Reading in Exile

I've been slowly (the way I seem to read everything) reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest since December, and the other night I reached the chapter, about half-way through, where Joelle Van Dyne/Madame Psychosis explains to Don Gately why she always wears a veil. In the world of the novel, veils are worn by the members of the Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed. Earlier in the novel, Madame Psychosis spent an entire episode of her radio programme listing out ways in which one could be hideously or improbably deformed. But she's not deformed; rather, she is so beautiful that anyone who sees her becomes obsessed with her, longing to be with her, seeing her as what will fulfill all of their desires. She is so beautiful that, in her words, her beauty is a deformation. When philosophers, especially Catholic philosopher, talk about beauty, it's often in glowing terms. Beauty is what is ordered, proportionate, splendid; what pleases when seen ; it is the r...