that is a pretty long essay just to point out that franzen is dick
― desperado, rough rider (thomp), Friday, 17 February 2012 17:04 (twelve years ago) link
thanks for that, que. just reading through, i'm remembering how much less offensive i seemed to find farther away than some people, here. & i think the story about signing a book with a drawing of his penis is being misconstrued as some sort of weird graffiti rather than self-deprecatingly juvenile taunt.
― john-claude van donne (schlump), Friday, 17 February 2012 17:12 (twelve years ago) link
suicide by bear
― Mr. Que, Friday, 17 February 2012 17:17 (twelve years ago) link
yeah i don't think the essay was well written but in parts it made some excellent points about what kind of writers those two are and the differences between them.
― Mr. Que, Friday, 17 February 2012 17:18 (twelve years ago) link
I just started The Marriage Plot and there is a character in there who is interested in philosophy, wears a bandana and ponytail, and chews tobacco.
― jaymc, Friday, 17 February 2012 17:20 (twelve years ago) link
(Presumably this has been noticed by others.)
haha yeah, there's been a whole media clusterfuck about it, pretty entertaining stuff
― CANDY aka JUNK (some dude), Friday, 17 February 2012 17:22 (twelve years ago) link
jaymc, this is a really good piece on the topic: http://nymag.com/print/?/arts/books/features/jeffrey-eugenides-2011-10/
― 40oz of tears (Jordan), Friday, 17 February 2012 17:22 (twelve years ago) link
man that is a horrible title
Should be noted that this title is 10X better than the title Max had originally attached to the book, which must've been murdered during the later editing rounds.
― Spertify (CompuPost), Friday, 17 February 2012 18:18 (twelve years ago) link
xp Cool, that looks good. I'll check it out when I'm done with the novel.
― jaymc, Friday, 17 February 2012 18:28 (twelve years ago) link
which was. . .
― Mr. Que, Friday, 17 February 2012 18:30 (twelve years ago) link
don't leave us hanging
― CANDY aka JUNK (some dude), Friday, 17 February 2012 18:31 (twelve years ago) link
not really, but that would've been the worst possible title
excellent
― Mr. Que, Friday, 17 February 2012 18:52 (twelve years ago) link
1nfinite F1re :/
(Googleproofed since I was sworn to keep this dumb, insignificant tidbit secret)
― Spertify (CompuPost), Friday, 17 February 2012 19:02 (twelve years ago) link
still laughing at don't leave us hanging
― the "intenterface" (difficult listening hour), Friday, 17 February 2012 19:02 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.google.com/imgres%3Fum%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial%26biw%3D1680%26bih%3D850%26tbm%3Disch%26tbnid%3DEFYXUAZGGkQaBM%3A%26imgrefurl%3Dhttp%3A//twitter.com/infinitefires%26docid%3DxsMUvaRAAop1tM%26imgurl%3Dhttp%3A//a0.twimg.com/profile_images/861973297/untitled.JPG%26w%3D500%26h%3D375%26ei%3DYqQ-T7e3A83TgQfKrLWxCA%26zoom%3D1
― 40oz of tears (Jordan), Friday, 17 February 2012 19:03 (twelve years ago) link
good title for an action movie tho xp
― johnny crunch, Friday, 17 February 2012 19:03 (twelve years ago) link
sorry
http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/861973297/untitled.JPG
Infinite Fire is a better title
― Mr. Que, Friday, 17 February 2012 19:53 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316182370/
― markers, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 01:39 (twelve years ago) link
^ !
― john. a resident of chicago., Tuesday, 21 February 2012 01:55 (twelve years ago) link
yeesh i've taken 4 months break from IJ and not sure i can get back into it
and i was like 400 pages in! there's no way i can just negate all that and start all over again this summer. entertaining but fucking brutal book.
― NO NUTRITIONAL CONTENT (kelpolaris), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 02:48 (twelve years ago) link
it took me a year to get around to reading _the pale king_ but i'm doing it now and it makes me feel i was wasting time reading other novels.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 02:49 (twelve years ago) link
xp you can get back into it. I spent 11 months finishing it in spurts, my longest break may have approached that long. You're not going to build a totally coherent map of the plot on one readthrough and it's not even that important to enjoying the novel. It's super impressionistic, so just pick up where you were and remember that confusion is part of the intended effect.
― tinker tailor soldier sb (silby), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 03:51 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah man just start over - that's what I did
― Raymond Cummings, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 04:38 (twelve years ago) link
This is kinda neat - a police sketch of Hal Incandenza based on the description of him from the book:
http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzq65kd7hB1r3ke0zo1_500.jpg
― EZ Snappin, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 04:49 (twelve years ago) link
eyes not dead enough imo
― tinker tailor soldier sb (silby), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 04:50 (twelve years ago) link
blame the software's "dead eyes" slider.
― EZ Snappin, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 04:51 (twelve years ago) link
maybe it's a sketch from prior to his video room anhedonia epiphany
― jesus christ (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 05:10 (twelve years ago) link
That book is so quietly sinister, nobody ever talks about that
― Raymond Cummings, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 05:13 (twelve years ago) link
re: uncollected journalism etc: most of those pieces seem to be up at the howling fantods under less portentious titles
http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/uncollected-dfw.html
their news page also mentions the paperback edition of the pale king will have four extra chapters, which led to my yelling 'oh come on fuck off' at the computer
― desperado, rough rider (thomp), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 22:11 (twelve years ago) link
also mentions the paperback edition of the pale king will have four extra chapters,
Ugh. Fuck Off.
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 22:21 (twelve years ago) link
i think there was some discussion elsewhere about how they were being billed as 'scenes' rather than chapters, maybe curtailing expectations of their length/importance, but yeah i mean i'd totally like to read them. i was trying to remember whether the most recent of the pieces that were extracted before its release in the nyer - about a kid-incarnation of one of the workers' toy truck - made it in, which i guess it did but i can't remember re-reading in there.
― john-claude van donne (schlump), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 22:27 (twelve years ago) link
i don't think it was.
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 21 February 2012 22:33 (twelve years ago) link
'scenes' just makes it even more annoyingly like a dvd release
are the constituent parts available in austin or does little, brown have them? how long are we looking at before someone can go in the archive and evaluate pietsch's choices?
― desperado, rough rider (thomp), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 22:35 (twelve years ago) link
afaik the deal was always going to be that the materials would be available upon release of the book, but yeah i've never heard anything about them. after that terrific awl piece on his various self-help books, the estate removed the relevant texts from the collection, which i totally understand & think is not any kind of fascistic censorship or anything, but which is a weird thing about the archives in general.
i have v good memories of the pale king, anyway. i have not read infinite jest.
― john-claude van donne (schlump), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 23:01 (twelve years ago) link
bio out 8/30 -- http://www.amazon.com/Every-Love-Story-Ghost-Wallace/dp/0670025925/
― markers, Tuesday, 6 March 2012 04:40 (twelve years ago) link
Just started Infinite Jest, but I'm having a little trouble with the stilted prose ... reminds me of one of those science fiction authors who write like crap but are famed to have interesting ideas. Is it worth slogging through to get to the fabled good stuff?
― Spectrum, Saturday, 19 May 2012 19:35 (eleven years ago) link
Only you can answer that question. Slog on until it hurts to slog any further. If this isn't your time to enjoy it, come back to it and try again later in life.
― Aimless, Saturday, 19 May 2012 19:38 (eleven years ago) link
I love it, like it's a rite of passage. I'll keep going since I've heard about this book for so long.
― Spectrum, Saturday, 19 May 2012 19:38 (eleven years ago) link
For me, the "stilted" aspect of Wallace's writing is a reflection of the way he actually talks. I read IJ shortly after it came out, but never heard him speak until about 10 years later. His voice and cadences and speech patterns were exactly as I had always imagined his narrative voice in my head. For me, it was a voice of measured intellectual analytical detachment or whatever, but with a sense of genuine love and concern for his audience. I don't know if it's because his writing reminded me of someone who I heard those traits in or what.
― Lee Morgan Come Again (how's life), Saturday, 19 May 2012 20:00 (eleven years ago) link
That's interesting... I guess I'm getting a smart guy on sleeping pills kinda vibe. The hype's the problem, I guess ... I'm coming in after hearing how DFW is a genius, so I'm expecting a writer who bested Joyce, Pynchon, Bellow, etc, who I personally think of as genius writers and aren't really referred to like that. Will continue.
― Spectrum, Saturday, 19 May 2012 20:26 (eleven years ago) link
DFW was a smart guy on first-generation antidepressants so you might not be far off.
― raw feel vegan (silby), Saturday, 19 May 2012 20:32 (eleven years ago) link
I always wondered to what extent I love DFW's writing because it reads so much like a textual translation of how my brain works (although a far more successful translation than any similar attempt I've ever made) versus the extent to which he's just really good at textually replicating the way the human brain works in general.
― Quiet Desperation, LLC (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 19 May 2012 20:34 (eleven years ago) link
W/r/t (ha) his writing replicating his own speech patterns, that seems pretty spot on. Reading Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, I was struck by how similar it was to his written work.
― Quiet Desperation, LLC (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 19 May 2012 20:37 (eleven years ago) link
i have never found dfw stilted particularly, i find infinite jest a pleasure to read on a sentence by sentence basis, my only issue with it, and it's not a huge one, is that he just writes too much about everything. literary horror vacui.
― zverotic discourse (jim in glasgow), Saturday, 19 May 2012 22:16 (eleven years ago) link
wait in what universe is it that Joyce pynchon and bellows are not considered geniuses?
― catbus otm (gbx), Saturday, 19 May 2012 23:10 (eleven years ago) link
Eh, I misspoke. Disappointed I wasn't immediately blown away by his writing like I was those other authors, but I'm enjoying it a little more. Argument's really beside the point.
― Spectrum, Saturday, 19 May 2012 23:35 (eleven years ago) link
yeah, i'd just give it some time, it took me a little bit to shift my interpretation of his style from showy to generously precise.
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Sunday, 20 May 2012 00:30 (eleven years ago) link