david foster wallace: classic or dud

it wasnt really a zing i just think its funny that people are fawning over how he graded papers... he certainly did a good job and all but its like dang man come on

"die!"

DFW makes me depressed cause I know that no matter how hard I try I am never going to read a book with as much drive and dedication as he did

but I am glad to see his standards for student papers is not that high

Really? That was the most brutal A+ I've ever seen.

He basically told the guy to rewrite it entirely.

yeah but he still gave it an A+++?

he was being supportive and encouraging! which is something that's come out a fair bit after his death. he really did seem amazingly generous for someone with such high standards.

I did lol at the big "NICEEEE!" comment directed at the students first overly long footnote

i only skimmed the essay, so i'm not about to judge it's actual quality (nor am i qualified to), but i think the best kinda teaching brutally rakes students over the coals and then tells them that they ~still~ did an outstanding job (provided that they actually showed effort, u know). raises expectations, outlines what those expectations probably are, assures the student that they are capable of meeting them imo

agree with that!

kinda feel like he'd have been aghast at someone putting papers he graded on the internet, and that happening after he's died just makes it more tacky. at least w/ the unfinished novel it's something he intended to show the public at some point.

but the paper belongs to the student?

sure, but the student's still kind of a dick for putting it online imo

enh, i'd 100% agree with you if it just ended up on the internet without any of the involved parties' consent, but the student putting it up isn't really a dick move imo. chances are that they fucking adored DFW and wanted to show the world that he was a thoughtful and considerate and dedicated instructor. he might have never wanted the world to know that he was a style fairy, but it's not like his legacy (or w/e) is in any diminished by our knowledge that he was!

^^agree with this

we don't really have any evidence that DFW made some sort of kafka-esque declaration before he died (unless someone wants to point me to one)

man i miss this guy

srsly the only "famous" person death that really, genuinely bummed me out.

ehh i understand and i'm not being totally hardline and humorless about this, nor do i think DFW had any Kafka-ish attitude about his unpublished work etc. or that this has any effect on his legacy. i'm just saying if one of his fans was lucky enough to be in one of his classes, they could stand to be cool about it and not show the guy's little feedback notes to everyone in the world, and the fact that they only did so now that he's dead seems even more gross to me. i realize once a great author is dead people tend to dig up personal correspondence and all sorts of shit, and this isn't quite that, but a little more restraint and decorum would be nice imo.

u crazy

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/03/whats-in-the-david-foster-wallace-archive.html

“Unfortunately,” Schwartzburg said, “there does not appear to be a copy of ‘The Corrections.’ ”

http://www.lds.org/images/Manuals/tchg-pix.nfo:o:f1e.jpg

oh man wrong thread, I'm so sorry

not entirely inappropriate

instant lolololz! thnks Abbott!

I know right!!!

Student paper: "problematize"
DFW: "This is a bullshit academic word. Shun it. Fly it. Trust me."

Salut.

― a passing basscadet (ctrl-s), Thursday, March 11, 2010 2:22 PM (3 days ago)

lol and then he taunts him with that very word down the page when offering him advice on something else

hahaha AND a couple page later!

so has anyone else pre-ordered this - http://www.amazon.com/Although-Course-You-Becoming-Yourself/dp/030759243X/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271100674&sr=8-5

yup! amazon told me it was shipping today!

did you see that review on the awl? made me so psyched for it

nope but thx for the heads up!

very excited for this book

supposedly my copy is showing up in mere hours

Que & i are excited abt the same thing? delete ilx

jk <3 y'all

mang, no uk edition. ordered it. wonder if it'll show up.

sorry, pretty sure HM customs and excise are intercepting all US editions of DFW stuff.

ok that awl thing DID make me more excited

****BREAKING: wheelchair terrorists from Canada have seized all copies of the new book "Although of Course you End up Becoming Yourself" by David Lipsky****

my copy just showed up!

:o

OMG!!! YES!!! SO GOOD 2 HEAR LIVEBLOGG READING IT NOW ITT!!!!!!

yeah why r u posting when u should be readin

yeah seriously wtf posting when u should be reading it wtf *hits hand against chest like retard*

god is this already so sad

ha, "this is" but w/e i guess that works too

am v much enjoying this
if it was here i would quote page references
some of the editorialising is a little ott
[repeats my joke, MAKES IT FUNNIER]

so how is this book?????

it's excellent. so far i'm around page 80, having skipped the "afterward" which was somewhere towards the beginning . . .

DFW, as always, is funny, incisive, and smartt. some of Lipsky's in-brackets asides are seriously grating though; occasionally, it feels like he's injecting himself into the book where it isn't really necessary at all

*smart

^ smh

also, if someone could start working on getting a volume of all of DFW's interviews published in full, unedited transcript form, that would be ace. thanks