david foster wallace: classic or dud

~sigh~

it's good i'll never be famous because some of my books have really embarrassing things written in them

"brobdingnagian penises"

the man who loved children is a really great book

It is! I didn't know DFW had read it.

Thanks, Que. I've fallen behind on wallace-l and this is the first I've heard of the archive acquisition.

yah, i read it first on HTML Giant, but it looks like wallace-l people are aware of it

btw: you can see, and potentially buy, Karen Green's art here:
http://www.beautifulcrap.com/

I just bought a drawing off her, which felt a bit weird, but I would've liked her work a lot had she had no connection to Wallace.

I phrased that poorly. You see what I meant, I hope.

waiting for the new edition of the man who loved children to come next month - it's insane that it's been oop for years.

is it really oop? i bought an everyman's library ed of it mb like 5 years ago

s did u buy one of the ink drawings? i know someone who has one (braggin?) & its really beautiful.

Yes, an ink drawing. It was very hard to choose one; I wanted four or five of her pieces.

I also bought her book.

Wow. The Victorian Mourning/Morning Jewelry photos kind of got me right here.

lol @ the drawing on cormac's author photo in suttree

waiting for the new edition of the man who loved children to come next month - it's insane that it's been oop for years.
Wut? I bought this one from amazon two years ago: http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Loved-Children-Novel/dp/0312280440/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268176320&sr=8-1

Heavily annotated copies of that + Puttermesser Papers = <3

Seriously scheming on a trip to Austin to check out the archive.

In Fall 2010 when it all becomes publicly available, that is.

dfw's listening habits, via an interview with his sister:

"he really loved pearl jam." O_o

but also:

"there was a cover of 'our lips are sealed' by fun boy three which he played over and over and OVER again one summer. and he really loved the band madness." :D

pearl jam rocks

the 0_o was less a comment on pearl jam's quality than in trying to imagine dfw rocking out to "daughter" given various (negative) comments in his interview about rock music.

his interview about rock music

Which one? Where?

counterpoint: totally looks like a pearl jam fan

actually upon re-reading "negative" is probably a little strong (and he does caveat his opinion):

"DFW: About the only way music informs my work is in terms of rhythm; sometimes I associate certain narrators' and characters' voices with certain pieces of music. Rock music itself bores me, usually. The phenomenon of rock interests me, though, because its birth was part of the rise of popular media, which completely changed the ways the U.S. was unified and split."

from another posthumous tribute i learned he was big into section 25 and solo eno in college, which seems about right, really.

hmmm. i wanna say i read something somewhere where he said he was into the flaming lips

yah i guess it was in the sonora review

http://www.magicmonads.com/2009/09/sonora-reviews-david-foster-wallace.html

What's the UT connection?

dont believe there is one, i think they have similar other writers archived there tho, at least delillo

and Stormin' Norman Mailer

hmmm. i wanna say i read something somewhere where he said he was into the flaming lips

He also wrote in a review about Lost Highway how "You Can Be My Head" would have been an appropriate theme song.

oh god this makes me sadder than anything else

http://www.scribd.com/doc/28153758/SuttreeDFWpaper

DFW's comments are KILLING me. Page 19 (of this 24-page paper that DFW eventually graded A+ [actually A+++, but downgraded for "syntax and grandiloquence"]: the student uses the word "concern" twice in a sentence; DFW's marginal note: "Die!"

He was so good.

omg the Style Fairy

<3 that lil drawing

I know right!!!

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

Salut.

wow look at how he graded the shit out of that paper what a virtuoso

http://www.superpoop.com/030810/infinite-jest.jpg

Is that BART? I've never seen the seats look so fresh and clean.

canks it's a good zing but really it's not a question of virtuosity so much as how much he actually gives a fuck about this student paper, which when you're staring at a pile of 30 of these at 4am or whatever it's pretty easy to be like "lol u pompous B+" but to the best of my knowledge he never did. like, he really engaged like this with every student paper, even the dum ones, and tried to find what was worth developing and actually, you know, guide his students toward the slightly more thoughtful, better-writing versions of themselves he could see. plus: Style Fairy.

i didn't even realise that was intended as a zing, although if i'd bothered to have checked the username i would, i guess

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.