Denial (Re-posted from Tumblr Site)

(a post from mid-May, 2011)

On the title of the blog: I have this odd memory that the phrase “denial isn’t just a river in Egypt” appears incessantly in Infinite Jest. I have tried to locate such a phrase there but have had very little luck. Regardless, the novel was a paean to and defense of the 12-step self-help program. In a nutshell, DFW located some of the deepest truths in the cliches that we might otherwise condemn as meaningless unintellectual blather. On cliches: ”This, like many cliches, so lame and unexciting on the surface actually expresses a great and terrible truth.” He discusses some of these cliches in the commencement speech to Kenyon called “This is Water.”

In this case, of course, the nile is also precisely a river in Egypt. It is a river that I very much hope not to end up in.