The Mold Thing raised as an "unsolvable puzzle" — DFW gives no answer (cut off)
echoes
From: Live with David Foster Wallace, Author of Infinite Jest (WORD e-zine live chat)
- Early text: n/a — Joshua S.: "There are a lot of half- and unsolvable
puzzles in the book, like the Mold Thing. Was your intention, among other
things, to comment on the futility of puzzle solving?" [L759-762]
- IJ echo: the childhood mold-eating crux and the wider designed-holes
reading (puzzles as deliberately unsolvable). No authorial response
exists — the question lands in the last minutes and DFW is cut off by the
Word.com modem timer. Recorded as a sighting of the puzzle-futility framing,
not as an author statement.
- Weight: shared-preoccupation