david foster wallace: classic or dud

the thought of anybody reading my undergrad thesis has me literally sweating...it was such a mailed in piece of shit from a burnout

like there are times when I fantasize about offering to redo the whole thing to my prof, just to clear the whole thing from my conscience

the thought of anybody reading my undergrad thesis has me literally sweating...it was such a mailed in piece of shit from a burnout

like there are times when I fantasize about offering to redo the whole thing to my prof, just to clear the whole thing from my conscience

― You’re going off of her word that the farmer’s wife is the farmer’s wife? (dyao), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 3:22 PM (52 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hahaha 10000000000000000000000x otm. still afraid to talk to my thesis advisor

lol

xpost - I might be talking out of my ass here, but I think there are distinctions between (a) things that are archived and on-record in school libraries, and (b) things that are on-record but sort of sealed unless you become a notable enough figure that there's some public interest in seeing it?

nah dude anyone can go read it and possibly make a copy

http://fcaw.library.umass.edu:8991/F/75L2BX8B7C8748Q255MJ7QXVT4CP5NMS7LB8RU8VSCXL3FMPQD-07357?func=full-set-set&set_number=111224&set_entry=000030&format=999

what does Item Status Library Use Only mean? just can't check it out?

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/unfinshed-david-foster-wallace-novel-gets-cover-and-release-date/

LETS DO THIS

Little, Brown said it will release “The Pale King” on – when else? – April 15.

started the the Lipsky book last night...OMFG i want to KILL LIPSKY

obv a lot of this is fascinating esp cuz the stuff i was reading was DFW on the eve of Infinite Jest coming out and the book tour, etc...really great stuff but goddamn Lipsky is such a douchebag...everything in brackets in this book should be shot in the head.

worst thing so far:

he makes some aside early on after DFW uses the word "lonely" like "[He uses "lonely" a lot]

then later after the word comes up again (for only like the 2nd time), he brackets:

[the word lonely, again; interesting]

OH REALLY SIGMUND FUCKING FREUD...I CAN JUST SEE YOU STROKING YR BEARD AND GAZING DOWN AT YOUR NOTEPAD...WHY HOW FASCINATING THAT THE GREAT WRITER WHO BATTLED WITH DEPRESSION AND EVENTUALLY KILLED HIMSELF USED THE WORD LONELY, HOW FUCKING REVEALING....THANKS FOR POINTING THAT OUT...FUCK YOU.

(still it's way worth it just for the dfw freestyling thoughts stuff)

the lipsky stuff gets worse.

yeah, i set this aside due to cares earlier this summer, but the lipsky stuff was really, really, really grating.

(just finished this last night btw)

he's so bitter & jealous, both in '96 and now that he's aware that people are only reading his book for DFW, not for him.

couldn't even finish the lipsky book

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/19/david-foster-wallace-s-personal-files.html

I read Consider the Lobster earlier this year and it was pretty solid... kinda feel like i should give his fiction another shot, maybe short stories just aren't my thing... but whenever I read a description of IJ my eyelids slam shut

He's a great writer of prose, imo, a great, great stylist. Also obviously a great, great human being. I'm not saying anything new here obviously

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y6ggl

In April The Pale King, Wallace's final, unfinished novel will be published. Few literary novels have been more eagerly anticipated in recent years. Its great subject is Boredom.

heh its about a guy reading Oblivion

BAM

did anyone listen to this? was it good?

intending to stream and tape it while it's in the archive for a week; was sorta anticipating that fervid wallace fans would rip it and save me the trouble. i will report back

yea worth listening to imo

This is excellent - really enjoying it - thanks for sharing ....

just started re-reading Infinite Jest...goddamn the first 100 page are epic. a lot funnier than i remember too

kinda weird though, i don't think i had ever read pynchon when i read IJ the first time, didn't realize what a debt DFW owed him

heh, i'd JUST read pynchon (for the first time) when i first read it, and the second time i was surprised how un-pynchonesque it was

i am a fan of this guy. i don't like his short stories very much because they're usually about his less valid preoccupations (How Can We Make Art Now That We Know About Sarcasm? seemed to be a big one) but his essays are wonderful and infinite jest is utterly overwhelming and gorgeous and i don't even care how much of an obvious stoner that makes me. so thanks for this!

I think this radio thing makes him sound kind of doofy -- "Tennis was a constant in the life and art of David Foster Wallace" -- oyy. So does 'How Can We Make Art,' etc., which is a caricature, although one with something in it, sure.

oh yeah it is a total caricature. i mean, i read "octet" with interest and pleasure and i don't think it's a good story but i don't mean to write it off. i just think that some of the chains he tries to escape with short stories like that aren't actually there.

kinda want to get infinite jest for my kindle due to huegness but i think the endnote thing would be even more annoying?

Probably yeah.

It is perhaps my favourite novel written in english tho so read it.

i would have thought it would be easier? like you could just click on the link + go straight to the note rather than having 2 bookmarks like w/ a normal copy

yeah i figured that, too? footnotes would suck, but endnotes seem manageable

Would endnote to page 457 or whatevs be easy enough (i don't own any sort if reader)?

it would be cool if the footnotes just popped up in a new window over the text...

reading my old paperback from the 90s with the blue sky cover...always have to keep 2 bookmarks going but it's not too bad

it would almost be worth reading it on a kindle just to increase the text size, esp for the long endnotes

(i'm assuming this is the sort of thing you can do on a kindle)

i could deal with the text size of the end notes, but the lines were so long at that size. reading paragraphs in the endnotes was hard work, kept losing my line.

I am going to read through some of the handwritten drafts of IJ in the Ransom Center archive at UT-Austin next month. Awed, grateful, etc.

IJ not available for kindle as far as I can see :/

http://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Jest-ebook/dp/B000S1M9LY

Hmmm, doesn't come up in my search results, even if search .com rather than .co.uk

are you working on wallace, ctrl-z?

oh yeah it is a total caricature. i mean, i read "octet" with interest and pleasure and i don't think it's a good story but i don't mean to write it off. i just think that some of the chains he tries to escape with short stories like that aren't actually there.

― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 8 February 2011 18:03 (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah i don't know — I first read that at fifteen and it made a huuuuuuuuuuuge impression on me, because at fifteen I spent a lot of time struggling with similar what-is-the-use-of-irony questions? And I read that collection again a few months later and it didn't make such an impression, and I read it again last year and it was one of the pieces I enjoyed least. So there's that. I mean, it helped me because I came across it at a time I needed to read it, so I feel charitable to it for that reason: that there will be people who need to read it, and that I imagine he needed to write it, to.

Also between my two readings of it a few months apart 'The Depressed Person' had morphed from 'mostly horrifying' to 'mostly hilarious', or possibly the other way around.

I was looking at IJ yesterday and thinking, I should probably read this, at last.

But then I see Gareth, of all people, at the top of this thread, saying the book doesn't go anywhere and DFW is 2d. Possibly this is reassuring.

Gareth is wrong on both of those points.

I mean you could only say it "doesn't go anywhere" if you're unfamiliar with the concept of a story beginning at the end, but it covers a pretty vast amount of ground in between. I don't think it's two-dimensional either, all the main characters are well drawn, he clearly has a lot of sympathy for some of them, his portrayals of depression and addiction are excellent.

That said, I'm not sure you'd like Infinite Jest.

clicky if you can't navigate the BBC site

"DFW is 2d"
I think he has a tendency in fiction to describe the characters to a degree of resolution beyond the limits of his ability to invent them credibly, kind of like CG Yoda is less compelling than a felt puppet Yoda. This is obviously not a problem if the person he's describing actually exists.

the point where i realized infinite jest was Really Really Good, when (almost) everything i'd read to that point suddenly opened up, was the long sequence with Gately moving the cars around on the street, which is simultaneously a huge emotional peak for the novel and a piece of actual thriller writing so good it's almost funny. now granted this is something like page 600, so i understand when people get frustrated with this book.

I think he has a tendency in fiction to describe the characters to a degree of resolution beyond the limits of his ability to invent them credibly

this is why i was wary of him for a long time; i'm kinda sympathetic to james wood.

on about pg 120 of my re-read...really having a ball...all the main story stuff is coming back to me, but there is a ton of great minor stuff that i forgot about...just read this pretty amazing vignette of some boston heroin addicts