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 (five years ago) link
the Quebecois separatists were pretty dreadful
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 6 May 2018 04:10 (five years ago) link
yeah they are the most boring part of the book by far imo
― flappy bird, Sunday, 6 May 2018 04:15 (five 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 (five 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 (five years ago) link
jeez, he never shopped for groceries?
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 6 May 2018 16:25 (five 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)
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...
― 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 (five 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 (five 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 (five 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 (three years ago) link
"Consider the Lobster" is an unironic consideration of lobsters tho
― flappy bird, Sunday, 10 May 2020 20:54 (three 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 (nine months ago) link