david foster wallace: classic or dud

If you find yourself the custodian of a great work of art, your responsibility is to the work, not to some notion of what the artist wanted to do with the work. Your responsibility is to the work--that's how you honor your friendship.

My saying that you know better than your friend, the artist, what the work's final disposition ought to be? Respectfully, but strongly, disagree. I also think every artist who doesn't want something published should know that any friend no matter how well-intentioned is likely to say "well, he really would have wanted it published, and besides, history/the world/posterity/posited good is more important that the artist's wishes" - Kafka ought to have burned his manuscripts himself. Personally, of course I would destroy The Trial - posterity can hang, its author didn't want you to read it, that's the end of the matter as far as I'm concerned.

"my" = "by" in first word there

then again if a friend entrusted his works to me and said "whatever you do, publish these after I'm gone," I'd probably destroy them anyway just to be on the safe side

you really like destroying

I can't be alone in that

I just realized they have an excerpt from the "Long Thing" right after the New Yorker article; it's very good--looking forward to see what is released.

I think the article went a long way toward explaining his mental state--I didn't realize he was suffering so badly.
Also surprised that he stayed on Nardil for so long (rather than switching to an SSRI)--I didn't realize that that was still prescribed. It may have been the only thing strong enough for though, as it seems that his suicide occurred after going off the drug.

Nardil and the other MAOIs seem to be somewhat more effective for what I think is called "atypical" depression, in which a lot of stuff is really somaticized?

It has been a while since I read "The Noonday Demon" but I do seem to recall something about that.

The New Yorker piece (the D.T. Max one) is beautiful. That said I had a little trouble with the excerpt from the unfinished novel (although I really liked the stuff quoted in the Max piece). I got a distinct feeling of "I don't know if I'd be up for a whole novel's worth of this."

i'm pretty keen to see the novel. i thought it being super mundane and minute clicked with his rhythm and detail. also this:

In four minutes, it would be another hour; a half hour after that was the ten-minute break. Lane Dean imagined himself running around on the break, waving his arms and shouting gibberish and holding ten cigarettes at once in his mouth, like a panpipe. Year after year, a face the same color as your desk. Lord Jesus. Coffee wasn’t allowed because of spills on the files, but on the break he’d have a big cup of coffee in each hand while he pictured himself running around the outside grounds, shouting. He knew what he’d really do on the break was sit facing the wall clock in the lounge and, despite prayers and effort, count the seconds tick off until he had to come back and do this again. And again and again and again.

I loved the "You're watching 'As The World Turns'" bit.

Yeah...his later short fiction (particularly the longer pieces in Oblivion) could be kind of forbidding in its abandonment of most of the humor/broad characters/meta stuff that made Jest easier to swallow, a thick part-of-novel in that vein might be a really difficult read. There is something about the topic/theme of this book that I find pretty intriguing, though, so I'm still up for it.

i was totally anti-publishing this, totally on J0hn D.'s side theoretically and then I read the excerpt. . . holy shit, cannot wait until it comes out.

i've been reading supposedly fun thing... i think he's best when writing by tennis, by a huge margin. the first thing i ever read by dude was signifying rappers (sux), which i think turned me off of him for a long time.

agreed regarding Oblivion, too--a lot of those pieces (the title story especially) did not click for me the way the majority of Infinite Jest did

xpost uh, gonna have to completely disagree with you there, the best story in that book isn't about tennis, its about a cruise.

on Oblivion: yeah, I had the same problem with it, but I'm actually kinda eager to go back and give it another chance after having read everything else by him.

I really really loved the excerpts from The Pale King. I understand the qualms about post-mortem publishing, but sometimes people, particularly the extremely self-critical author-types, need a little push out the door from their loved ones, and the world is usually a better place because of it.

i havent finished the book yet dillweed! anyway i like him best talkin bout tennis, happy now

have you read his Federer piece from a few years ago? so great.

guys re: 'the qualms about post-mortem publishing', he left it out on his desk! all neatly in a pile! it's no like it's nabokov or something w a note saying 'PLS DESTROY'

yeah i know...i regret jump-starting that line of thinking before i got to the end of the article explaining that part.

ya that federer piece was just like... d-damn

yeah, i do love the federer piece.

and yes, i read that article, too, i know he wanted it to be published. i said the qualms thing more in response to the conversation that's been going on in this thread.

yeah but i mean his note might have specified what he wanted done with it--sounds like he wanted it published as is, i guess? it still feels weird i guess

Yeah...I imagine that since he left his wife a note, there's certain things he expressed to her that will never be made public, and we just have to assume that she's carrying out his wishes to the best of her abilities.

re-reading the federer piece these days breaks my heart a bit due to fed's continuous waffling against that other guy.

the excerpt from his new book does sound really good but on the other hand, i don't really have much to compare it to - it's the first piece of fiction by him I've ever read (read both a supposedly fun thing and consider the lobster). where should I start with his fiction - the short stories? Broom? IJ, even?

i would say IJ

The line about the guy footnoting his tattoo is cringeworthy.

seems pertinent to link to http://www.theknowe.net/dfwfiles/pdfs/Wallace-Good_People.pdf - earlier excerpt from the pale king.
this is interesting too (and i am consequently exploring tony hoagland)

the writing, or the fact that he footnoted his tattoo?

i would say IJ

thanks, that was my feeling too, but for my "gah, big book" reaction to it. I'm not so much intimidated by the length though so much as trying to find the time to really dig into it.

Jordan - both, I guess.

my feeling is that if you've read his non-fiction, and are interested in reading some of his previous fiction before The Pale King comes out, you really should just go ahead and invest your time into Infinite Jest, however long it takes...Broom and his short stories really just don't compare imo.

oh come on, the tattoo thing is awesome (would've been less awesome done by anyone else, though)

xkcd, say

now why'd you have to take it there

my feeling is that if you've read his non-fiction, and are interested in reading some of his previous fiction before The Pale King comes out, you really should just go ahead and invest your time into Infinite Jest, however long it takes...Broom and his short stories really just don't compare imo.

― blame it on the HOOS got you steenin' loose (some dude), Tuesday, March 10, 2009 6:35 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think some of his short story work is right up there with Infinite Jest, which i love, and a lot less scary to start.

though i would say that infinite jest, for how long it is in length and reputation, is a very very readable book.

yeah i dunno...i look at his short fiction as porridges each with its own specific fatal flaws, Curious Hair is too this, Brief Interviews is too that, etc. but IJ is, for all its imperfections and challenges, just right.

otm

yeah so otm. and it's really not that hard to read at all, i was expecting a lot worse bcz of its rep

IJ is super readable: for me it was one of those books where you have an early-ish slump and put it aside a bit, but when you pick it back up it catches like a fire and you can't stop reading (except for the bits where you stop to re-read something because it was great).

yeah, before i started reading it someone told me these two things, which i now repeat when i lend it to someone:

1) it doesn't really start picking up momentum until 2-300 pages in

2) it's very readable and entertaining on a page-to-page basis (ie not especially dense or difficult), there's just a lot of it.

i have to admit that i have zero interest in his fiction

I maintain that Girl with Curious Hair is his best collection of work, and better than IJ. But I read it first.

2) it's very readable and entertaining on a page-to-page basis (ie not especially dense or difficult), there's just a lot of it.

Yeah, this. I had to keep reassuring a few friends that I did, in fact, love the book, because I kept on complaining that I would never get through it. I think I loved just about every bit of it, it's just so goddamn long (it took me like two months!).

Is IJ anything like that excerpt from the book that's going to be published posthumously? Because I couldn't even read 10 pages of that let alone 1000 but I like really long novels.

Just started reading Infinite Jest so I can see what all of you are banging on about.

Girl With Curious Hair was what I started with and I loved it, so I'd say if Infinite Jest is too daunting I'd start there

NY'er article was great

many xposts

I tend not to have massive patience with long novels.

Is IJ anything like that excerpt from the book that's going to be published posthumously?

no, not really

weird:

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i134/dgoobl/05tiwlarge.jpg