The more I think about DFW, the less I like him. It seems to me that most of his appeal is superficial, and has maybe too much to do with his audience. i do love his linguistic energy, inventiveness, but the thing that does bug me a lot is his post-grad-MTV-Keanu Reeves(sp?) put on where he interjects a lot of pat, blank, empty teen talk and I can't help but think that he's one of those very irritating post adolescent male cunts who, still in their 30s, seem to be coming to terms with the idea that they were, in their early teens, thought highly precocious, and that, their being aware of this label became for them a kind of badge, which they always draw attention to, ie., cling to, by trying to sound extremely brainy one moment and then offering some kind of anaesthetised teen response which is a kind of ingratiating "apology", for being so smart.
So, in conclusion, false modesty does pretty much qualify you for a cunt. But then again, Martin Amis seems like the biggest cunt around, as far as authors go, and no-one could accuse him of false modesty.
― David Joyner (David Joyner), Saturday, 2 April 2005 01:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 2 April 2005 02:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― m coleman (lovebug starski), Saturday, 2 April 2005 02:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 2 April 2005 05:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― dylan (dylan), Friday, 8 April 2005 02:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 8 May 2005 06:12 (eighteen years ago) link
As you might be able to guess I like the guy's work. If only because one of my friends, after borrowing IJ from me, said it read like it was written by an idealised version of me.
― Stone Monkey (Stone Monkey), Thursday, 12 May 2005 15:02 (eighteen years ago) link
New collection of essays coming out sometime relatively soon, too.
Oh, and not a cunt.
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 20:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom cleveland (tom cleveland), Monday, 27 June 2005 02:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Monday, 27 June 2005 04:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 27 June 2005 05:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 27 June 2005 07:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― W i l l (common_person), Monday, 27 June 2005 12:56 (eighteen years ago) link
There are a couple fan-friendly pictures - the beefy pic with the short hair, where he kind of looks like he's lost (from Broom or Girl, I think) and the one w/ the dogs.
I'm actually kind of interested in the contractual ins/outs of cover art and the dust-jacket photos. Anyone here published and have to go through w/ all of this?
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Monday, 27 June 2005 22:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 01:44 (eighteen years ago) link
there's a fiction anthology edited by zadie smith a couple years ago ('the burned children of america') (oyy) which has an introduction all about finding some manic-with-their-foster-wallace-fannishness-foster-wallace-fans in spain or something and one of them produces something from a pocket and OMG ITS THE BANDANNA
― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 07:57 (eighteen years ago) link
in my case cover was designed in house by the publisher w/ my input and approval and owned by them. author photos were provided (and paid for) by me. this is fairly typical in the US. at the urging of my agent, I was pretty demanding about the cover: rejecting two versions, settling on a third, then getting a fourth that was absolutely perfect. much to my chagrin, six months after publication I was informed the two biggest bookstore chains had basically passed on the book because they didn't like the cover! so I ceded control on the paperback cover and ended up liking that one too.
― m coleman (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 09:46 (eighteen years ago) link
Like this ...
http://www.ncf.ca/~ek867/david_foster_wallace.jpg
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 21:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 00:10 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.twbookmark.com/images/46/25786.jpg
"I am a part-time yoga instructor, but I'm going to massage school."
― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 01:52 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.sherdog.com/fightfinder/Pictures/coleman_profile.jpg
― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 11:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 17:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― jeffrey coleman (jdahlem), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 23:51 (eighteen years ago) link
I read broom of the system for the first time last week and loved it. I have no idea why I wrote this.
― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Friday, 3 February 2006 14:38 (eighteen years ago) link
Please let me know when they make a miniature version I can keep on my dresser.
― Laurel (Laurel), Friday, 3 February 2006 15:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Friday, 3 February 2006 15:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― W i l l (common_person), Friday, 3 February 2006 18:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― Laurel (Laurel), Friday, 3 February 2006 19:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 3 February 2006 19:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 3 February 2006 19:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Friday, 3 February 2006 19:27 (eighteen years ago) link
All of this, when I saw him like 7 years ago, seemed really contrived, an image he was marketing, and something that would help him land the ladies.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 3 February 2006 21:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― Laurel (Laurel), Friday, 3 February 2006 21:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 3 February 2006 23:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― W i l l (common_person), Saturday, 4 February 2006 02:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― East from the city and down to the cave (noodle vague), Saturday, 4 February 2006 03:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― W i l l (common_person), Saturday, 4 February 2006 03:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 4 February 2006 03:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― Laurel, Sunday, 5 February 2006 22:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Friday, 3 March 2006 18:26 (eighteen years ago) link
so, uh: is there a meaningful and/or exploitable connection between the two, or am i reading too much into this?
(this is possibly destined to be one of those thread revivals that sits there until the next revival - like the last one. but i can't elaborate, i gotta go cook.)
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 26 April 2006 21:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Josh (Josh), Thursday, 27 April 2006 03:08 (seventeen years ago) link
I don't love his fiction and have never been able to finish Infinite Jest, but I do adore the first story in Girl With Curious Hair, I think it's called "Little Expressionless Animals." I don't think any other fiction of his I've read touches it, though. this may be just a tin ear that I have toward his type of thing; he definitely has something, whereas Eggers just has a gimmick.
I'm not sure I entirely understand the Orwell question?
― horsehoe (horseshoe), Thursday, 27 April 2006 04:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 27 April 2006 05:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 27 April 2006 06:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 27 April 2006 13:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 27 April 2006 14:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― horsehoe (horseshoe), Thursday, 27 April 2006 15:57 (seventeen years ago) link
I would say that in this age we are overly impressed by science and its mathematical precision through measurement. However, scientific prose is not a model of clarity, but of the painstaking exclusion of ambiguity through the application of professional jargon. 'What we now know about language' is that it doesn't 'do' mathematical precision. It is inapt for that. Ambguity always creeps in.
Genuine clarity is achieved, as it always has been, by the inspired use of metaphor, which condenses ideas and conveys them without the loss of force or exactitude. It works like a mirror, not a calipers.
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 27 April 2006 16:06 (seventeen years ago) link
"It's finally hard for me to predict just whom, besides professional critics and hardcore theory-wienies, 226 dense pages on whether the author lives is really going to interest. For those of us civilians who know in our gut that writing is an act of communication between one human being and another, the whole question seems sort of arcane."
- which is as relevant a quote as i'm'a try and find for now.
at any rate he's certainly aware of such claims. (what's his position academically currently? dude got tenure*?)
i think the question of the political**/moral/ethical dimension of "clarity" for them is key: however my copy of the orwell essays with 'politics & the english language' is miles away, and i don't have time to read DFW's reply to it right now.
*n.b. i am english i don't quite understand what this phrase means i just think it is funny.
**(isn't it - or is it - sort of an interesting measure of the change in uh climate how much more of consider the lobster is here-come-the-scare-quotes* "political" than his first essay collection. *("here-come-the-scare-quotes"? i think DFW is a hard case for me to write about bcz i) how much i usedta wuv him but mainly ii) writing about him involves reading him first and then the temptation to borrow from or pastiche his style (or at least his stylistic tics) is maybe overwhelming, to me))
― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 27 April 2006 16:40 (seventeen years ago) link
You push a woman out of a moving car, you’re an undeniable cunt
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Monday, 1 November 2021 10:21 (two years ago) link
was she wheel shaped though?
― Chappies banging dustbin lids together (President Keyes), Monday, 1 November 2021 14:04 (two years ago) link