updated 4d ago
The Broom of the System: A Novel
Christianity is, really, is the offer of an irresistible reward in exchange for an unperformable service.”
from The Broom of the System: A Novel by David Foster Wallace
But what of Lenore, of Lenore’s hair? Here is hair that is clearly within and of itself every color—blond and red and jet-black-blue and honeynut—but which effects an outward optical compromise with possibility that consists of appearing simply dull brown, save for brief teasing glimpses out of the corner of one’s eye.
from The Broom of the System: A Novel by David Foster Wallace
Chutes and Ladders was perhaps the most sadistic board game ever invented. Adults loathed the game; children loved it.
from The Broom of the System: A Novel by David Foster Wallace
In the girls’ faces I see softness, beauty, the shiny and relaxed eyes of wealth, and the vital capacity for creating problems where none exist.
from The Broom of the System: A Novel by David Foster Wallace
There was simply no getting around the fact that Stonecipher LaVache Beadsman looked satanic. His skin was a dark, glossy red, his hair an oily black and swept back without care over a deep widow’s peak, his eyebrows Brezhnevian in thickness and starting up high off to the side to slant down evilly over his eyes, his head small and smooth and oval
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Right out of Kafka: the person who does not want to do the ridiculous thing is the person who is ridiculous. (Idea: Kafka at an AmherstlMt. Holyoke mixer, never referred to by name, only as “F. K. ,” only one not dancing . . . ) Modern party-dance an evil thing.
from The Broom of the System: A Novel by David Foster Wallace
Her existence, like her beauty and real worth, was intrinsically aesthetic, not physical or emotional. Veronica would be most comfortable, I remain convinced, as a human exhibit, motionless in the cool bright corner of a public hall, surrounded by a square of red velvet no-touch ropes, hearing only whispered voices and heels on tile.
from The Broom of the System: A Novel by David Foster Wallace
Zach Kirshner added 4mo ago
how do pursuit of beauty translate to being an object of beauty rather than the one perceiving?
I hated it here. And I have never been as happy as when I was here. And these two things together confront me with the beak and claws of the True.
from The Broom of the System: A Novel by David Foster Wallace
I miss Vance with a fierceness we reserve for the absent who cannot return.
from The Broom of the System: A Novel by David Foster Wallace
Her existence, like her beauty and real worth, was intrinsically aesthetic, not physical or emotional. Veronica would be most comfortable, I remain convinced, as a human exhibit, motionless in the cool bright corner of a public hall, surrounded by a square of red velvet no-touch ropes, hearing only whispered voices and heels on tile.
from The Broom of the System: A Novel by David Foster Wallace