Beauty as grace under limitation — the near-religious frame and the theodicy of suffering
echoes
From: Federer Both Flesh and Not
- Early text: a "bloody near-religious experience"; the close, "power
and aggression made vulnerable to beauty is to feel inspired and (in a
fleeting, mortal way) reconciled"; and fn 17's theodicy, "whatever deity,
entity, energy, or random genetic flux produces sick children also produced
Roger Federer, and just look at him down there. Look at that." [frame + close +
fn 17] [e-text]
- IJ echo: IJ's grace/transcendence register — the novel's interest in
moments of grace amid affliction (Mario's grace; the AA "Gifts"; beauty as
something glimpsed against suffering, not apart from it). The essay's structure
— the cancer-survivor child (William Caines, the honorary coin-tosser) woven
through a meditation on a beautiful body — is Wallace holding beauty and
suffering in one frame, the same theodicy pressure IJ's salvation material
lives under.
- Weight: shared-preoccupation (oeuvre-scoped)