DFW declines to locate IJ's redemption and rules out Dostoevskian Christian redemption as still usable
echoes
From: Live with David Foster Wallace, Author of Infinite Jest (WORD e-zine live chat)
- Early text: n/a — Herb asks what is "redemptive" about IJ (citing hope
in Gately); dfw: "Maybe nothing. I fear it's not for me to decide." Then:
"Dostovski meant 'redemption' in a pretty specific Christian way. I don't
think we now can use the word the same way." [L273, L277-278]
- IJ echo: the Gately/AA salvation question; DFW positions redemption as
reader-decided and semantically unavailable in its old Christian sense — an
author-intent datum for the salvation-spectrum reading, adjacent to his
refusal to adjudicate the ending.
- Weight: shared-preoccupation