IJ study archive

Enfield is a deliberate map-fiction — the Allston/Brighton/Newton area "reconfigured", named for the Massachusetts…

echoes

From: The Secret History of David Foster Wallace's Boston (BDCwire)

  • Real-world: Wallace, 1996 Lydon interview as printed: "I like to sort of mess with maps a little bit. Part of the book is about messing with maps, so I sort of reconfigured the Allston, Brighton, Newton area a little bit and stuck this town in that was, it was actually the name of a town close to where I went to college which was inundated for a reservoir." [¶6]
  • IJ echo: Enfield itself — the arm-shaped township of the topographic essay (scene 063, pp. 240-242); the map-vs-territory master theme (Eschaton, scene 073, pp. 321-342).
  • Weight: author-stated