|
So I don't see much discussion here of whom I consider to be one of the best writers of the last 20 years and who wrote my favourite book of all time, Infinite Jest. David Foster Wallace died on 12 September 2008. He committed suicide by hanging, after battling depression for most of his adult life, on and off various anti-depressants throughout that time. He wrote fiction and non-fiction, as well as reviewed a bunch of different novels. Potential spoilers below, probably skip this if you haven't read his stuff (although the beauty of his works is not in plotting or anything like that, it's in the language and the composition) Fiction The Broom of the System His first book, published in 1987. Follows Lenore, searching for her suddenly missing grandmother. Notable characters include Norman Frequent, intent on consuming so much that he fills up the entire space of the world, leaving a small place for Lenore, and Lenore's talking cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler, who (following the consumption of experimental baby food) eloquently repeats entire sentences, generally talk about sex. This is a great entry to DFW, it's not as dense as Infinite Jest, and is way lighter, but still gives a great feel for his style. I felt the last 1/4 or so weakened, but it's still a great book. Infinite Jest I was encouraged to start this thread because of the number of people who have listed this as their favourite book in a PYF thread. It's long and contains a whole bunch of footnotes and at times is quiet rambling, but reading it never seems like a chore. The main character is Hal, a tennis prodigy in the middle of a strange family. The other side of the story focuses on Don Gately, a recovering addict in a halfway house. IJ was Wallace's masterpiece. Apparently he had written 1600+ pages, and eventually had to remove sections from his hard drive because he would keep putting them back in in editing. It never feels like a chore to read though. I did read a great review that basically made the point that its a book you are reluctant to recommend to people, because if they don't love it you will think less of them. The Pale King Unfinished, DFW left his copious notes and writings somewhat organised for his wife before he hung himself. To be published posthumously soon. Excerpts are available on the net. I haven't read any, but from what I understand it's about workers in the IRS. Shorts I don't actually have any of his collections, but I have read some of them in various locations. From what I have read, 'Nothing Happened' is my favourite, found here: http://www.smallbytes.net/~bobkat/dfwstory.html The three collections are Girl with Curious Hair (1989), Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999), Oblivion: Stories (2004) Maybe someone else can shed some light here. Non-fiction He wrote a whole bunch of stuff. I quite liked http://www.theknowe.net/dfwfiles/pdfs/Wallace-Federer_as_Religious_Experience.pdf - Federer as a religious experience, particularly after watching the Australian Open while reading IJ. It also gives an interesting insight into the game. Another tennis one, more about his youth (which is very interesting for a fan of IJ in particular is http://www.harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-1991-12-0000710.pdf - Tennis, Trigonometry, Tornadoes: A Midwestern boyhood. In here that he tells a story that he re-uses in IJ, Hal eating the mould. Consider the lobster: http://www.lobsterlib.com/feat/davidwallace/page/lobsterarticle.pdf - a very interesting piece about the Maine Lobster Festival that makes you think twice about eating the poor buggers (although that was not the intention of the piece, that is definitely what I took from it). There is heaps more. The best resource is The Howling Fantods, http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/ , which has links to just about everything he has published, obituaries, and discussions of his works. So how good is DFW? 'Criminally Overated' like Bolano, or contemporary master? What should I read of his next?
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2009 11:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 08:45 |
|
|
bolano is not overrated in the slightest  anyways I've read Brief Interviews with Hideous men and it's really great, a good introduction to DFW imo. The titular shorts are presented interviews with various fairly repulsive men each displaying different elements of what i would call typical north american masculine behavior. Uncomfortable to read at times because its easy to see yourself reflected in the characters. Several other stories left a deep impression on me, including "the Depressive" which is of course particular poignant given his own struggle with depression.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2009 16:44
|
|
|
Has anybody seen the edition of This is Water that just came out? Great essay and all, but it strikes me as something of a callous quickie, especially with the whole one-sentence-per-page thing. The Pale King excerpt in the New Yorker a couple weeks ago was phenomenal though. Can't wait to see more of it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2009 22:16
|
|
|
Archyduke posted:Has anybody seen the edition of This is Water that just came out? Great essay and all, but it strikes me as something of a callous quickie, especially with the whole one-sentence-per-page thing. The Pale King excerpt in the New Yorker a couple weeks ago was phenomenal though. Can't wait to see more of it. Pale King should be great, especially if he'd already written, as was reported, "several hundred thousand words". There are other short excerpts, in case you hadn't already seen them. gregarious Ted posted:-tennis articles- WoG fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Apr 12, 2009 |
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2009 00:02
|
|
|
gregarious Ted posted:he hung himself. Hanged.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2009 02:42
|
|
|
His piece about the trip on the cruise ship has to be one of the funniest pieces I have ever read in non-fiction. I would definitely suggest his book 'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments'. It's so neurotic, but he seems to find some meaning in event he most banal situations.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2009 08:14
|
|
|
I just finished Infinite Jest a few weeks ago, and it took me about a day to fully recover from it (in a good way). All of the essays and short stories I've read of his have been good, but I couldn't recommend an individual volume (although I'm reading Brief Interviews now and its quite good). Also, since I don't see it posted yet, the commencement address he gave: http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 03:26
|
|
|
Red Haired Menace posted:I just finished Infinite Jest a few weeks ago, and it took me about a day to fully recover from it (in a good way). All of the essays and short stories I've read of his have been good, but I couldn't recommend an individual volume (although I'm reading Brief Interviews now and its quite good). Also, since I don't see it posted yet, the commencement address he gave: Sweet. I'd heard about that but not found it. Looking forward to reading it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 03:56
|
|
|
synertia posted:His piece about the trip on the cruise ship has to be one of the funniest pieces I have ever read in non-fiction. I would definitely suggest his book 'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments'. It's so neurotic, but he seems to find some meaning in event he most banal situations. If "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" is online, I'd sure like to read it. My local library doesn't have it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 04:03
|
|
|
I'm currently trying to sift through A Compact History of Infinity: Everything and More but really, it's quite difficult. He's certainly not ever "simple" (fluid would be a better word for me) to read, but the math involved sort of goes beyond what I've learned in my life. His footnotes, tangents, and analogies make it worth reading, however, even if you're not getting the technical pieces. Plus, there are a ton of diagrams, which really help. But, for the mathematically inclined, this is a really neat book. It absolutely highlights his genius and broad understanding of basically everything. As far as what I've read, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (both the collection and the specific essay) was amazing, and a great starting place. Girl with the Curious Hair wasn't incredible, but I found it again worth it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 04:15
|
|
|
HaterBaby posted:If "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" is online, I'd sure like to read it. My local library doesn't have it. Originally called "Shipping Out" http://harpers.org/archive/2008/09/hbc-90003557 Edit: The title essay, anyway.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 04:38
|
|
|
quote:On Interdependence Day, Sunday 11/8, game-master Lord's Triggering Situation unwinds nicely, on Pemulis's view. Explosions of suspicious origin occur at AMNAT satellite-receiver stations from Turkey to Labrador as three high-level Canadian defense ministers vanish and then a couple of days later are photographed at a Volgograd bistro hoisting shots of Stolichnaya with Slavic bimbos on their knee.126 Then two SOVWAR trawlers just inside international waters off Washington are strafed by Fi6s on patrol out of Cape Flattery Naval Base. Both AMNAT and SOVWAR go from DEFCON 2 to DEFCON 4. REDCHI goes to DEFCON 3, in response to which SOVWAR airfields and antimissile networks from Irkutsk to the Dzhugdzhur Range go to DEFCON 5, in response to which AMNAT-SAC bombers and antimissile-missile silos in Nebraska and South Dakota and Saskatchewan and eastern Spain assume a Maximum Readiness posture. SOVWAR's bald and port-wine-stained premier calls AMNAT's wattle-chinned127 president on the Hot Line and asks him if he's got Prince Albert in a can. Another pretty shady explosion levels a SOVWAR Big Ear monitoring station on Sakhalin. General Atomic Inc.'s gaseous diffusion uranium-enrichment facility in Portsmouth OH reports four kilograms of enriched uranium hexafluoride missing and then suffers a cataclysmic fire that forces evacuation of six downwind counties. An AMNAT minesweeper of the Sixth Fleet on maneuvers in the Red Sea is hit and sunk with REDCHI Silkworm torpedoes fired by LIBSYR MiG25s. Italy, in an apparently bizarre EndStat-generated development Otis P. Lord will only smile enigmatically about, invades Albania. SOVWAR goes apeshit. Apoplectic premier rings AMNAT's president, only to be asked if his refrigerator's running. LIBSYR shocks the Christian world by air-bursting a half-megaton device two clicks over Tel Aviv, causing deaths in the low six figures. Everybody and his brother goes to DEFCON 5. Air Force One leaves the ground. SOUTHAF and REDCHI announce neutrality and plead for cool heads. Israeli armored columns behind heavy tactical-artillery saturation push into Syria all the way to Abu Kenal in twelve hours: Damascus has firestorms; En Nebk is reportedly just plain gone. Several repressive right-wing regimes in the Third World suffer coups d'etat and are replaced by repressive left-wing regimes. Tehran and Baghdad announce full dip-mil support of LIBSYR, thus reconstituting LIBSYR as IRLIBSYR. AMNAT and SOVWAR activate all civil defense personnel and armed forces reserves and commence evacuation of selected MAMAs. IRLIBSYR is today represented by Evan Ingersoll, whom Axford keeps growling at under his breath, Hal can hear. A shifty-eyed member of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff vanishes and isn't photographed anywhere. Albania sues for terms. Crude and apparently amateur devices in the low-kiloton range explode across Israel from Haifa to Ash-qelon. Tripoli is incommunicado after at least four thermonuclear explosions cause second-degree burns as far away as Médenine Tunisia. A 10-kiloton tactical-artillery device air-bursts over the Command Center of the Czech 3rd Army in Ostrava, resulting in what one Pentagon analyst calls 'a serious wienie roast.' Despite the fact that nobody but SOVWAR itself has anybody close enough to hit Ostrava from Howitzer-distance, SOVWAR stonewalls AMNAT's denials and regrets. AMNAT's president tries ringing SOVWAR's premier from the air and gets only the premier's answering machine. AMNAT is unable to determine whether the string of explosions at its radar installations all along the Arctic Circle are conventional or tactical. CIA/NSA reports that 64% of the civilian populations of SOVWAR's MAMAs have been successfully relocated below ground in hardened shelters. AMNAT orders evacuation of all MAMAs. SOVWAR MiG25s engage REDCHI aircraft over seas off Tientsin. Air Force Two tries to leave the ground and gets a flat tire. A single one-megaton SS10 evades antimissile missiles and detonates just over Provo UT, from which all communications abruptly cease. Eschaton's game-master now posits — but does not go so far as to actually assert — that EndStat's game-theoretic Decision Tree now dictates a SPASEX response from AMNAT. quote:126 It being well-nigh impossible to keep the present from infecting even a playful and childlike Historical Consciousness, Canadians often end up playing picayune but villainous roles in Eschatonic TRIGSITs. Mario Incandenza fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Apr 13, 2009 |
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 07:32
|
|
|
Ha, I was just reading that part yesterday. God, that must've been one of the best things so far. Especially the footnote where Pemulis is dictating the Mean Value Theorem to Hal; also, the whole map v. territory conflict. No, wait, the best thing so far was the phone conversation between Hal and Orin about (among, of course, a million other things) the whole intra-canadian, Quebecois seperatiste thing. No, wait, the best thing was... really, everything I've read so far was fantastic. It's like Pynchon but, you know, really, really readable. Wallace has a command over the English language that's unlike anything I've ever read before.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 08:18
|
|
|
It's difficult to pin down favourite moments in IJ, but I loved the whole Poor Tony storyline. It's interesting reading more of his stuff to see how he worked as a writer - it seems as though he had a bunch of ideas that he used, then realised they were great and put them into IJ. Stuff like the Hal eating mould story comes to mind, as does the fact that in Broom, Wang Dang Lang refers to his father as 'his own personal daddy', which Joelle? picks up in IJ.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 11:27
|
|
|
The Eschaton match is my favorite part of Infinite Jest. Brilliant stuff. I have most of DFW's books, the only one I've yet to pick up* is Signifying Rappers: Rap and Race In the Urban Present, but I don't think that I'm going to be adding that one to my library anytime soon, rap not being something I care to read about. * Not counting the cash-in reprints of McCaine, Kenyon and all that, of course.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 14:32
|
|
|
This might be of some interest:quote:ROSE: Yeah. Talking about style -- what's the -- what are the footnotes about? I mean, is that just simply -- from a Charlie Rose interview he did in '97. It's a pleasure to watch, DFW's so endearingly nervous.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 15:01
|
|
|
feraltennisprodigy posted:I have most of DFW's books, the only one I've yet to pick up* is Signifying Rappers: Rap and Race In the Urban Present, but I don't think that I'm going to be adding that one to my library anytime soon, rap not being something I care to read about. That's the only one I don't own, though Everything and More has sat unread for a few months now. It looks interesting, but I think part of me didn't want to exhaust that last bit of unread dfw. The existence of Pale King bumped it back up on my priority list, though. I'm sure it's unlikely, but I wonder if there's any talk of eventually putting out 'Infinite Jest: The Original Manuscript'. I know Dave talked about deleting sections to stop himself editing them back in, but the first submitted draft must be archived somewhere.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 15:47
|
|
|
I started Infinite Jest on a whim yesterday and I'm really enjoying it so far. The second chapter was brilliant and the character's reasoning and thought processes were so eerily similar to my own at times I finished it in one go.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 16:14
|
|
|
WoG posted:I know Dave talked about deleting sections to stop himself editing them back in, but the first submitted draft must be archived somewhere. There's a comparison here, but I doubt that the full first draft will ever be released online.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 16:28
|
|
|
mc.schroeder posted:This might be of some interest: It's great that he fought his editor over the footnotes, which were potentially going to be scrapped, or changed to footnotes, neither of which would have worked.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2009 08:27
|
|
|
feraltennisprodigy posted:There's a comparison here, but I doubt that the full first draft will ever be released online. Oh, I meant in physical book form. I'm not expecting it to be free for download.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2009 14:48
|
|
|
I would totally buy the gently caress out of IJ: The Director's Cut.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2009 15:16
|
|
|
Horses couldn't drag me away from the uncut version of IJ. The Eschaton match was also my favorite part of the book, if I absolutely had to pick one. I still remember the description of Pemulis hopping up and down with such force that his hat was catching air. Really want to read it again (for like the tenth time). I've struggled with addiction and depression, though not quite to the extent his characters (or DFW himself) have done -- that makes it kind of hard to get through the book without feeling really shot through with Identification and self-loathing. Maybe I'll just pick my favorite sections and not try to do a full re-read; there's not much more I can tease out regarding the mysteries. The main one I can't figure out (and I've come to accept that we can't know exactly what happened to Hal, or anything about what happened to Orin -- yet another reason I'd love to read the unreleased portions of the text) is why the inanimate objects keep poltergeisting their way around the tennis academy. Was that explained somewhere and I keep missing it?
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2009 03:46
|
|
|
Red Haired Menace posted:Also, since I don't see it posted yet, the commencement address he gave: Thanks a lot for that. I was pleasantly surprised to see him open with the fish joke, as that little chapter where Gately sees the water was one of my favorite passages in IJ.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2009 09:15
|
|
|
David Foster Wallace was to me what proust was to virginia wolfe. I read him and ask myself "how does this sweaty, mutt-loving SNOOT know me better than I know myself, and how is he able to say things I've always believed, but better than I ever could have written them?". I honestly think that Wallace will be for the generation born in the 80's what On The Road is for the 1950's. Why did he have to die? e; mdemone posted:
I've read the drat thing 5 times, and I am still confused about the ghosts. I can only really make it work mentally by thinking of the "ghosts" as beings that have crossed the transfinite (read Everything and More) barrier, and that unless I'm terribly mistaken, bits and pieces of the math book, IJ and Good Old Neon paint a bizaare, original and oddly poignant vision of the afterlife. CARL MARK FORCE IV fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Apr 25, 2009 |
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2009 09:18
|
|
|
As far as I could tell the only wraith was JOI, and he was trying to catch Hal's attention by getting inside Ortho's head. Coyle mentions to Hal and Mario that Ortho thinks the wraith "wants to teach The Darkness how to not underestimate ordinary objects", which is the same advice Himself's dad dispenses in one of the chapters set in the 60s, when he goes on his rant about Marlon Brando leaning against things.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2009 17:40
|
|
|
God drat, I hate that DFW died. Infinite Jest is a masterpiece par excellence. It's an absolute tragedy that he took his life. A Rambling Vagrant - I totally agree with your comment about IF and its relevance to the Children of the 80's, it just seems to....resonate.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2009 22:52
|
|
|
mdemone posted:The main one I can't figure out (and I've come to accept that we can't know exactly what happened to Hal, or anything about what happened to Orin -- yet another reason I'd love to read the unreleased portions of the text) is why the inanimate objects keep poltergeisting their way around the tennis academy. Was that explained somewhere and I keep missing it? I assume you understand the significance of Hal's speech problems... Are you talking about what physically happened to him? I think it's reasonably clear that throughout the book Hal struggles to "get a grip" on himself, his surroundings, his family, and his place in life. He is a deeper thinker than many of his friends at the Academy and is generally unsuccessful in connecting and relating his subjective experience to other. I viewed the beginning/end of the book, in which Hal is unable to speak, as a metaphorical/actual manifestation of this inability to make himself understood. EDIT: Misquote
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2009 22:56
|
|
|
Or the strange fungus he ate when he was a child metamorphosed into a strong hallucinogen when he withdrew from marijuana, and thus powerfully affected his brain until he was no longer able to communicate. I agree that metaphorically it's sound, but there are some reasonable explanations for his state.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2009 01:14
|
|
synertia posted:His piece about the trip on the cruise ship has to be one of the funniest pieces I have ever read in non-fiction. I would definitely suggest his book 'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments'. It's so neurotic, but he seems to find some meaning in event he most banal situations. I loved his declamation on action movies for this reason.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2009 01:49
|
|
|
Anyone who is a DFW fan should watch the interview that was posted above. It's interesting to see and hear him in person. It was also incredibly sad because although one can see a definite, continuous depressive streak in his work, it is a whole different story to his HIM. The end of the interview was the worst. DFW is a genius beyond measure but he seemed trapped in a thought-frame of adolescent denigration of his experience/devaluing the personal of his experience. His is absolutely correct in that his drug use/abuse and realization that his overwhelming life-goal did not bring happiness were "average", in the sense that many people learn similar lessons, but he completely disregards the fact that they had unique value simply by the fact that those experiences happened to him and him alone. He was seemingly blind to the fact that his logic would render any event and experience in his life worthless. It's tragic that so gifted an individual, a writer who is capable of creating the wise and uplifting Gately (I know this characterization is contentious), could ignore the lessons he put to paper. Taphreek fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Apr 30, 2009 |
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2009 02:53
|
|
|
I still haven't tackled Infinite Jest yet, but I've really been enjoying his nonfiction. Consider the Lobster is a first-rate collection. Here's another one of his essays, on following John McCain around in the 2000 election: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18420304/the_weasel_twelve_monkeys_and_the_shrub
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2009 03:21
|
|
|
I picked up Brief Interviews today, and read "Forever Overhead" just now, and wow.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2009 20:51
|
|
|
Spiny Norman posted:Or the strange fungus he ate when he was a child metamorphosed into a strong hallucinogen when he withdrew from marijuana, and thus powerfully affected his brain until he was no longer able to communicate. From the way Pemulis found his stash raided and approached Hal about the DMZ and then later was seen freaking out it seemed to me that he and Hal got maliciously dosed.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2009 08:41
|
|
|
I probably got into DFW backwards and started with Everything and More. As with Dios Cassius, I probably didn't have the strongest level of math going into it so it was a constant struggle. I would feel nauseated at times. Like my brain was focusing all of its energies into understanding what I was reading that the upkeep of the rest of my body was disregarded. It probably took me twice as long to read compared with any other book I've read at it's length but that made it all the more rewarding. I guess My dad's girlfriend gave me the issue of the New Yorker with the Pale King extract in it so I guess I'll check that out next.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2009 22:42
|
|
|
I've never read any DFW (does that mean I'm not allowed to use his cool acronym?). Is Infinite Jest a good place to start? I really liked Gravity's Rainbow and I hear its comparable.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2009 03:27
|
|
|
I first heard about DFW from an article in the NY Times -- which can be found here -- discussing his penchant for philosophy. He had, in fact, been to Amherst College and submitted an Honours thesis for the department, titled "Richard Taylor's 'Fatalism' and the Semantics of Physical Modality," along with another thesis for the English department. The article mentions his literary pursuits and achievements only in passing, but that got me interested enough to read some of them... I'm sure this is heresy, but I read "Shipping Out" and, while I found some of it mildly humourous, I did not generally feel compelled to finish reading it. Maybe I wasn't in the mood but he just kind of seemed... depressed and whiny. (Yes, I know he did have depression.) I did, however, pick up Infinite Jest from the library today, so perhaps I'll have better luck there. (Though, honestly, I would be equally if not more interested in reading his unpublished philosophy thesis!)
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2009 05:51
|
|
|
thegloaming posted:I've never read any DFW (does that mean I'm not allowed to use his cool acronym?). Is Infinite Jest a good place to start? I really liked Gravity's Rainbow and I hear its comparable.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2009 07:12
|
|
|
Sydney goons, there is a DFW tribute thing as part of the Sydney Writer's Festival on 23 May. I was going to go but now have something else on. Not really sure what they will say, other than 'gee he was a great writer'. The webmaster of the howling fantods is talking too, so it will probably be a little iffy. Although I haven't had any bad experiences with the festival in previous years.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2009 08:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 08:45 |
|
|
Did That on Television posted:I first heard about DFW from an article in the NY Times -- which can be found here -- discussing his penchant for philosophy. He had, in fact, been to Amherst College and submitted an Honours thesis for the department, titled "Richard Taylor's 'Fatalism' and the Semantics of Physical Modality," along with another thesis for the English department. The article mentions his literary pursuits and achievements only in passing, but that got me interested enough to read some of them... I love that article for the line about how he was smart enough to do "the math kind" of philosophy. Made me laugh. Shipping Out is pretty great, IMO, because of what I think you're referring to. The idea of coming to terms with the fact that he will always have this part of him that WANTS, which will never be satisfied and will never have enough, was put so eloquently that it really sold me on his writing (it was one of the first of his pieces that I read). Now I'm planning on reading IJ over the summer, looking forward to it!
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2009 19:43
|
|
