Bloody hell, I’m in the process of reading it now. Absolutely blown away. And you’ve nailed that point — limitations. It’s not just showed me, it’s highlighted them like a helicopter hovering low with a searchlight.

It’s especially poignant to me reading it now, considering DFW’s suicide — I had a family friend, a year younger than me, just recently (tragically) do the same. About a week after the funeral, where my younger brothers and I had been asked by his parents to deliver part of the eulogy, I came across the part with Hal on the phone to Orin talking about how their father committed suicide in the novel. Of course, a microwave is an absurd way to go, but I just stopped then and had a good laugh which turned into a good cry.

Absurd, absurd, absurd, it was exactly what I needed, all things considered.