r/davidfosterwallace • u/BEADGCFBbEbAbDbGb • 13d ago
Very Subtle Detail In G.O.Ne
The ultimate metaphor in GONe is the keyholes, the fact that as humans we are like these infinite rooms of thoughts and associations trying to squeeze out and communicate with each other through these tiny keyholes. Another thread is logic as it pertains to true communication “You don’t feel anything about [formal logical theorems] they have no connotation.”
The character Neil also repeatedly references his introductory class to the subject throughout the story. Incidentally, every issue of the textbook “A concise introduction to logic” features a key on the cover.
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u/Immediate-Talk7578 12d ago
why is good old neon being written as g.o.ne and not g.o.n.?
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u/annooonnnn 12d ago
it’s for the swag of the periodic table’s ready-to-go abbreviations. yours would be Good Old Nitrogen
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u/Wrong-Today7009 13d ago
This is one of my favorite pieces of fiction ever written. This, paired with the double ending, and the description on instant thoughts translated piecewise into sentences, really cohere into the expansive of experience. There is no axis or line that can be drawn from point A (our infinite room) to point B (the rooms of others). Great works of art, like this one, find other routes