I'm not sure why Eggers' name is here at all ... if he died tomorrow much of his life would be covered in the memoir, and if he went on doing Eggersy things for 40 years I don't think he'd merit a significant biography -- maybe a book tracing out some larger McSweeney's-associated aesthetic, if that still seems somehow significant, or maybe long after that one of those books that takes up a more "minor" figure to make some larger cultural point.
Wish I could unpack the "Major American Writer" thing; maybe a good way to think about it in this context is people whose biographies wouldn't look too out of place on an imagined shelf alongside books about Oates, Mailer, Didion, Vidal, Morrison, Salinger,* etc. Canonical writers; writers people in an English department might casually refer to by last name only without feeling like that meant anything.
* haha at some point that one would either get really boring or really interesting
― nabisco, Tuesday, 23 June 2009 00:02 (fourteen years ago) link
in 40 years we will all be living in roboeurope under a muslim pope
― Lamp, Tuesday, 23 June 2009 00:05 (fourteen years ago) link
reading robert jordan biographies
the book probably got the low six figures because the guy wrote a great, interesting article for the new yorker and probably followed up on it with a great proposal
yeah, no doubt. and my surprise at it, like i said, mostly no doubt reveals how little i know about publishing. i have no idea how many books you even have to sell to recoup a $100,000-plus advance. or how well literary biographies sell as a rule. or, you know, anything about it at all.
as for the major writer thing, i don't know. had wallace reached the level of someone like delillo, in terms of scholarly interest or ubiquity in the curriculum? (honest question -- i was never a lit major in the first place, much less within the last 10 years.) i think he's important because he's important to me, but i don't have a very clear sense of how widespread that impression is. i guess i've thought of him as a little bit more of a cult figure. which doesn't rule out his being a major writer, i just have no idea what his standing is with the literary/critical establishment.
― us_odd_bunny_lady (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 23 June 2009 04:16 (fourteen years ago) link
no doubt.
The question isn't whether DFW reached the level of ubiquity on curricula as Delillo has (he hasn't yet), it's whether he's reached a threshold of 'major-ness' in those worlds...is there a big enough silent majority of people (in the 'scholarly community,' say) who recognize him as major writer for people to talk about him across their own particular specialisms without explaining why he's worthy of being talked/written about? I think the answer to that is definitely yes. (The answer is not yes, btw, in English department-world, for Chabon, whom I heard someone give a paper on in December. The speaker felt the need to introduce him in a way that made clear he felt he could not assume everyone would know who he was.)
― still counting on porcupine racetrack (G00blar), Tuesday, 23 June 2009 06:45 (fourteen years ago) link
the other book's getting published - http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/another-david-foster-wallace-biography-is-planned/
― just sayin, Tuesday, 30 June 2009 08:38 (fourteen years ago) link
readin oblivion; it sucks
― FUCKIN 'TALLICA BRO (cankles), Tuesday, 30 June 2009 15:26 (fourteen years ago) link
i read like 4 stories from it and was pretty 50/50 on 'em...then i gave up.
not really my thing tbh.
― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 30 June 2009 15:27 (fourteen years ago) link
the one to read is Infinite Jest--it's his best work by a long shot everything else, for the most part is another level down in terms of quality
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 30 June 2009 15:28 (fourteen years ago) link
Just out of curiosity, has DeLillo been adopted onto curricula beyond White Noise? Am asking because I don't think anyone thinks of Sandra Cisneros as a major writer, despite the fact that House on Mango Street is hella read in high schools and colleges. I mean, it's pretty obvious to me that DeLillo is more of a major writer than Cisneros is -- but I don't know that we can go by "he's read in English classes" as the sole standard.
― great gabbneb's ghost (jaymc), Tuesday, 30 June 2009 15:31 (fourteen years ago) link
i never finished oblivion; i didnt hate it but at the time it was just too dense & involved and i was beginning to dread picking it up to read.
broom of the system is great & funny and easier to read. and not as big and intimidating as IJ
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 30 June 2009 15:33 (fourteen years ago) link
i said to cankles the other day that i wanted to jump to defend oblivion but i felt like someone going "no no jerry garcia's playing on the 70s versions of dark star is totally different"
broom of the system's first chapter is a glimmer of real potential; a lot of the rest of the book he spends being the sort of writer he spent a lot of the rest of his career kicking against
― thomp, Tuesday, 30 June 2009 15:42 (fourteen years ago) link
my po-mo/contemporary american lit. course as an undergrad had cosmopolis on it, by the way: i get the feeling this one might be on a lot of syllabi bcz it's easy to teach in a "Hey, kids, this is what POSTMODERNISM looks like" way, like the dead father is.
― thomp, Tuesday, 30 June 2009 15:44 (fourteen years ago) link
oblivion is patchy but "good old neon" and "oblivion" are undeniably great.
― jed_, Tuesday, 30 June 2009 16:04 (fourteen years ago) link
good old neon is the only one i actively hated
― FUCKIN 'TALLICA BRO (cankles), Tuesday, 30 June 2009 16:09 (fourteen years ago) link
guess undeniably was the wrong adverb to use
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 30 June 2009 16:11 (fourteen years ago) link
heh. yeah. undeniably owned.
― FUCKIN 'TALLICA BRO (cankles), Tuesday, 30 June 2009 16:17 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.samplereality.com/2009/07/19/the-truth-behind-jay-murray-siskinds-review-of-david-foster-wallace/
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 22 July 2009 20:55 (fourteen years ago) link
hey guys, i'm trying to find an essay written by a woman who taught a class on david foster wallace after he died. i think she's a professor at the same college he taught at and the article talked about the temptation of reading too much of his life in the work. does anyone have the link? i'm not having any luck here.
― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:06 (fourteen years ago) link
look at infinitesummer.org -- I think she did a blog post there about teaching the class
― nabisco, Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:08 (fourteen years ago) link
Kathleen Fitzpatrick, is that who you're looking for? http://infinitesummer.org/archives/931
― nabisco, Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:09 (fourteen years ago) link
sure is, thanks!
― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:24 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/content/823228?inPopup=true
^^this interview is so great
― johnny crunch, Friday, 28 August 2009 02:22 (fourteen years ago) link
wow. i'm only like ten minutes in, too.
― Mr. Que, Friday, 28 August 2009 02:35 (fourteen years ago) link
some great mp3s here incl. old DFW interviews and a long interview with his sister with some funny anecdotes.
― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Thursday, 3 September 2009 18:09 (fourteen years ago) link
where
― just sayin, Thursday, 3 September 2009 18:21 (fourteen years ago) link
oh ha
http://www.wpr.org/book/090823a.cfm
― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Thursday, 3 September 2009 18:29 (fourteen years ago) link
cheers, look awes
― just sayin, Thursday, 3 September 2009 18:35 (fourteen years ago) link
this is so great.
― strongohulkingtonsghost, Thursday, 3 September 2009 19:11 (fourteen years ago) link
day before yesterday was driving across central Illinois listening to that WPR show.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, 3 September 2009 21:32 (fourteen years ago) link
It sound so good I'm actually considering taking a break to locate/purchase a USB connection so I can put it on my mp3 player for the walk home.
― nabisco, Thursday, 3 September 2009 21:49 (fourteen years ago) link
It's good, wouldn't say magnificent. It really brings home -- or maybe this is done with editing -- how the problem DFW writes about in "E Unibus Pluram" is central to him for twenty-five years afterwards, and in some sense he makes no progress on it.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, 3 September 2009 21:51 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/briefinterviewswithhideousmen/
― fleetwood (max), Friday, 4 September 2009 01:58 (fourteen years ago) link
features two different law and order spinoff alums!
oh man that looks like shit.
― i'm beasting off the riesling (M@tt He1ges0n), Saturday, 5 September 2009 00:03 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah seriously bummed about this probable garbage.
― strongohulkingtonsghost, Saturday, 5 September 2009 00:21 (fourteen years ago) link
May be of interest only to DFW fans who are also serious tennis fans: tennis journalist/blogger Steve Tignor has been writing a great series of articles about DFW's tennis essays on his blog Concrete Elbow.
― Roz, Thursday, 1 October 2009 06:55 (fourteen years ago) link
This explains much.
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 3 October 2009 13:33 (fourteen years ago) link
Re Alan Lelchuk, quoted in Ned's link: I liked his novel _American Mischief_, which I think has been completely forgotten.
http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/2665.htm
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Saturday, 3 October 2009 23:16 (fourteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_sQrxAorDo
― just sayin, Thursday, 22 October 2009 15:08 (fourteen years ago) link
http://quomodocumque.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/wallace-amherst_review-the_planet.pdf
― nice email (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, 11 November 2009 00:49 (fourteen years ago) link
:(
― just sayin, Wednesday, 11 November 2009 09:32 (fourteen years ago) link
jeez :/
― thomp, Wednesday, 11 November 2009 11:04 (fourteen years ago) link
has this been posted before?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwS5pEfcQNk
hardened my resolve 2 retackle infinite jest
― plaxico (I know, right?), Wednesday, 11 November 2009 11:45 (fourteen years ago) link
Intense essay. Anyone else puzzled by the ending?
― calstars, Wednesday, 11 November 2009 15:52 (fourteen years ago) link
this thing?
it's a short story
― jazzgasms (Mr. Que), Wednesday, 11 November 2009 15:55 (fourteen years ago) link
yeh but it ends kinda
― zappi, Wednesday, 11 November 2009 15:58 (fourteen years ago) link
it ends kinda weirdly midsentence, yeah, just like his first book, can't say i'm a fan of it
― jazzgasms (Mr. Que), Wednesday, 11 November 2009 15:59 (fourteen years ago) link
i like this ending much more than that ending! this one felt coherent and clear and characteristic.
poor dude :(
― Gravel Puzzleworth, Wednesday, 11 November 2009 16:43 (fourteen years ago) link