The sad lucky generation — anhedonic misery amid privilege as IJ's donnée, stated as the book's origin
echoes
From: DFW interviewed by Terry Gross — Fresh Air, NPR (March 5, 1997)
- Early text:
[scene] The cohort predicament: overeducated,
privileged, better off than their parents, and extraordinarily sad
[00:04:03–00:05:01]; the calibration — not razor blades, not constant
clinical depression, but a lost generation strangely sad against its
comforts and freedoms [00:05:48–00:06:34]; the diagnosis — a life
organized around maximized pleasure ends up empty and low-calorie
[00:05:01]
- IJ echo: the clinical anhedonia thread — the anhedonia/depression
disquisition around Kate Gompert and Hal (scene 135, pp. 692–698),
where the announced cynicism-naivete key also sits (p. 694)
- Weight: shared-preoccupation