[...] By eliminating the distance between symbols and meaning, Bruce eliminates the entire structure of signification made possible by a post-structuralist understanding of language, and enlisted by Wallace in all of his fiction. By eliminating the dependence of language on context and association, Bruce makes impossible exactly the connections among the distant points of text, author, reader, and world that language is meant to travel.

Bruce's solipsistic fantasy of a world in which physical and emotional connection are impossible because both we and language are closed loops, sufficient in ourselves (the story ends with Bruce ensconced in a stove) demonstrates the need for distance in the mechanisms of language in order to allow the kinds of translations between people that Julie's vision of love relies on. [...]