Thursday, August 22, 2013
The uncanny prescience of David Foster Wallace
The uncanny prescience of David Foster Wallace
In Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace conjures a vision of a surreal America some 15-20 years on from its 1996 publication: i.e. the present day. Terrorists are afoot: warring factions of Québécois separatists. Two of these, the Antitois brothers Bertraund and Lucien, are described as “sinister and duplicitous but when it came down to it rather hapless political insurgents” (p. 304) who are “more or less loners, self-contained, a monomimetic cell, eccentric and borderline-incompetent...” (p. 480). The brothers’ shop Antitois Entertainment is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts “just up Prospect St. from Inman Square…” (p.215) “on the street’s east side” (p.480).
This is about 300 feet from the home of the Tsarnaev brothers (Tamerlane and Dzhokhar), the alleged Boston Marathon bombers: 410 Norfolk Street, Cambridge. [see map below].
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