The Bankhead/Wallace Dilemma

So I’m just about finished with the novel, and I want to write about the similarities between Leonard Bankhead and David Foster Wallace. First off, there are superficial resemblances pertaining to the “appearance” of DFW, such as Leonard wearing a bandana, chewing tobacco, and being depressed. Eugenides eschews interviewers regarding these similarities. According to the Christian Science Monitor interview: “The bandanna that Leonard wears, I put that on him because of Axl Rose, the singer from Guns N’ Roses. There are some things in Leonard that are reminiscent of Wallace, like Leonard putting the tobacco tin in his boot. Wallace used to put his tobacco tin in his sock. But the totalities of the two characters are completely different. Leonard’s parents are divorced, Wallace’s were not; Leonard is from Portland, Wallace was not; Leonard grew up very poor, Wallace did not; Leonard is a biologist, Wallace was not; Leonard gets married at 22, Wallace did not; Wallace was a writer with depression, a very different disease to manic depression. I could go on and on. If you look at the two of them, they are not very alike.”
I think that Eugenides utilizes the idea of cloyingly manipulating these diversions, beginning with the plot, and continuing with his characters, especially Leonard Bankhead. He appropriates Victorian tropes for the plot, while intertwining tacit post-modern characteristics throughout the narrative. For example, when we first meet Leonard, he discusses with Maddy about the “eternal verities” of life, or the “learning how to die.” This theme is obviously pervasive throughout literature, but specifically, this is Wallace’s premise for the majority of his work, particularly his later works. He even uses the term eternal verities in interviews and such. What is “clever” about this juxtaposition is that Leonard’s post-modern nexus is ensconced in the reality of the Victorian narration. The reality that Leonard searches for, but cannot because of his illness, is, I believe, commentary on Wallace. Going back to “All Things Shining” the authors refer to this epic, albeit unfulfilled search as the “search beyond borders,” and Leonard does this throughout the novel. Eugenides prefers to keep his characters moving through the narrative rather than step back and handle their own specific realities, which is a Realist trope.
There are many other things that I enjoyed, such as the Mitchell/Leonard contrast, but I really was fascinated with Leonard’s likeness to Wallace. I know, I’m totally obsessed, but what are you gonna do, right? We all have our manias, so why not exploit them.

First Quarter of the Marriage Plot

In the first hundred or so pages of The Marriage Plot, I am seeing themes of  identity formation, meaning (obviously with all the semiotics talk, but also through the action of the people), and how we make meaning out of ourselves and others through a complex interchange of social and personal constellations.  Madeline is busily trying to define herself in a time when the definition of who she can be is changing.  She is reacting against the norms of her parents expectations, her own expectations, the tropes inbued in the nineteenth century novels she reads, the semiotics class she is a part of, and her attempts to rationalize falling in love through the writing of Barthes.  Much of her identity and the identity of the other characters is wrapped up in the tropes of literature.  Both overtly stated in the book, but additionally in the almost stereotypical literary stock figure descriptions that the author uses as he is writing the Marriage Plot.  ( I suppose you could say this is post-modern in the sense that he is “ironically” using cliché to make his overall point come out.  Look I am a writer who is writing a story about meaning and language and how it is stereotypical and I am using language and stereotypes to make my point.  I am so clever. And he is clever, but not in a tiresome way)  None of the characters seem to have any agency of their own, but are all driven by the interpretations they are given and then they act within those parameters. Even the ones who think they outside looking in like Thurston. This is not to say I don’t like the book, because I am enjoying it greatly.  I read the first quarter of the book Wednesday afternoon, enjoying all of it; I only stopped because I had a meeting to attend.  I like the interplay of the narrative and the themes I am seeing so far; he uses the mechanics of storytelling to make his points without becoming mechanical.  

I look forward to watching it unfold (or should I say unpack itself, to be "deconstructive").