that's essentially what I was looking for in "The Broom of the System", after having gone through "Infinite Jest", "Consider the Lobster", "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", and 100 frankly indigestible pages of "The Pale King". I leave you with just a few impressions, avoiding making it too stinky (perhaps, come to think of it, the author has already taken care of that):
Fun: IT'S THERE. DFW's irony is subtle and sophisticated, sometimes cruel (especially when aimed at himself), it allows you to digest the prolixity of the tale, its meandering, it’s the reward for managing to not let go of the grip and embracing the author’s challenge in following him through long, convoluted periods, full of neologisms, prideful of their own skill in steering a stormy syntax. His imagination is overwhelming, powerful, cinematic.
Plot: IT'S NOT THERE. As in Infinite Jest, the plot is a pretext to enjoy DFW's pen. Often you wonder where he's headed. When everything seems to be about to become clear, everything becomes darker, and you move forward feeling teased, but it's a pleasant tease, a conversation with a madman, but a pleasant, funny, interesting madman, who in the end might not be so mad after all. Or maybe you're the one who's not as sane as you'd claim to be, and you've realized it thanks to him. Reading this book, films like "Brazil" by Gilliam or "Inland Empire" by Lynch came to mind, films that for some reason grab you despite being the product of a clearly tested mind (or perhaps too clear-minded). Some short stories by Carver come to mind, or rather non-stories, because here as there, you often live a sensation of suspension, a worried expectation of a meaning that never arrives. Terms like surreal or grotesque come to mind just as frequently.
The title: let's face it, it sucks. But it has to do with one of the philosophical themes of the book, concerning the connection between function and meaning (of life), a title that suggests a key to understanding the carousel of characters and situations set up by the author. I can't go further…
Psychiatry: aside from how it ended, it was evident, I repeat, that something was already amiss with our friend at age 24, who writes with great command of language a long feverish delusion without rhyme or reason. It's not just a show of literary skill, of philosophical culture, of sophisticated irony. It’s also and above all a need to talk about oneself, about one's deep insecurities, that sense of inadequacy that seems to be the matrix in which all the hallucinatory characters of the tale, more or less, navigate, especially Rick’s character, toward whom the author (who I tend to think chose him as an alter ego) often directs the harshest and most merciless gaze. Special mention goes to Jay, the phony psychiatrist treating the protagonists, of whom DFW mocks with slightly suspicious bitterness (probably his experiences in the matter didn't thrill him).
Intelligence: even in this case, as in the previous ones, reading the book has the significant advantage of making you feel intelligent, witty, subtle, and in more demanding conversations it can be comfortably used to underline the intellectual caliber of the reader. It’s not an advantage to overlook. Oh, you have to finish it, otherwise it doesn’t count…
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By jimmycarter
"Wallace tells us, Wallace drains us."
"It's a book about the control of the self to the advantage of others, words that tell the words that tell us that words do not tell words but stop in the G.O.D."
