David Foster Wallace Thread

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > David Foster Wallace Thread

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

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.

That's just the Kenyon commencement address in book form, iirc, which is widely available online. Yeah, it's definitely the most blatant of the cash-ins, until they find a fourth or fifth way to publish the McCain piece.

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-

His writing on tennis is great, yeah, it's certainly illuminated the game in new ways for me. I'm sure you've read it, but I like Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry... from Supposedly Fun Thing even more than the two you mentioned. Democracy and Commerce at the US Open is hilarious, too.

WoG fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Apr 12, 2009

# ¿ Apr 12, 2009 00:02

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 13:16

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

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

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

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

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

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.

There's no clear innate reading order for DFW's stuff, so sure, IJ's a fine place to start. It's less dense than GR, too, so if you're down with the latter, there's no reason to put off IJ in the interest of 'building up' to it.

# ¿ May 6, 2009 07:12

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

feraltennisprodigy posted:

Infinite Jest is $12 in paperback on Amazon.com, chip chop!

In fact, at $11.69 (and discounting 'signifying rappers'), that's his most expensive book on amazon. The rest are mostly $10.19.

WoG fucked around with this message at 14:49 on May 8, 2009

# ¿ May 7, 2009 21:30

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

EtaBetaPi posted:

He is reading the book. He just isn't reading it YOUR way. Even attempting to read DFW is a step up from not reading it at all, which is what you'd suggest because he isn't reading it the right way.

Apparently, I'm much more well-read than I thought -- I've skimmed the titles on the spines of easily tens of thousands of books along library/bookstore shelves. I never realized I was reading them in my own way.

I don't know how in the name of gently caress you got "People think you have to have an english degree, annotations, and five years preparation to read Ulysses" from "no, you probably shouldn't skip huge, plot-imperative portions of the book".

# ¿ Oct 5, 2009 05:49

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

ultrachrist posted:

What's the deal with the movie? Did it ever come to theaters? Was it good?

It had a limited release, at least, and it's out on DVD as of a month or two ago. (I was interested enough to take time out of a weekend trip to NY to catch it.)

It was interesting. Most of the guest actors were amazing, but I dunno about Krasinski himself in such a central role. The story built to tie together the disjointed source material wasn't all that satisfying, but it's hard to imagine what would have been. For anyone who liked the stories, it's well worth watching, but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone.

I read 'Signifying Rappers' a few weeks ago, which was the last remaining DFW for me until Pale King comes out. Some of the larger questions raised were interesting, even if the specifics were understandably dated. Overall, it really didn't have much to say; it may have been entirely extracurricular, but it sort of reeked of academic obligation. I was impressed with Costello's writing, too -- they had clearly distinct voices, but he easily held his own.

# ¿ May 3, 2010 03:12

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

Maxistentialist posted:

Does anyone have a copy of David Lipsky's "The Lost Years and Last Days of David Foster Wallace," the really excellent piece on DFW's death? Rolling Stone pulled it and I can't seem to find it anywhere... perhaps someone can come up with a link or post it in this thread.

Well, it's readily available in research databases via your university/public library. Posting it here, however, would violate copyright law and, presumably, forum rules.

WoG fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Jul 24, 2010

# ¿ Jul 24, 2010 07:37

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

Pedro De Heredia posted:

There's some parts of IJ I'd like to re-read, if anyone remembers the page numbers I'd appreciate it:

- the whole spiel about the increasingly evolving camera-phones and people's attempts to hide their faces.
- a part about how AA requires you to repeat mantras and believe in some higher power and how it works even if you don't believe in it.
- a part about how a depressed guy felt like every day and how his wife handled it.

Beaten on the first, but it's 144. I've read that part on its own half a dozen times.
Second: 442? 270? It's covered a few places.

This might be useful -- http://faculty.sunydutchess.edu/oneill/Infinite.htm

# ¿ Aug 19, 2010 03:00

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

Elim Garak posted:

Honestly, I didn't ever like it, I kept reading and reading becuase I really dug the footnotes and the whole experimental novel feel to it, but I got to about page 850 and realized that I had been bored half of the time and revulsed the other half, so I put it down without finishing it. I'm not going to rag on anyone for liking it, my girlfriend loves it and was the person who gave it to me to read, but you're not alone if you didn't like it.

You know, I've given up on a book or two in my time, but never at 87% of the way through.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2010 18:25

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

Kieselguhr Kid posted:

As a maths guy, let me be blunt: DFW got it wrong. So, so wrong. It's embarassing to read because he so blatantly doesn't understand what he's writing about, and so insufferably precious he tried that I personally find that section difficult to read.

Can you elaborate? I know his mathematical interest tended more toward the philosophical aspects (and, eg, his book on infinity garnered some light criticism for being less hard-nosedly technical than a text book), but that's a curiously indignant response.

Kieselguhr Kid posted:

I think DFW was a bit love/hate with that sort of stuff. On one hand, he appreciated the whole earnesty and community of the thing; on the other hand, he was a smug overeducated upper-middle class white male and just decidedly not the audience for that kind of thing.

Well, if the first adjective you associate with him is 'smug', I feel like you're missing one of the most important underlying themes of his work.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2010 03:20

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

Marvel posted:

Looks like it gets cut off at the end though?

Nope, that's the actual end.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2010 03:43

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

drat girl! posted:

I just pre-ordered this morning after reading that people on Twitter were getting it shipped early, still seems to be happening.

I've had this preordered for months, god drat it!

Page says "in stock March 30th", too. where's my bump email Amazon?

WoG fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Mar 29, 2011

# ¿ Mar 29, 2011 01:40

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

synertia posted:

I was just telling my buddy that Infinite Jest on the Kindle or Nook would be EXACTLY how he meant it to be read. Click on the hyperlink for the endnotes. I wish I had one now...

Despite having two physical copies already, it's still the book that might someday push me into an e-reader, assuming the hyperlinking works intelligently. That is one heavy motherfucker.

Also:

code:

03/31/2011	7:33 A.M.	Out For Delivery

# ¿ Mar 31, 2011 14:55

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

JustFrakkingDoIt posted:

Some of this stuff about Eggers and the guilt by association political leanings of Aranofsky is interesting but wtf does this have to do with Wallace? Smug bastard all killing himself to be cool and gross people out? I've read this before and now I'm ashamed to have typed this much about it.

Please, his big capper on Eggers was, "His brother's a right-winger. What do you think of him now?". I admit, I petered out midway through his ramblings on Vollmann and skimmed through to the end (gimme a break, it was almost 5), but nothing there wasn't, "*quote*, or in other words, *non-sequitur*. :smug:

# ¿ May 24, 2011 03:26

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

"giant blowjob of John McCain"? Did they even skim that piece?

# ¿ May 25, 2011 03:36

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

so what alexander posted:

which reveals how ridiculously intense his expectations are. That's great and all for him, but I imagine it's quite lonely in such a high castle.

I respect Bloom and agree with plenty of his opinions, but the guy's whole personality can basically be summarized by his response to a puff-piece "What are you reading this summer?" author survey (yes, the one just linked from howlingfantods):

"I always reread what I always reread: Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, Cervantes."

He's the most cartoonish caricature of a literary snob one can imagine.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2011 05:20

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

so what alexander posted:

First of all, I'd really like to hear why Orin is your favorite character. Second of all, Orin is late twenties at most, if not mid twenties, which doesn't really work for that pet theory because Mario would have to have been conceived when Orin was like twelve. I'm pretty sure it's widely accepted that Tavis is the father, and because he is Himself's brother, we see the deformities.

I don't think the deformities are explained so easily -- I assume you mean Avril's [half-]brother, but that's only by adoption, right?

As for Orin/Avril theory, p. 314: "...when Mario was nine and Hallie eight and Orin seventeen..."

# ¿ Aug 22, 2011 04:28

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

So this is redundant information for most of you, since anyone who reads this thread probably also reads Howling Fantods, but it's too cool not to post:

The Decemberists' latest video, directed by Parks & Rec creator/showrunner Michael Schur, is a nearly-direct adaptation of the Eschaton scene. The Times also has an interesting article on it.

The beanies are excellent.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2011 18:18

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

Look Under The Rock posted:

Finished Infinite Jest. What a loving amazing book. I've been reading Oblivion but I can't really get into it; the two stories I've read so far just kind of end with no real narrative closure and I couldn't really bring myself to care about what was happening. Definitely well-written but I'm not enjoying it nearly as much as Infinite Jest.

I was sure that finishing Infinite Jest would leave me with a lot of questions, but after reading the "what happens at the end of Infinite Jest" link someone posted a while back, I really feel like he tied up pretty much everything really nicely.

I keep reading articles that compare IJ to Pynchon, any idea where I should start with that?

I don't think you can go wrong with CL49 as an intro to Pynchon. It's an early work, it's distinctively his, style/humor-wise, and has hints of the sort of inconclusive quest narrative you see in GR, while remaining much less dense and more linear. Plus it's quite slim, to boot.

GR may be similar to IJ in structure, scope/ambition, and a few themes, but I think it's far denser. IJ's reputation for difficulty is based largely on page count, vocabulary, and the open ending, but the prose itself is approachable and conversational; GR is far more abstract and slow-going.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2011 03:08

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

chippy posted:

So, on the Kindle version of Infinite Jest, from 43% of the way through onwards, there are no more chapter markers on the progress bar. Is the remainder of the book really one long chapter or did whoever did the e-book conversion just lose interest at that point?

Nah, definitely not. I'm not sure whether chapters on the kindle denote the scenes or the moon-symbol 'chapters', but neither makes up more than half the book. (table of contents)

# ¿ Aug 31, 2011 16:42

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

bettsta posted:

What ending?

Wallace's suicide, presumably

# ¿ Dec 12, 2011 00:48

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

TFNC posted:

A new collection of essays, Both Flesh and Not, is due out in November and available for pre-order on Amazon. Also, by that article, there's a paperback edition of The Pale King with four new scenes coming out this Spring.

I still have Oblivion and A Supposedly Fun Thing... waiting on my shelf to round out my DFW reading, so I'll have to get those knocked out by November.

The TPK paperback is in stores now. I stopped by b&n after work Friday to read (without buying) the new material. (It's ~25pp, in the reader's guide at the end.)

# ¿ Apr 1, 2012 20:07

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

Slackerish posted:

Like someone said in the Pynchon thread, I haven't found anyone who even writes kind of like Pynchon.

I think Dave Kress' Hush and Vollmann's You Bright and Risen Angels are the closest I've read.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2012 04:47

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

OurIntrepidHero posted:

As for why he takes David Foster Wallace so personally, I've read that the main character in "Girl with the Curious hair" is based on the Ellis archetype, and that most of the story is a veiled critique on the emptiness of his fiction.

...and if the GWCH lampooning wasn't unsubtle enough, Wallace said as much outright in the '93 Larry McCaffery interview. I think Ellis has had a sizable chip on his shoulder since then.

quote:

DFW: ...You can see this [hostility to the reader] clearly in something like Ellis�s "American Psycho": it panders shamelessly to the audience�s sadism for a while, but by the end it�s clear that the sadism�s real object is the reader herself.

LM: But at least in the case of "American Psycho" I felt there was something more than just this desire to inflict pain�or that Ellis was being cruel the way you said serious artists need to be willing to be.

DFW: You�re just displaying the sort of cynicism that lets readers be manipulated by bad writing. I think it�s a kind of black cynicism about today�s world that Ellis and certain others depend on for their readership. Look, if the contemporary condition is hopelessly lovely, insipid, materialistic, emotionally retarded, sadomasochistic, and stupid, then I (or any writer) can get away with slapping together stories with characters who are stupid, vapid, emotionally retarded, which is easy, because these sorts of characters require no development. With descriptions that are simply lists of brand-name consumer products. Where stupid people say insipid stuff to each other. If what�s always distinguished bad writing�flat characters, a narrative world that�s cliched and not recognizably human, etc.�is also a description of today�s world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything. Look man, we�d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what�s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times� darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it�d find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it. You can defend "Psycho" as being a sort of performative digest of late-eighties social problems, but it�s no more than that.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2012 16:02

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

Mr. Squishy posted:

they fill 2 pages between each essay with text from a dictionary, like so much ipsum lorem.

From the Publisher's Note that prefaces the US edition:
"...On [David's] computer he constantly updated a list of words that he wanted to learn, culling from numerous sources and writing brief definitions and usage notes. A selection from this vocabulary list appears before each essay..."

Not going to argue that a lot of them aren't filler, but quite a few are amusingly phrased, and I always find his usage notes interesting.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2012 03:58

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

Erdnase posted:

I don't wish to derail but deckle-edge is the worst thing in the world

Also as much as I like DFW I probably won't get that book because listening to him read it on YouTube is much better. I don't need to read some stupid deckle-edged book

Turn pages from the bottom, near the corner, regardless of edging.

No Wallace fan would fault you for passing on This is Water, nor the several re-publishings of Up, Simba. They're pointless.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2013 18:54

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

MourningView posted:

That price is pretty hard to beat though.

Oh, don't worry, the sale was yesterday.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2013 17:12

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

Erdnase posted:

I always get a little giddy thinking about how complex a book IJ is. I can't imagine what it must've been like planning it all out. Are there any known continuity errors? Editing that book must've been a total bitch.

I know the timeline's slightly wonky, and Hal's age was changed in at least one place after the first edition to compensate.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2013 13:27

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

FreakerByTheSpeaker posted:

Have I got news for you: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...ult-series.html

...and I you. Sorry.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2014 03:44

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

Sir John Feelgood posted:

New things coming out.

- Hardcover book: The David Foster Wallace Reader (http://bit.ly/1h34RLC)

- Audiobook: David Foster Wallace: In His Own Words (http://amzn.to/1dNcuoV)

Best-of sounds pretty non-essential, but maybe it'll have enough supplemental material to flip through.

A little more on the audiobook, from the cover image on the pub's site: "In His Own Words: Selected Pieces. Read by the author. Includes live and studio recordings. Introduction written and read by John Jeremiah Sullivan."

Also on that page:

Which is a dead link. Probably just an old duplicate in the database, but one can hope.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2014 14:51

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

Elenkis posted:

With the latest kindle you just tap on the footnote number and it pops up in a box. Like this:

http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/kindle/dp/2013/KP/showme-footnotes-lg.jpg

...and if you keep your reading font small, hope it takes you less than 4 tries to thumb a tiny superscript '1' or '*'.

# ¿ May 5, 2014 14:30

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

Mr. Squishy posted:

How small is this font?!

So small I couldn't even see it. Come to think of it, the battery may have just been dead.

Alright, so I haven't tried a current-gen kindle, and my aura hd has quite intelligent footnote handling. I remember playing with early touchscreen kindles in the store, though, and footnotes were a bitch, as it kept either highlighting adjacent punctuation or turning the page instead.

# ¿ May 5, 2014 18:09

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 13:16

WoG: Jul 13, 2004

CestMoi posted:

That foreword is the best thing about the book.

Speak on that...

# ¿ Dec 26, 2015 15:46

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