― toby, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Josh, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― RickyT, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Leave aside the question of whether the ease w/which he can be pastiched is a good or a bad sign.
thought it read like a slightly more literate Bridget Jones to tell you the truth.
― katie, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Alan Trewartha, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― mark s, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― mark s m.a. oxon, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
i imagine that "a slightly more literate Bridget Jones" is a criticism quite a few people would make of dfw's style...
― Edna Welthorpe, Mrs, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
anyway, to answer the question properly, i'd say classic for two reasons:
i) his prose style, which captures the way people talk/think more accurately than any other author i can think of. though i'm never sure these days whether my emails read like a crap version of dfw because i'm nicking his style or because his style is based on the way that people ramble on.
ii) his attmepts to address the difficulties with really communicating on an honest level with other people, whether this be between author/reader (as in one of those pop quizzes in brief interviews) or psycho/victim (one of the hideous interviews) or
umm, i really do have to go to a seminar now. i'll expand on this later.
1) Don DeLillo (back in the day I heard rumours that he WAS Pynchon, similar to ye olde Salinger rumour)
2) Steve Erickson (underappreciated fantasist - see ILM thread on his top 100 LA songs)
3) George Saunders (maybe more of a Barthelmian miniaturist, but TRP wrote blurbs for CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia)
Those I have loathed: DFW, William T. Vollmann, many more...
― kate, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
none of his other books have had the same effect on me, though i enjoyed 'the broom of the system' and 'supposedly fun things...'.
i was disappointed by 'a heartbreaking work...' too. i think because i expected something more like infinite jest. I've never been able to read 'gravity's rainbow' past the first 150 pages or so. is there a 'pynchon for beginners' i should read first?
― liz, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Will, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― gareth, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
of course, i like delillo a lot while finding pynchon overrated, so my opinion's probably shit anyways.
― dave k, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I used to be able to just breeze by the subject of DFW, without care, capriciously, even. Having to deal with a bad imitation of DFW for a while made me want to MURDER the man though. Argh. But don't listen to me, I'm illiterate.
― Ally, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― james, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Haven't read any big DFW books. Liked "A supposedly fun thing" a lot, especially the cruise ship bit. Hated his article on proper usage & language in Harper's. Weirdest thing about him is his first book, Signifying Rappers. It's so bad.
― fritz, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― anthony, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Personally: lately I've been finding his essays far more enlightening than his literature. The McCain item, to an extent, but more particularly the David Lynch article from A Supposedly Fun Thing... and the grammar/usage article from Harpers, which was, if not informative to me personally, a really enjoyable analysis.
― Nitsuh, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Wheeler, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Omar, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 20 February 2003 19:48 (twenty-one years ago) link
Of the not-yet-in-book-form material, I'm very fond of "Up, Simba!" and the grammar/usage piece in Harper's. His recent short stories have mostly been "experimental" in the sense of trying to get away from his comfortable subjects and trying to eliminate his tics while maintaining his style. A lot of them end up collapsing at one point or another ("Adult World," in particular, is a very ambitious near-total misfire).
But for verbal glory plus neatly masked high moral seriousness, there's nobody anywhere near him writing right now in English, I think.
― Douglas (Douglas), Thursday, 20 February 2003 20:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Dan I., Thursday, 20 February 2003 20:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Chris P (Chris P), Thursday, 20 February 2003 20:41 (twenty-one years ago) link
DFW = Bruce McCulloch?
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 20 February 2003 20:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
I am tempted to say that I like all of the new Pynchons better than the old Pynchon, but it's not true.
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 20 February 2003 20:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
DFW is classic. I loved IJ, Brief Interviews was... meh, A Supposedly Fun Thing was good, and I really like all the stories from Girl with Curious Hair.
I could care less about the pretentiousness/ego/wunderkind/pynchon rip off criticisms of him. It's great stuff to read.
― cprek (cprek), Thursday, 20 February 2003 21:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 20 February 2003 21:14 (twenty-one years ago) link
― J (Jay), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 16:24 (twenty years ago) link
― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 17:09 (twenty years ago) link
All said, I'm a huge fan of IJ, Girl with Curious Hair and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again...so DFW = classic IMO. I've never gotten the Pynchon refs, BTW...they mostly seem to be due to the bulk of IJ. Wallace has always struck me as closer to Donald Barthelme.
― That's a Goddamn Lie (Liar), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 22:41 (twenty years ago) link
― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 22:52 (twenty years ago) link
<3
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 13 September 2016 11:23 (seven years ago) link
sadly likely to earn a visit to the dean's office these days based on anonymous butthurt rats
― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.), Tuesday, 22 November 2016 19:59 (seven years ago) link
expand on that
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 22 November 2016 20:02 (seven years ago) link
(Aimless groans, smirks, mimes onanism, chortles, & eye-rolls)
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Tuesday, 22 November 2016 20:05 (seven years ago) link
The beginning of this thread makes me nostalgic for the days when Wallace was just a fiction writer among many, one you could like or dislike without there being any cultural weight attached to which it was
I guess we'll get back to that in 10 more years
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 29 January 2018 04:39 (six years ago) link
https://jezebel.com/mary-karr-reminds-the-world-that-david-foster-wallace-a-1825799769
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 5 May 2018 21:25 (six years ago) link
I saw a good 'used' (but unread) copy of Infinite Jest for $3 today at my favorite charity bookshop. I picked it up, thumbed through a few pages and realized I had no interest in re-reading it.
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 5 May 2018 22:36 (six years ago) link
You write that Infinite Jest was motivated by his “dysfunctional yearning for Mary Karr.” How did she influence his drive to write the book?What I meant by that was that he was trying to impress her. He really wants her to think he’s doing wonderful work, and I think when she, at various times, breaks up with him, he’s thrown into those negative spirals that can also be enormously productive for a person, a creative spiral of anger. Almost like something out of a Hollywood movie. There’s a note in one of my files where he says something like, “Infinite Jest was just a means to Mary Karr’s end, as it were.” A sexual pun.
What I meant by that was that he was trying to impress her. He really wants her to think he’s doing wonderful work, and I think when she, at various times, breaks up with him, he’s thrown into those negative spirals that can also be enormously productive for a person, a creative spiral of anger. Almost like something out of a Hollywood movie. There’s a note in one of my files where he says something like, “Infinite Jest was just a means to Mary Karr’s end, as it were.” A sexual pun.
Oh fuck those guys. Both Wallace and Max.
That pun is such bullshit, Wallace is such bullshit, the continuous praise is even worse.
― Van Horn Street, Saturday, 5 May 2018 22:47 (six years ago) link
celebrated artist is problematic case #4882567386
― two cool rock chicks pounding la croix (circa1916), Saturday, 5 May 2018 22:51 (six years ago) link
i wonder what style of movie karr felt like dfw's behaviour belonged in
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 5 May 2018 22:53 (six years ago) link
I read Infinite Jest a few years ago, aware of DFW’s rep and place as an unfortunate and un-asked-for figurehead of a kind of Lit Bro mentality but... still found it pretty fucking good. Couldn’t put it down. Still think about it a lot.I don’t really know how to talk about him now.
― two cool rock chicks pounding la croix (circa1916), Saturday, 5 May 2018 23:05 (six years ago) link
Or even then.
― two cool rock chicks pounding la croix (circa1916), Saturday, 5 May 2018 23:07 (six years ago) link
oh, are we doing cadaver synods now?
i don't know how to talk about him either. if there are still intellectual white dudes out there still saying "dude you should read DFW he's the BEST WRITER EVER" yeah i'll be glad to laugh in their faces. i read his book, like, twenty years or so ago, i liked it a lot. it influenced me. that's not something i can undo. i used to like bill hicks, too. they're dead now, and the work they did when they were alive is very much of a time and a place. we can point out that they were monsters, or we can talk about how they were "problematic", or we can let time render them irrelevant, which it's doing a very good job of.
― Arch Bacon (rushomancy), Saturday, 5 May 2018 23:16 (six years ago) link
ive just reread most of the tennis essays, first time in years & i appreciate them much more now, so great
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 5 May 2018 23:33 (six years ago) link
the old "write about what you know" adage proves out once more
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 6 May 2018 00:35 (six years ago) link
infinite jest is great, annoying lit bro debris & saint/martyr status aside.
― flappy bird, Sunday, 6 May 2018 01:46 (six years ago) link
It's half great
― albvivertine, Sunday, 6 May 2018 02:07 (six years ago) link
Actually no, the tennis/alcoholism stuff is largely fantastic. But good God is the sci-fi framework awful.
― albvivertine, Sunday, 6 May 2018 02:10 (six years ago) link
I wouldn’t say it’s awful but def the weakest element of the book.
― two cool rock chicks pounding la croix (circa1916), Sunday, 6 May 2018 02:32 (six years ago) link
The drug/alcohol and tennis school stuff (lol at having these things together) is just so well drawn though. Anything outside of it is bound to look weak in comparison. The avant-grade film stuff and filmography is very clever too though.
― two cool rock chicks pounding la croix (circa1916), Sunday, 6 May 2018 02:35 (six years ago) link
I didn't find the near dystopian future setting half baked or that imposing, almost all of it is on the periphery of the main action in the book at the school and the halfway house. all the stuff about addiction and AA is the core, the heart music of infinite jest
― flappy bird, Sunday, 6 May 2018 04:08 (six years ago) link
the Quebecois separatists were pretty dreadful
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 6 May 2018 04:10 (six years ago) link
yeah they are the most boring part of the book by far imo
― flappy bird, Sunday, 6 May 2018 04:15 (six years ago) link
...all the stuff about addiction and AA is the core, the heart music of infinite jest
― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.), Sunday, 6 May 2018 04:29 (six years ago) link
one cool & interesting bit of trivia from the D.T. Max bio: the only music DFW listened to while writing Infinite Jest was Nirvana and Enya.
― flappy bird, Sunday, 6 May 2018 06:45 (six years ago) link
jeez, he never shopped for groceries?
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 6 May 2018 16:25 (six years ago) link
New Pynchons are a bit like New Dylans. Here are some I have known and loved:1) Don DeLillo (back in the day I heard rumours that he WAS Pynchon, similar to ye olde Salinger rumour)
― Edna Welthorpe, Mrs, Tuesday, November 20, 2001 8:00 PM (sixteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― reggie (qualmsley), Sunday, 6 May 2018 16:38 (six years ago) link
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, May 5, 2018 11:10 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― flappy bird, Saturday, May 5, 2018 11:15 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
There was a big block of this in the book, it was the one point where I said "god, fuck this" and skipped/skimmed a few pages.
― The Harsh Tutelage of Michael McDonald (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 6 May 2018 16:45 (six years ago) link
Not the desert-on-a-rise stuff, mind - which I liked. I feel like it was something in a Canadian downtown? It's been a while since I read it.
― The Harsh Tutelage of Michael McDonald (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 6 May 2018 16:46 (six years ago) link
hah, just went for a run and saw a tall dude with long dark hair and a white bandana playing tennis.
― daily growing, Wednesday, 25 July 2018 15:27 (five years ago) link
Shoulda said hi
― devops mom (silby), Wednesday, 25 July 2018 15:30 (five years ago) link
Hi dave hows the writing coming along
― F# A# (∞), Wednesday, 25 July 2018 15:41 (five years ago) link
this is a good read
https://theoutline.com/post/5543/david-foster-wallace-conference-profile?zd=1&zi=xgemvmqv
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 28 July 2018 00:07 (five years ago) link
indeed, thx
― niels, Monday, 30 July 2018 16:45 (five years ago) link
The space in which it matters that DFW was an abuser of women is the space of ordinary reality, which we all occupy. This makes it a serious charge, that must be dealt with by real people doing whatever is possible to mitigate the harm done through his abuse. One mitigation is to identify him as an abuser and publically decry that fact and condemn his actions.
As for his books, the thing about writing in general is that no matter how 'realistic' it aspires to be, it occupies its own unreal space that only exists in the mind of the audience as the it plays out. Within that mental space, the author and audience cannot either create or repair real life abuses and it is hopeless to try to do so through direct action against his books, such as denouncing them as the work of a real life abuser. You can only deal with them effectively by thinking about them as clearly as possible.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 30 July 2018 18:09 (five years ago) link
part of argument in the outline article is that this distinction is particularly difficult to make in DFW's case, though
The question is thornier with Wallace than it would be for most of his contemporaries. Plenty of people love the novels of Jeffrey Eugenides — but how many of them love Jeffrey Eugenides? Wallace’s work overflows with complex and vibrant characters, but of these the most enduring — the only one to transcend his writing, a la Holden Caufield or Jay Gatsby, to become a pop culture figure in their own right — is Wallace himself, the “Wallace” of his first-person essays and reviews.This Wallace was self-aware, morally engaged, alert to hypocrisy (especially his own), and deliriously funny. You felt like you knew him, even if you knew, and knew he knew, that it was all on some level a ruse, that the ‘I’ on the page was always an invention. There are other reasons for his fandom’s intensity — Infinite Jest’s sprawl has made it the rare literary novel able to generate and sustain genre-style online communities — but it’s the voice that brings his fans two hours south of Chicago to the town of Normal, Illinois, from multiple continents and both U.S. coasts, paying anywhere from $40 (for students/part-time workers) to $150 (for teachers/full-time workers) to get in.
This Wallace was self-aware, morally engaged, alert to hypocrisy (especially his own), and deliriously funny. You felt like you knew him, even if you knew, and knew he knew, that it was all on some level a ruse, that the ‘I’ on the page was always an invention. There are other reasons for his fandom’s intensity — Infinite Jest’s sprawl has made it the rare literary novel able to generate and sustain genre-style online communities — but it’s the voice that brings his fans two hours south of Chicago to the town of Normal, Illinois, from multiple continents and both U.S. coasts, paying anywhere from $40 (for students/part-time workers) to $150 (for teachers/full-time workers) to get in.
― soref, Monday, 30 July 2018 18:15 (five years ago) link
Authors understand very well that the "I" in any well-constructed book is as much of a construction as any other part of their writing.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 30 July 2018 18:27 (five years ago) link
It's the audience that gets confused about what that "I" is.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 30 July 2018 18:28 (five years ago) link
you are, unfortunately, a deceased fiction writer
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 30 July 2018 18:29 (five years ago) link
but how many of them love Jeffrey Eugenides
tough of ol jeff
― j., Monday, 30 July 2018 18:35 (five years ago) link
on*
― j., Monday, 30 July 2018 18:36 (five years ago) link
whoever is updating Jeffrey Eugenides' wiki page apparently does not love Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeffrey Kent Eugenides (born March 8, 1960) is an American novelist, nonce and short story writer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Eugenides
― soref, Monday, 30 July 2018 18:42 (five years ago) link
I feel like it says something about our era vs his that he once ironically titled a book of thinky essays “Consider the Lobster” whereas today we have a dude whose schtick is unironically to consider the lobster.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Sunday, 10 May 2020 20:24 (four years ago) link
"Consider the Lobster" is an unironic consideration of lobsters tho
― flappy bird, Sunday, 10 May 2020 20:54 (four years ago) link
Very good long essay by Patricia Lockwood: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n14/patricia-lockwood/where-be-your-jibes-now
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Thursday, 6 July 2023 00:53 (ten months ago) link