I thought they had said it was going to say "An Unfinished Novel" on the cover
― dmr, Saturday, 2 April 2011 15:21 (thirteen years ago) link
i'm still not convinced that kakutani actually finishes all of the books she writes about.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Sunday, 3 April 2011 08:34 (thirteen years ago) link
My stepdad asked me about DFW because of this. Every time there's a Time Magazine write-up about some band or writer it becomes a half-started conversation.
― bamcquern, Sunday, 3 April 2011 17:43 (thirteen years ago) link
Stacks of them in Foyle's in London yestdy too.
― stet, Monday, 4 April 2011 01:13 (thirteen years ago) link
lots in powell's.
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 4 April 2011 01:26 (thirteen years ago) link
oh thanks. was planning to stop by and check tomorrow actually.
― Clay, Monday, 4 April 2011 02:05 (thirteen years ago) link
amazon still haven't sent mine out. aghghhg
― thomp, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 15:18 (thirteen years ago) link
i like the cover
― The Geirogeirgegege (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 5 April 2011 15:27 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/inside-david-foster-wallaces-private-self-help-library
i was all excited to get my copy yesterday but it hasn't shown up yet
― adult music person (Jordan), Tuesday, 5 April 2011 20:51 (thirteen years ago) link
whoa i figured all the mom stuff in IJ probably came from somewhere but that is some specific proof right there
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 21:33 (thirteen years ago) link
love the uk cover
http://bookcoverarchive.com/images/books/the_pale_king_1.large.jpg
― caek, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 22:02 (thirteen years ago) link
Jordan, I just read that DFW piece on The AWL and come here to post it. It's really great. One of the best things I've read about him. I live in Austin and I've had thoughts of going to check out his archives (or at least trying ... I don't know if just anyone can access them). I'd like to check out his marginalia, particularly in his Don Delillo books.
― Romeo Jones, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 23:38 (thirteen years ago) link
i reserved a copy of this. there are like 9283592352 copies in the store but for some reason it's on sale if you order it from the website and not if you buy it in the store (maybe because it is still technically a preorder since everyone's selling ahead of street date apparently? i don't know), so i "reserved" it and will go and get one of the copies whenever they email me i guess.
i was surprised by how not-1000-pages it was! and it was my understanding that though it wasn't done, it wasn't hundreds-of-pages-are-missing not-done.
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 23:42 (thirteen years ago) link
i recognize the writer of the awl article from the wallace mailing list. she was always a great contributor & im sure still is.
i think the archives are open to all
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 23:44 (thirteen years ago) link
mine came yesterday and im abt 40 pages in
I am enormously, everlastingly grateful to my parents for not ever acting like I was some kind of hot shit gifted child whose genius must be recognized and nurtured above all other things, just cuz I scored very high on all the standardized tests. I got to have a relatively happy, exceedingly random childhood, just like all the other dopes.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 00:45 (thirteen years ago) link
― adult music person (Jordan), Tuesday, 5 April 2011 20:51 (Yesterday) Bookmark
cosign /:
― thomp, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 12:20 (thirteen years ago) link
mine showed up! we are rolling.
― adult music person (Jordan), Wednesday, 6 April 2011 14:02 (thirteen years ago) link
The first Leonard Stecyk chapter (5) is great in that it hearkens back to the keenly-observed dark humor of IJ and the first Lane A. Dean chapter (6) is great in that it hones in on a small and beautiful truth in a scene that would likely have been played for base melodrama in the hands of many lesser writers and I am now fully invested in this thing.
― SNEEZED GOING DOWN STEPS, PAIN WHEN PUTTING SOCKS ON (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 7 April 2011 02:34 (thirteen years ago) link
i liked 6 a lot.
― difficult listening hour, Thursday, 7 April 2011 04:12 (thirteen years ago) link
― adult music person (Jordan), Tuesday, April 5, 2011 3:51 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark
very good & sad piece
― bnw, Thursday, 7 April 2011 05:00 (thirteen years ago) link
Is this book very long?
I don't like DFW much, and wouldn't really want to see his marginalia, but I like the thought that this book could be a little one-off boost for the always ailing book industry, who I hope will make the most of it.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 7 April 2011 09:59 (thirteen years ago) link
546 pages, which practically makes it a novella.
― Matt DC, Thursday, 7 April 2011 10:20 (thirteen years ago) link
not sure how i feel abt the whole 'this is a memoir kinda' digression
― johnny crunch, Thursday, 7 April 2011 11:10 (thirteen years ago) link
damn job. damn social life. damn girlfriend.
― thomp, Friday, 8 April 2011 14:27 (thirteen years ago) link
yup, i was just thinking last night that it'll probably take awhile to finish this if i keep up my current rate of 5 pages per night.
― adult music person (Jordan), Friday, 8 April 2011 15:15 (thirteen years ago) link
Btw, did anyone else have an immature reaction to "Sylvanshine's window seat was in emergency row, beside an older lady with a sacklike chin who could not seem despite strenuous efforts to open her nuts."
― adult music person (Jordan), Friday, 8 April 2011 15:17 (thirteen years ago) link
yes.
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 8 April 2011 15:22 (thirteen years ago) link
only compounded when it became a running joke.
no, that didn't bother me so much. might be an english-versus-american thing.
― thomp, Friday, 8 April 2011 15:47 (thirteen years ago) link
oh it didn't bother me, i love it
― adult music person (Jordan), Friday, 8 April 2011 16:00 (thirteen years ago) link
obviously the "memoir" stuff is Not Real, but chapter 9 has all this stuff about how "david wallace" made money in college by writing other people's papers for them, and in conjunction with the article linked above and also the incredibly detailed endnote in IJ about plagiarism (which i read like three times because notes kept directing to it as the book's place for detailed information re: the canadian train cult) i kind of suspect there might be some truth to this.
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 8 April 2011 19:44 (thirteen years ago) link
hah, yeah, i thought that part rang oddly true. iirc he did take a break from amherst due to what in the past had been referred to as difficulties with depression and went home where he worked for a brief stint as a bus driver.
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Friday, 8 April 2011 19:55 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah. "depression" is code for "too many drugs", i guess it's now certain. (Too Much Fun.) but yeah i would not be surprised at all if being forced to leave an east coast college where everyone called him a genius and coming home to work a boring and unglamorous job for a while was enough of a major life moment for him to want to explore a wackier/grander version of it.
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 8 April 2011 20:04 (thirteen years ago) link
(not that he was not depressed, just that he did more drugs at amherst than he liked to talk about and whenever he made vague references to the reasons for his departure from amherst they always had the character of wanting to keep the extent of the drugs secret without actually having to lie about anything)
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 8 April 2011 20:05 (thirteen years ago) link
(cf. that charlie rose interview where he gets visibly upset and says "i didn't do any more drugs than most people my age" and attributes all his emotional problems to literary success)
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 8 April 2011 20:07 (thirteen years ago) link
idk that he gets visibly upset there, it's just the tv parallel of his fear of not sufficiently making himself understood writing tic imo
― johnny crunch, Friday, 8 April 2011 20:11 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, that's how i interpreted it, too
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Friday, 8 April 2011 20:15 (thirteen years ago) link
oh well that's evident in every interview he ever did; any time he tries to explain anything even semi-complicated he stops and says "is this making any sense at all?"
but when rose asks about the drugs, dfw first makes a sarcastic joke about tv "he's out of rehab!" narratives, then says that he doesn't think his personal life is very interesting, then says everyone else did just as many drugs, then says (twice) that he just "didn't necessarily have the nervous system to handle it", then redirects the conversation towards the emptiness of early fame. which i'm sure was a big deal too, especially as the article upthread mentions that he was prey to the super-common "drugs are bad for most people but i myself am A WRITER" thing, and probably embarrassed about it in retrospect with the special kind of disproportionate embarrassment people only feel when they are remembering something they once did that they now personally feel to have been seriously deluded or immoral. so he's not lying, but i think he's making the drugs out to be a much smaller problem than they were. which is fine, i mean, i don't think i have a right of access to this stuff or anything. but i think it's true.
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 8 April 2011 20:22 (thirteen years ago) link
oh yeah, well he definitely had a big drug/alcohol problem. i think maybe he was just reluctant to make the drugs a big part of his personal narrative of ~problems~ because (a) its not that exceptional and (b) relative to his apparently absolutely crushing emotional issues the drugs seemed kind of incidental. i'm just skeptical of the idea that the subject upset him b/c he was ashmaed of it rather than b/c he just didn't personally pinpoint drugs as the source of his issues. i mean drugs/alcohol inevitably became a big part of his story anyway, b/c they figure so prominently in his writing.
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Friday, 8 April 2011 20:42 (thirteen years ago) link
that 'although in the end ...' book is pretty interesting, as well, in terms of subject avoidance. er, though, the younger brother in 'broom of the system' spends all his time ... doing a lot of drugs, and writing other peoples' papers ... at an east coast college. i think. so, y'know.
― thomp, Friday, 8 April 2011 22:46 (thirteen years ago) link
(also i remember i think one former professor saying something along the lines of 'yes, that was an unusually good year for thesises at amherst')
― thomp, Friday, 8 April 2011 22:48 (thirteen years ago) link
I thought he was just helping people with them, as opposed to actually doing it for them?
― EDB, Friday, 8 April 2011 22:56 (thirteen years ago) link
ive definitely read rumours that he did them for them
― just sayin, Saturday, 9 April 2011 07:11 (thirteen years ago) link
NY Times piece today about how it was edited/pasted.
― SB Nation (Eazy), Saturday, 9 April 2011 22:21 (thirteen years ago) link
pietsch wrote an account in yesterday's guardian, also.
it's more on the personal side than relative to the book but there's a v affecting, well written piece on karen green, here.
― your LiveJournal experience (schlump), Sunday, 10 April 2011 11:23 (thirteen years ago) link
interesting review in 'slate'
http://www.slate.com/id/2290950/pagenum/all/
― reggie (qualmsley), Tuesday, 12 April 2011 15:06 (thirteen years ago) link
the giant nihilist-called-to-account chapter in the middle seems like one of the things that would have been shortened after pietsch managed to convince DFW he was not failing to make himself understood.
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 12 April 2011 19:38 (thirteen years ago) link
How else are people here finding it so far??? I'm putting it off for a bit, but am curious about what y'all think...
― Michael_Pemulis, Tuesday, 12 April 2011 21:21 (thirteen years ago) link
xp otm it reads kinda like good old neon but more digressive
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 12 April 2011 23:07 (thirteen years ago) link
I just picked up a copy of this. I've never read anything by DFW - is it okay to start here?
― Scary Move 4 (dog latin), Wednesday, 11 July 2012 11:45 (eleven years ago) link
lol. you know the story with this book, right? how it was assembled, etc.?
i guess it i might be an ok place to start, but pretty much everything else he's ever written except that undergrad philosophy thesis would be a better place.
― caek, Wednesday, 11 July 2012 11:50 (eleven years ago) link
i've read the editor's note about how cobbled together it is. i didn't realise it was unfinished when i bought it. figured, given my "careful" reading speed and general lack of perseverance, that IJ might be a waste of money at this stage.
― Scary Move 4 (dog latin), Wednesday, 11 July 2012 12:39 (eleven years ago) link
then you should prob start with his nonfiction, 'a supposedly fun thing...' or 'consider the lobster.' i can't really imagine reading 'a pale king' first.
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Wednesday, 11 July 2012 12:44 (eleven years ago) link
Seconding A Supposedly Fun Thing..., but if you prefer fiction, start with one of the short story collections, maybe? But this is pretty much one of the last things of his you should read imo.
― cwkiii, Wednesday, 11 July 2012 12:46 (eleven years ago) link
― Scary Move 4 (dog latin), Wednesday, 11 July 2012 12:45 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i started with this! in terms of his fiction, at least; yeah i guess it's worth reading a couple of the essays just as a primer before a 500 page book, but the freshness of this just in its context helped me persevere (i am not a great reader). do it, i say.
― blossom smulch (schlump), Wednesday, 11 July 2012 13:24 (eleven years ago) link
start with A ... Fun Thing
tho tbh this will likely be my first jab at ~finishing~ some DFW fiction
― catbus otm (gbx), Thursday, 12 July 2012 01:49 (eleven years ago) link
Enjoying this so far!
― Scary Move 4 (dog latin), Thursday, 12 July 2012 09:17 (eleven years ago) link
Good grief. I can't believe how long it's taken (there were whole months when I couldn't face even picking it up) but I finally finished this and it was worth it. There's a whole something like 100 pages in the middle that seem to be deliberately tedious on a trolling level (that whole chapter with DFW in the Gremlin coming to the REC for the first time, not to mention Chris 'Irrelevant' Fogle's extremely long chapter and whole sections where it'll just be describing complex tax procedures etc...) But somehow even these parts have their gems stowed in them. The final scenes (including the four extra chapters in the version I read - the 6 months of TV, the bar-room scene) are probably the most enjoyable.
― pssstttt, Hey you (dog latin), Wednesday, 27 March 2013 09:16 (eleven years ago) link
Chapter 36, about the boy whose goal is "to be able to press his lips to every square inch of his own body"(which was excerpted as "Backbone" in the "New Yorker") creeps me out--I think it is the most disgusting bit of fiction I've ever read.
After Chuck Palahnuik's Guts, I have to agree. I felt quite disturbed by this.
― pssstttt, Hey you (dog latin), Wednesday, 27 March 2013 11:07 (eleven years ago) link
(including the four extra chapters in the version I read - the 6 months of TV, the bar-room scene)
um, what version has extra chapters?
― shit tie (Jordan), Wednesday, 27 March 2013 12:20 (eleven years ago) link
I have a paperback copy that came out in the UK last year or something?
― pssstttt, Hey you (dog latin), Wednesday, 27 March 2013 12:37 (eleven years ago) link
that new yorker piece was pretty intense, yes
― i petted a bodega cat today. (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 27 March 2013 17:47 (eleven years ago) link
still think about this book a lot. i tried to pick it up again at the library a while back to re-read iirc chapter six - about the guy whose girlfriend is pregnant, the chapter chronicling the transcendence of his attitude toward this - & if possible to read the momentary flash-forward about steyck in his army days. so much just unique & shimmering gold in this book.
― schlump, Wednesday, 27 March 2013 17:51 (eleven years ago) link
http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=1634&fulltext=1&media=
KAREN GREEN’S NEW — and incredibly, her first — book Bough Down, from Siglio Press, is an astonishment. It is one of the most moving, strange, original, harrowing, and beautiful documents of grief and reckoning I’ve read. The book consists of a series of prose poems, or individuated chunks of poetic prose, interspersed with postage-stamp-sized collages made by Green, who is also a visual artist. Collectively the text bears witness to the 2008 suicide of her husband, the writer David Foster Wallace, and its harrowing aftermath for Green. The book feels like an instant classic, but without any of the aggrandizement that can attend such a thing. Instead it is suffused throughout with the dissonant, private richness of the minor, while also managing to be a major achievement.…
― j., Saturday, 4 May 2013 01:24 (eleven years ago) link
reread chapter six of this, wow
― schlump, Sunday, 29 June 2014 17:58 (nine years ago) link
it's like a taxonomy of attention
― schlump, Sunday, 29 June 2014 21:26 (nine years ago) link
I still think about this book on a very frequent basis. Strangely, it's the most longwinded and boring parts that stay in my mind - endless descriptions of car park traffic circulation; the whole long story about how the guy's dad died on the subway; the concluding chapters with the girl in the mental ward etc... I think I'd convinced myself that the tax office and the story around it was more-or-less factual and I was shocked to discover it doesn't even exist, at all, and therefore the entire story about DFW working there was almost certainly an elaborate lie.
― 3kDk (dog latin), Monday, 30 June 2014 13:14 (nine years ago) link
The other bit I remember well is the new starter's 15 minute break where he counts the minutes and seconds he has until he has to go back in, like a death sentence, and wanting to 'run around the adjacent field and flap his arms in the air'.
― 3kDk (dog latin), Monday, 30 June 2014 13:20 (nine years ago) link
I wish a fanfic culture existed where people tried to finish this and fill in the blanks
― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Thursday, 3 December 2015 23:23 (eight years ago) link
I disagree, but this would've been a great novel if it had been finished.
― Karl Rove Knausgård (jim in glasgow), Thursday, 3 December 2015 23:30 (eight years ago) link
remembering getting to the end of it and being so frustrated and saddened by how abruptly it ends. brought home "one of your favourite writers has died before his time and you'll never read a new book by him ever again"
― Karl Rove Knausgård (jim in glasgow), Thursday, 3 December 2015 23:32 (eight years ago) link
i'd feel worse about it if "infinite jest" had a proper ending.
― rushomancy, Thursday, 3 December 2015 23:47 (eight years ago) link
it does!
― Karl Rove Knausgård (jim in glasgow), Thursday, 3 December 2015 23:49 (eight years ago) link
as in by the end if you piece everything together it forms a cohesive linear narrative
― Karl Rove Knausgård (jim in glasgow), Thursday, 3 December 2015 23:50 (eight years ago) link
(I had to google to figure out some bits I had missed tho)
― Karl Rove Knausgård (jim in glasgow), Thursday, 3 December 2015 23:51 (eight years ago) link
im now going to reread it ive just decided
Anyone up for doing on of these in a book club?
― Frederik B, Friday, 4 December 2015 01:13 (eight years ago) link
YOU ARE CALLED TO ACCOUNT
this is really all i need from this novel
― Crazy Eddie & Jesus the Kid (Raymond Cummings), Saturday, 19 December 2015 04:07 (eight years ago) link
you're watching as the world turns
― denies the existence of dark matter (difficult listening hour), Saturday, 19 December 2015 04:18 (eight years ago) link
^^^ most stoner moment in a stoner oeuvre
― denies the existence of dark matter (difficult listening hour), Saturday, 19 December 2015 04:20 (eight years ago) link
haha, yeah that guy's story is great
― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Saturday, 19 December 2015 18:17 (eight years ago) link
claude sylvanshine, fact psychic, special assistant to an HR systems deputy
― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Tuesday, 22 December 2015 02:27 (eight years ago) link
all the pictures that goes through this poor guy's head is pretty hilar
― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Tuesday, 22 December 2015 02:32 (eight years ago) link