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I never thought he sounded smug, so much as he was nakedly judgmental about his observations. His description in ASFTINDA of "racist observation followed by internal PC backlash" shows me he was clearly aware that his roots color his perceptions; part of what I like about his writing is that it's like wandering around inside the head of someone who's a much better writer than I am, unedited. Many writers with his skill and vocabulary would write impenetrable texts that only 400 level English Lit. people would tackle. The great thing about him, for me, was that he was that kind of writer and yet so accessible as a neurotic, emotional, funny and dark human being. I have a hard time accurately using my precise math skills to indicate how little it matters to me if his lead him astray in his books. bort fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Sep 2, 2010 |
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Sep 2, 2010 23:10
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The thing about DFW that makes him such an effective writer seems to that his writing does tickle you and strokes your ego in a way. It's difficult for a lot of people to understand the allusions in IJ, but if you do, the book is a blast to read. I'm only a few dozen pages in and so far I think its fairly approachable wrt syntax and other elements of writing, but his style can be bewildering. And if you don't know what Der Spiegel , Toblerones, are, plus other semi-esoteric pop culture references, you could be in a world of poo poo trying to figure out what he's talking about.
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Sep 4, 2010 03:01
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If you don't know what a Toblerone is, you've got bigger problems then not getting a reference in a book.
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Sep 4, 2010 03:18
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I'm 500 pages in and this book, my god, this book. Still, I haven't found the right soundtrack to listen to as I read, Michael Buble has been good as has Devo. I'm sure I could do better though, any suggestions?
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Sep 6, 2010 02:24
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Amy Winehouse.
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Sep 7, 2010 07:06
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barkingclam posted:If you don't know what a Toblerone is, you've got bigger problems then not getting a reference in a book. Maybe this guy comes from some crazy country where they don't have Toblerones?
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Sep 7, 2010 08:56
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Sir John Feelgood posted:Amy Winehouse. Tenniscoats.
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Sep 7, 2010 11:20
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Kieselguhr Kid posted:Maybe this guy comes from some crazy country where they don't have Toblerones? Being from the USA I've always had the feeling that they were more of a Europian thing, but I have no idea why i think that.
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Sep 7, 2010 15:55
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Probably because they're Swiss.
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Sep 7, 2010 15:57
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I just finished the book, spoiler-free, and god-drat. Certainly feels like a new Favorite Book. There were some scenes and characters I identified with so strongly that I was almost forced to put the book down - it felt like DFW was speaking directly to me. I re-read the first chapter as the last, and found it to be a deeply satisfying ending to a deeply satisfying book. I was also brought to actual, seriously un-manly tears when deLint holds Hal's hand as he's being taken away and tells him to hang in there. Out of nowhere, one tiny sentence totally changed my perception of a character, in a totally non-cheap way. I was deeply sad when he died, having been a fan of his short fiction and essays, but I can now say I'm truly crushed. I would have been happy to spend my life reading books like this one.
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Sep 8, 2010 17:15
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Just read the facts you learn about others while in rehab part and I have to say, I am really loving impressed. The book was good up until that part, but that "chapter" is simply amazing.
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Sep 9, 2010 00:18
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With respect to IJ, it seemed to me that Hal's invocation of koans near the end of the novel was particularly important. The novel itself offers very little in the way of linear, narrative purpose, and yet discovers illuminating moments in every little corner of its strange and memorable world. Folks who don't get IJ need to spend some time bitching about it to Boston AA's, who will totally loving Identify and thank them for sharing, and then tell them in no uncertain terms to Keep Reading. Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it's not going to work.
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Sep 12, 2010 07:16
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Today marks the two year anniversary of his death.
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Sep 12, 2010 21:34
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I was graduating at the Kenyon Commencement where he gave his speech and I own an autographed copy of Broom of the System as well. The speech really was something amazing and I still feel privledged to have been there. The downside was the speech after his, given by the class president (not valedictorian), was one of the worst I have ever had the displeasure of hearing. The fact that it came immediately after one of the best only accented its terribleness. On another note, aside from his commencement address I think my favorite work of his was his article on the porn awards.
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Sep 13, 2010 02:55
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Release Date / Cover
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Sep 15, 2010 03:54
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drat girl! posted:
Fantastic, I've been waiting so hard for this ever since it was announced that he left a ton of writing after his death. But it seems to be a radical departure from his other stuff, especially IJ, so I hope it's satisfying, maybe it'll be like a 21st-century Ulysses, with a very narrow narrative frame, but the point is in the dressing.
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Sep 15, 2010 07:29
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ONE TWO THREE TIMES TWO TO THE SIX/JONESING FOR YOUR FIX OF THAT LIMP BIZKIT MIX
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How many pages, goddamnit! He had like two thousand manuscript pages sitting around for the loving thing, how badly did they have to butcher it to make it appear novel-like? Are we talking 150 pages, or 700, or what? I know, nobody knows but Little, Brown. gently caress that poo poo, tell me now so I know how fast to  Great cover, though. I'm glad they had Karen do it.
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Sep 15, 2010 14:02
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7 y.o. bitch posted:But it seems to be a radical departure from his other stuff, especially IJ, so I hope it's satisfying, maybe it'll be like a 21st-century Ulysses, with a very narrow narrative frame, but the point is in the dressing. The discription made me think of the part in This is Water about trying to go to the grocery store after a long day of work. aricoarena fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Sep 16, 2010 |
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Sep 15, 2010 14:24
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mdemone posted:How many pages, goddamnit! I read somewhere that it was going to be 400ish pages. It's going to be strange reading something unfinished by an author that was so careful about the words he wrote, but from like E Unibus Plurum onwards you can really chart a narrowing of DFW's writing style and I think goal. Infinite Jest was really so much about characters being swallowed up in the whole solipsistic/consumer grade "Too Much Fun" that so many people nowadays find themselves in, and Oblivion seemed like a deeper exploration of people sort of realizing (or not) the pants-making GBS threads emptiness that goes along with the intractability of that situation - then I'm wondering if Pale King, from the pieces I've read from and about it, is DFW trying to offer some sort of way out. It was sort of hinted at in the Kenyon address, but I don't think as fleshed out as usual for DFW. I'm really curious to see what, if any, solutions are put forward. What characters in any of his latter books seemed to have any sort of hope for the future? Mario maybe? I don't think I've looked forward to any other book being published as much as this. In the meantime, the Ransom Center archives have a ton of interesting material to check out, especially all the sidebar stuff in this page: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/press/releases/2010/dfw/
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Sep 15, 2010 18:54
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I distinctly remember reading Pale King was going to be about some kind of shadowy agency (think the Wheelchair Assassins) trying to learn the secrets of a guy who works in the IRS who has achieved a state of supreme mindfulness and concentration, despite how mind-numbingly boring his job is. DFW makes other mentions to mindfulness and its benefits in other works, I believe, so I can definitely see it as his "way out".
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Sep 16, 2010 00:20
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Though i'm enjoying it immensely so far, my friend described Infinite Jest thusly: "I started reading it, but after 200 pages or so I gave up when I realised the main theme of the novel was just how loving smart Dave Foster Wallace is."
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Sep 24, 2010 00:46
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Hahaha, I'm not done with IJ yet, I hit a rough patch, and then another rough patch, now I'm at around 700 and am in yet another rough patch. What's funny is with IJ especially, I almost feel like you have the opposite of that. Not someone who thinks they are smarter than you, but someone who only knows how to tell you this particular story this particular way and hopes you take something from it so everything is going to be loaded with detail and thought trail. I feel like there are large parts of this book where you can see the wheels turning in DFW's head where he wishes he were just a better writer.
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Sep 24, 2010 02:00
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Rubber Biscuit posted:Though i'm enjoying it immensely so far, my friend described Infinite Jest thusly: "I started reading it, but after 200 pages or so I gave up when I realised the main theme of the novel was just how loving smart Dave Foster Wallace is." That's pretty close, I guess. I really love Infinite Jest, but it kind of reads as his view of life in general. It greatly affected my world view, and I'm re-reading it again, absolutely loving it.
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Sep 24, 2010 02:37
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Ok, finally finished Infinite Jest a few weeks ago. On the whole it was incredibly enjoyable and strangely powerful; there were many difficult aspects to the book, the most grating for me having to be descriptions that went on and on, that didn't really seem to serve a worthwhile point. Whoever said to stick it out to around 200 was spot on, it's really the first hint that there is something deeper there, not so much that you couldn't figure there would be but you finally have a clue as to what it is, and it hooks you. The whole Canada/US/SpyBusiness plotline really slowed me down until it picked up again around ...700ish? There was an interview where DFW described his style of writing, trying to write in a way that is both 'just the facts, ma'am' as well as describing very deeply what is going on (there are proper names for both of these, but I really don't remember); basically, the idea is that you go from seeing 'what happened entirely (as in everything you as a reader need to know)' to 'this is the scene I am now painting for you'. So you can go from just knowing everything that is going on to being able to fill in gaps yourself and imagine things yourself. This worked really well for me toward the last quarter anytime he got back to one of the main players and their dialogue, but there were so many Birds Eye here-is-everything sections that were doubly grating, mostly due to uselessness, like maybe calling a friend over to help you move a refrigerator so you can get back there and repair a light or something (?) and then moving it and then realizing after all that work you can't get to it anyway, so who cares? Of course, it could always be an issue with my tools... I'm definitely going to read the thing again, sometime early next year though. I'd be curious about that extra-long manuscript version, but I'd also love to see a heavily edited version of the book, just to see how it came out and if the parts of the book that were meant to resonate highly would still do so without certain long prairie stretches in between. Looking very forward to Pale King, oh yes. Le Sean fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Oct 8, 2010 |
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Oct 8, 2010 20:16
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I just started Broom of the System, which seems almost absurdly like The Crying of Lot 49. His style seems much more awkward and affected in this one. Almost like he's nervous, or leaning too heavily on his influences. He tries to do Pynchonian silly names this but it just comes off as precious. A definite case of the 'first novel's. I haven't got far though. Anyone else have anything to say about that one?
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Oct 10, 2010 10:14
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Kieselguhr Kid posted:I just started Broom of the System, which seems almost absurdly like The Crying of Lot 49. His style seems much more awkward and affected in this one. Almost like he's nervous, or leaning too heavily on his influences. He tries to do Pynchonian silly names this but it just comes off as precious. A definite case of the 'first novel's. There's an interview with DFW, I think its this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKCMTHX5WHk He mentions that when he was younger he thought, rather naively he put it I think, that he thought the point of fiction was to demonstrate how smart the writer was. I'm about 3/4 through Broom, and I get that vibe very much. It really does seem like he's trying to prove himself by, as you're saying, leaning on influences. I enjoyed his later stuff a lot more, as time went on he became more confident and his style more defined. Which makes me even more excited for The Pale King, and sad that he's gone 
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Oct 10, 2010 15:42
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Zimadori Zinger posted:He mentions that when he was younger he thought, rather naively he put it I think, that he thought the point of fiction was to demonstrate how smart the writer was. Yeah I think that's the harshest, yet accurate criticism about early to mid DFW. It's even been leveraged against IJ a few times in this thread, and you can really sense that his later stories he's just striving like mad to get away from it. I think the difference between Curious Hair and Hideous Men, besides the refinement of his talen, is that a lot of the times in GwCH, it was justabout establishing his intelligence[/i].
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Oct 10, 2010 16:09
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I just found a link to an essay DFW did when he was 21 about his depression. Looks like it gets cut off at the end though? Just thought I'd share since I hadn't seen this before.
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Oct 17, 2010 02:20
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Marvel posted:Looks like it gets cut off at the end though?
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Oct 17, 2010 03:43
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I'm a little conflicted about having purchased the 'This is Water' publication after hearing him actually deliver the speech. The one-sentence-per-page flow seems to change the tone of the message for the worse. Edit: I don't mean to say the book is bad, but I got about 5x more value out of the audio reading. wigglin fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Oct 17, 2010 |
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Oct 17, 2010 06:58
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Kieselguhr Kid posted:
I just finished it and enjoyed it. I really liked seeing the first effort of his style. Some review mentioned his inherent story-telling prowess, as exemplified in the concise, meaningful tales from RV, and I couldn't agree more. Broom though, is a novel and he intends to flesh it out as strangely as possible. I can't blame him for trying so hard; it's not hard to believe he thought he had finnesse for it and he, for the most part, did. I also like knowing he regrets the ending somewhat. The Psychologist scenes can pretty hilarious at times. meanolmrcloud fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Oct 17, 2010 |
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Oct 17, 2010 08:14
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Not at the ending yet, so I can't say much. I think it's interesting to see the recurrence of certain things: Wallace's obsession with deformity, this kind of double-bind situtation (the story about the man who has 'second-order vanity'), deranged authority figures with easy (unconcious) answers, etc. Firsts novels are always interesting to see a kind of proto-authour. That said, I'm finding it somewhat difficult to pull through. I'm seeing in it the kind of kitchy, absurd ugliness that motivated the profoundly-insulting term 'hysterical realism.' The whole 'nine steak dinners' scene really came off as being about the nadir: A hackneyed, obvious point hammered out through a tone-deaf affectation of a Monty Python gag which is so conciously trying to be more life than life but mostly just makes you feel insulted and repulsed beyond just the grotesqueness of the situation.
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Oct 17, 2010 10:49
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I just finished Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, which was a little painful to read but was a very illuminating representation of DFW as a person. The interviewer blathers on a lot in the beginning trying to do damage control on DFW's suicide, and I felt that it would have been best to leave any musings on the actual interview to the end of the book, since by even mentioning it in the beginning, if only to try to relieve it of any exaggerated importance, ends up having it overshadow the rest of the book anyways. The entire interview struck me as DFW trying to pull his brain apart and find a part of himself that is legitimate and holds up to intense scrutiny. In his books and in the interview it seems he is searching for one genuine part of life to grasp and hold onto. He spends time worrying about worrying about being famous and how he perceives it and how he will be perceived perceiving it ad infinitum, which is a all-encompassing thought loop that seems to be present in a majority of his characters. I liked reading about Lipsky's description of DFW's house though, it brought DFW from being a faceless author to just a human being for me. Has anyone else had a go at this book?
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Oct 18, 2010 05:23
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Marvel posted:I just found a link to an essay DFW did when he was 21 about his depression. Thanks for posting that. "Except that is just highly silly when you think about what I said before concerning the fact that the Bad Thing is really yourself?"
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Oct 18, 2010 19:35
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heliotroph posted:I liked reading about Lipsky's description of DFW's house though, it brought DFW from being a faceless author to just a human being for me. Lipsky was annoying and intrusive as a presence in the book. It's clear he thinks he's some Kerouac figure who's interesting on his own along with his Dean, but he's not at all. Toward the end I just started eye-skipping his part of the dialog and reading DFWs alone. He would have had a better work if he'd been a bit more faceless as a narrator and interviewer and not tried to be interesting.
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Oct 19, 2010 18:15
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This post will probably get shat on but whatever: I think DFW had one of the kindest most high-functioning heart and brain (respectively) that humanity has ever seen. I do think he had a twisted and mostly depressing way of looking at the world, and I don't think his worldview is necessarily true. If I did i'd probably be depressed. In that book with Lipsky DFW keeps talking about all the billions of pieces of information he receives and how he cannot create linear narratives of his life or about anything. I think this gives us insight into why he killed himself. He was unable to make sense of our world. His brain functioned at such a perceptive level that no detail went unmissed for him and he was unable to put together some sort meaning or context to all the disparate things he hears, sees, reads. He had a telling quote: "I imagine Leo [Tolstoy] getting up in the morning, pulling on his homemade boots, going out to chat with the serfs whom he's freed [Making clear he knows something about the texture and subject], you know. Sitting down in his silent room, overlooking some very well-tended gardens, pulling out his quill and...in deep tranquility, recollecting emotion. I read Leo as a relief from what's true. I read it as a relief from the fact that, I received five hundred thousand discrete bits of information today, of which maybe twenty-five are important. And how am I going to sort those out, you know?" I think he overstates the differences between our society and society back in the day. humans are naturally gifted at choosing what to imbue with importance and what to drown out. I think DFW lacked this quality and thus much of his writing is an unedited stream of consciousness of his brain. I had a lot of trouble with his death. I found it incredibly disconcerting that a person whose brain I could relate with so closely decided that life was not worth living. But the more I read and learn the more I see the fundamental differences between him and myself. To exist is more truthful than to explain. I don't know what DFW would think of that statement. He'd probably think it true but impossible to achieve. I don't know what he would think about it, this is just my opinion. brothamo fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Oct 21, 2010 |
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Oct 21, 2010 01:42
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cdzrom posted:This post will probably get shat on but whatever: Death does vile disfigurement to a legacy.
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Oct 21, 2010 02:39
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brothamo fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Oct 21, 2010 |
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Oct 21, 2010 03:06
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Marvel posted:I just found a link to an essay DFW did when he was 21 about his depression. That was tough to read. If you compare this piece to some of his essays that I think were written when he was off A.D. the differences are striking. This seemed kind of muted, and hopeless. Still scary and still hit me hard, but the twinkle in his writing was not there. I don't know how to properly explain it. If that's just because he wasn't as a developed writer as he was when he wrote A Supposedly Fun Thing...I don't know, but I doubt it.
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Oct 21, 2010 03:25
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cdzrom posted:Poster below me was right. Why'd you delete your post? It was perfectly fine and reasonable, no reason to be afraid of sharing a little emotion here 
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Oct 21, 2010 03:31
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