Clinamen

I am now 339 pages into Infinite Jest (well ahead of schedule!), and I've got lots to say. For the time being, I'd like to float an idea that I've been kicking around for a while now. As I read some of my favorite contemporary authors - most or all of which could probably fit comfortably under the "postmodern" umbrella - I see a repeating focus on infrastructure. Here are just a few that come to mind:

--In Didion's Play It As It Lays, Maria deals with the trauma of having an abortion by compulsively driving California highways.

--In Wallace's The Broom of the System, Lenore's place of work is plagued by crossed phone lines. Her grandmother (a devoted reader and, one might argue, "follower" of Wittgenstein) ends up in the tunnels and presumably is the one mucking things up and crossing the wires.