david foster wallace: classic or dud

xxpost

Not unlike John Grisham's ribald space operas for stunted Americans. At least that's what I assume he writes, based solely on having seen one of his books misshelved in the erotic sci-fi section that one time.

btw the thing I like most about dfw is this part of some article I read once where a fawning interviewer is just so crushed, just seemingly almost in tears because he walks into a room to interview dfw and the dude is sitting on a couch eating kfc and watching the x files

it reminded me of that time when jodorowsky actually cried because he wanted pink floyd to score dune and he revered them so much and when he walked into a room they were dudes just sitting around eating fish and chips

and the old "people just like him to feel smart" canard -- you can just as easily throw that at ANY literary author, hell, at the entire idea of "literary authors."

he walks into a room to interview dfw and the dude is sitting on a couch eating kfc and watching the x files

this = a reason for love

To turn the end of Wallace's Updike review into a posthumous BEE zing, Erect or flaccid, Ben Turnbull's BEE's unhappiness is obvious right from the book's first page first tweet. But it never once occurs to him that the reason he's so unhappy is that he's an asshole.

Love that review.

We are paying attention to the opinions of Brett Easton Ellis now?! When did this misfortune befall?

Here's the opening of Dale Peck's Infinite Jest review:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v18/n14/dale-peck/well-duh

The US literary world can be divided into two camps: those who think Thomas Pynchon is a very clever guy, and those who also think he’s a great writer.

Dale Peck is an idiot, though

Peck knows what he wants and he wants recognizable human characters, which is a legitimate desire. His ability to recognize human characters seems to be limited by how closely they resemble people or fictional characters already familiar to him. This makes him not an idiot, but not an ideal reviewer of books like Infinite Jest.

dale peck, internet nobody

the myth of foster wallace is p gross to me but ellis is just bringing nothing in those zings

I haven't read Infinite Jest but that review and all the things it resents makes me wanna read it more

the myth of foster wallace is p gross to me but ellis is just bringing nothing in those zings

agreed.

I haven't read Infinite Jest but that review and all the things it resents makes me wanna read it more

300 pages of it are really good and the rest is good for arguing with people about

I think back wistfully to a time when I enjoyed DFW and never saw/heard anyone talking about him outside of, like, newsgroups.

(Eternal thanks to erstwhile(?) ILXor D. Wolk for introducing me to the dude via his review of Supposedly Fun Thing... in CMJ.)

ellis has been like this all his life: 'american psycho' is basically one long troll of whoever's reading it.

judging from the first few paragraphs of that review dale peck is even dumber than that 'reader's manifesto' guy.

but b r myers is pretty cool and often right

I read a BEE book once and all I can remember is something something colombian foot soldiers

no wait that was jay mcierneyerrerer

sorry BEE I didn't mean to tarnish you by association

I almost took a McInerney book out of the library the other day but then I flipped it open to a random page and read a sentence and was permanently cured of the impulse to ever read anything of his ever again.

McInerney's pretty good at wine writing and Ellis is pretty good at tweeting.

Wallace is pretty good at jamming and Baker is pretty great at thinking as dramatic action.

pretty sure Ellis has never had a website like this dedicated to one of his novels, same goes for Dale Peck

http://infiniteatlas.com/

pretty sure Ellis has never had a website like this dedicated to one of his novels, same goes for Dale Peck

Degree of obsessive fan devotion is a 100% reliable sign of quality. See: the Grateful Dead, Amanda Palmer, Star Wars.

i'm just saying the guy has made a significant cultural impact.

Degree of obsessive fan devotion is a 100% reliable sign of quality.

Agree 100%, problem is, I think BEE wishes he had the impact DFW does

Um, Less Than Zero and American Psycho didn't have a cultural impact?

In May 2011, Peck's criticism of Jewish-American literature in which he claimed "(I)f I have to read another book about the Holocaust, I’ll kill a Jew myself" prompted a public outcry. His editors later removed the statement from his article.

they do a little bit, sure! not nearly the impact that DFW does--those tweets BEE made reek of desperation

and anyone who shits on the dead like that does not deserve to be taken seriously

ellis is soooo jelly of dfw's cult

I do not knwo who he is and I am not going to google it

bee is gross and sad. still like lunar park.

Um, Less Than Zero and American Psycho didn't have a cultural impact?

as literature they're toilet paper, plenty of crappy literature has had some impact just by virtue of being widely read. I haven't read IJ & probably never will but I like DFW's short work, he's capable of thinking a problem through. BEE wouldn't know what to do with an idea if one ever occurred to him.

wait ppl think Ellis is anything other than decent trash to read on airplanes?

Next poll: chuck palinuknuk vs David Mitchell

i didn't realise we had a whole other thread on this already, this happens when i take a day off ilx

wait i posted on this thread already

this is like a really shitty episode of the twilight zone

<3 thomp

Ellis certainly has literary aspirations, whether or not his books are good.

hey guys who wants to read my MA essay on architectural postmodernity in American Psycho

But it’s still something of a shock to see the extent to which Wallace—the perspiring, softly spoken and tortuously sincere figure of popular affection—could himself be a Hideous Man. Sure, his friend Jonathan Franzen felt compelled to point out that Wallace was never “Saint Dave,” but it’s another thing entirely to see him walking through the Amherst campus as an undergraduate, remarking on the springtime “smell of cunt in the air.” We later learn that Orin Incandenza’s penchant, in Infinite Jest, for seducing young mothers is in fact something he shared with his creator. We learn about DFW’s womanizing, about his book-tour fondness for “audience pussy,” and that he once wondered aloud to Franzen about whether his only purpose in life was “to put my penis in as many vaginas as possible.”

boys: still something of a shock

the most disappointing part of that has to be 'his friend Jonathan Franzen' tho right?

hahaha exactly

his only purpose in life was “to put my penis in Jonathan Franzen as many as possible.”

the smell of Jonathan Franzen in the air