found_drama

David Foster Wallace — whose memory I trust will live on as one of prodigious talent and unique wit— was found dead in his home by his wife.  He was 46.

DFW was a hero to me, a young author who moved fluidly with words through our ill landscape of postmodernity.  For every grammatical or lexical rule he seemed eager to enforce as “the rules”, there were ten others he felt free to break through style and substance.  His words could seem detached and aloof, running on for pages and pages of what felt like utter pretentiousness, only to annihilate that perception with some incisive, epigrammatic witticism that would make anyone smile.

I first came across his work in 2000 while working on a draft of a novel for my SMP at St. Mary’s.  While researching “voice” and “tone”, I had Infinite Jest recommended to me by a not-entirely-un-sadistic professor.  My first read of Infinite Jest took me the better part of those two semesters.  It was brutal and grueling¹ and utterly rewarding — though maddeningly recursive.  The 1,000+ page novel² was sprawling and ambitious and all-inclusive and inventive.  I was immediately smitten with his work and have since then devoured as much of it as I can.

Hell — every WordPress theme I’ve ever created has been named after Wallace’s characters from Infinite Jest, including the “Ortho” theme I have in place today.

Though I have wanted to be a novelist all my life³, it was not until I started reading Wallace’s werk that I found the inspiration for which I had been searching.  It was not his style or his tone.  Those things belonged to him.  It was his Devil May Care approach that kept rules around simply to mock them; his inventiveness on the page was peerless.

Now I suppose he was more Himself than Hal than we will ever know.

• Farewell, David Foster Wallace
  Travel § @ LATimes.com
• David Foster Wallace, Postmodern Writer, Is Found Dead
  NYTimes.com
• David Foster Wallace: Two Stories, and the Fall of Videophony
  via OMNIVORACIOUS
• David Foster Wallace: 1962-2008
  via OMNIVORACIOUS — “…A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again was my hands-down favorite title to hand-sell to customers. I can visualize exactly where it was shelved in the far back corner of the store (where I always made sure to face out its bright yellow cover when I was shelving in the “W”s).”
• Breaking: David Foster Wallace Dead of Suicide at 46
  at Gawker (via DF) — includes a DFW quote on suicide
• David Foster Wallace Dead of Suicide at 46
  at Daring Fireball — Wallace was my favorite writer, period. amen, brother
• Writer David Foster Wallace found dead
  at Los Angeles Times (via DF) :: a more complete obituary

1. Especially when piled on top of the readings for my more “standard” coursework.[↩]
2. Give or take some pages for the footnotes endnotes.[↩]
3. Well, since at least 5 years old.[↩]

I would suggest, dear reader, that when considering Consider the Lobster, that you consider it in the same light as David Foster Wallace’s collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. Use that book as your frame of reference for style and content and you can place this collection firmly into the category of “typical” DFW. That being said, if you thoroughly enjoyed A Supposedly Fun Thing… then you’ll likely thoroughly enjoy this one as well; by that same coin, if you’re on the fence, you’re unlikely to be won over; and if you dislike DFW¹ then this collection will probably do you no favors.

So in this reviewer’s opinion: Consider the Lobster is more of the same. But that’s a good thing. Read the rest of this entry »

1. If you truly and I mean honestly and passionately dislike DFW, well then I suggest some rigorous therapeutic interventions.[↩]

It’s been a while since I’ve commented on books that have gone through the eye-hole. And given my recent in-take, I’d say it’s about time to make with the commentary…

David Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again - - a worthy read on more levels than we have fingers and toes to offer. I’ve been a tremendous fan of Wallace’s fiction (”found drama” duh!) now for about five years and was more or less commanded by a good friend to check out this collection of essays. Several of them floored me. A few others I was “eh” about. His humor shines through in damn near all of these essays and in ways that are both easy to appreciate if you’re literate. “Getting Away from Already Pretty Much Away from It All” (for example) shows us his rare gift of being able to take a group of people and totally illuminate their follies and flaws without going about it in a way that is insulting or degrading; he saves that for his self deprecating remarks re: rich desserts. Then there’s “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction” which is probably the first and only time I’ve seen him use footnotes in a way that I “expected”; oh, and this is pretty much required follow-up reading for anyone who just finished Infinite Jest. “Greatly Exaggerated” is a true gem - - a subtle jab at how literature/critical theory is so often so far up its own ass - - and making that jab as only an insider looking in as an outsider can do. But it’s the essay whose title is shared with the collection that makes it all worthwhile.

Huntington’s The H.G. Wells Reader - - got this one as a birthday gift. And what a gift it was. Modern sci-fi owes a lot to Wells. His substance and style (while indicative of his time period) set an important tone for the genre as a whole. His thoughtful prose illuminates how humanity is wrapped up in science and how science can’t escape its legacy of humanity. These excerpts and short stories are brilliant, plain and simple. (Only criticism is on their typesetter - - lines are too long with typefaces too small there, pal!)

Emmanuel Carrere’s biography of Philip K. Dick: I Am Alive And You Are Dead - - a scintillating, fun and yet twisted take on the life, times, and writings of the author that many consider to be the most important name in American sci-fi. Carrere’s take on Dick’s life has a sensitivity born of curiosity and a skepticism born of professional respect. I felt like this biography illuminated the most important events and foci in Dick’s life and (all things considered) explained a lot of his writings’ themes. That said, it’s made me glad to hold Ubik in such high esteem but made me a bit irritated with myself that I had yet to pick up and read The Man In The High Castle.

(Finally?) William Gibson’s latest: Pattern Recognition - - an interesting slant out of his usual sci-fi w/o losing that distinct Gibsonian sci-fi edge. (The future is now?) I just finished this one and it’s definitely going to take some time to wrap my mind around all that happened in between those covers. Maybe a missed a crucial moment or else something subtle slipped by me the first time around. That said, I was amused and intrigued by the Case/Cayce reprisal and the return(?) of the Russians. I have a sneaking suspicion that Gibson shares my sick Cold War nostalgia…