Entry: Kekuléan (adj.)
Definition: This
one gets a bit hairy - Kekuléan as an adjective appears to be a Wallace-ism. So far as I can determine, the term is derived from German
chemist Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz. His work, in part,
focused on the structure of benzenes. My comfort zone with this sort of
stuff faded from the rear-view mirror miles ago, so let’s just say this
one is pretty esoteric and no-one will know to what you’re referring,
unless you’re at an organic chemistry-intensive cocktail party.
Other: Feel free to chime in on this one.
SNOOT score: 3 (1 at the aforementioned cocktail party).
Page: 5
Source:Wikipedia
Definitive Jest is a vocabulary-building and SNOOT-approved word-of-the-day blog centered around David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.
Thank you for that! I came to the same conclusion but was wondering whether as a speaker of English as a second language I was missing some American cultural reference...
ReplyDeleteWallace is telling us that Hal is autistic, high functioning. His descriptions are very out of focus. Kekule worked on Benzenes. Both Toluene and Ether are intoxicant Benzenes. The neck tie looks like it was tied by someone who was loaded, a drunk perhaps.
DeleteI like that observation. Makes sense, haha. From that perspective the description's pretty funny.
DeleteIt could be a reference to intoxicating materials as referenced above: I personally took the whole phrase "Kekulean knot" to be mean that the knot was like a ring tied in a creative fashion, since Kekule was the first one to figure out that Benzene's structure is a ring of six carbons. The legend goes that he was inspired by a dream of an Ouroboros.
ReplyDeleteI think its a little simpler than all that. Just look up an image of one of Kekule's diagrams of of benzene double bonds. They are shaped like tie knots.
ReplyDeleteThese both make sense, one for it's descriptive, the other because it's funny.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that though I first encountered this term in the book (as a chemist, it took me about a second to figure out what he meant -- Kekulean = hexagonal), a quick google search reveals that this term has been used in the chemistry literature since at least 1986. Still, the fact that DFW had the balls to use this word immediately made him a fascinating figure, in my mind.
ReplyDeleteAs an English major in the early 70s, that the benzine ring structure was revealed in a dream was often referenced. It was evidence that science needed the arts, in the early days of the defense of the humanities. So I was'nt surprised that Wallace knew of it. While my explanation sheds little light on its use in this context, it need not be considered an obscure reference. I like the above explanations. Maybe it's nothing more than Wallace wanting an adjective that started with K. The words look good together.
ReplyDeleteits use and meaning are all the defenitions in the above comments at the same time. i am sure he was aware of all of them. including the fact that a hexagon is the best use of space.
ReplyDeletedefinition wrong thumb used
ReplyDelete