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A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
by David Foster Wallace
by David Foster Wallace
Of Wallace's two books of essays/journalism, I still think "Consider the Lobster" is the more consistent (and the best introduction to his writing), but when the pieces in this collection work, they're as good as anything he ever did.
The title essay is as brilliant as advertised, and I find myself thinking a lot about the TV/irony essay, even if the piece feels dated by the references and by a culture that's accelerated an unthinkable amount since its publication in the early 1990s. It seems more and more that those two essays are the quintessential DFW statements: the issues and considerations he raises come up time and time again in his other fiction and interviews. The cruise ship piece in particular reads like an early companion to his forthcoming, posthumous work that will be about our relationship to boredom.
Which isn't to short-sell the other essays in the book; the Michael Joyce and David Lynch profiles are terrific, as is the opening piece about DFW's own experiences with tennis. Only the academic piece about postmodern literary theory left me cold, and that's because it seems out of place; it's insular in a way that the other pieces in here are not.
I think sampling Wallace rather than tearing through this collection might be the way to go. His maximalist style does tend to wear you out, and by the time I read the Illinois State Fair piece (I read them out of order), I was fatigued by the attention-to-every-single-last-detail-and-what-it-means-in-a-cosmic-sense approach. That said, no matter how worn your patience may get reading Wallace, you can't let up, because just as you're about to start skimming, he comes up with something that knocks you on your ass.
The book is filled with such moments, but as an example, recall the part where he's in the air-conditioned Expo, dutifully recounting all the absurd objects being sold, when all of a sudden he unspools a page-long riff about the jokey T-shirts so many of the Fairgoers wear (I GO FROM 0 TO HORNEY IN 2.5 SECONDS). It's vintage Wallace: immediately identifiable to everyone but revealing a truth that the rest of us had never considered.
P.S. If you're of a mind to, check out the Charlie Rose interview he did with DFW in conjunction with the publication of this book. It illuminates not just the essays in the book (notably the Lynch essay), but also Wallace himself.
The title essay is as brilliant as advertised, and I find myself thinking a lot about the TV/irony essay, even if the piece feels dated by the references and by a culture that's accelerated an unthinkable amount since its publication in the early 1990s. It seems more and more that those two essays are the quintessential DFW statements: the issues and considerations he raises come up time and time again in his other fiction and interviews. The cruise ship piece in particular reads like an early companion to his forthcoming, posthumous work that will be about our relationship to boredom.
Which isn't to short-sell the other essays in the book; the Michael Joyce and David Lynch profiles are terrific, as is the opening piece about DFW's own experiences with tennis. Only the academic piece about postmodern literary theory left me cold, and that's because it seems out of place; it's insular in a way that the other pieces in here are not.
I think sampling Wallace rather than tearing through this collection might be the way to go. His maximalist style does tend to wear you out, and by the time I read the Illinois State Fair piece (I read them out of order), I was fatigued by the attention-to-every-single-last-detail-and-what-it-means-in-a-cosmic-sense approach. That said, no matter how worn your patience may get reading Wallace, you can't let up, because just as you're about to start skimming, he comes up with something that knocks you on your ass.
The book is filled with such moments, but as an example, recall the part where he's in the air-conditioned Expo, dutifully recounting all the absurd objects being sold, when all of a sudden he unspools a page-long riff about the jokey T-shirts so many of the Fairgoers wear (I GO FROM 0 TO HORNEY IN 2.5 SECONDS). It's vintage Wallace: immediately identifiable to everyone but revealing a truth that the rest of us had never considered.
P.S. If you're of a mind to, check out the Charlie Rose interview he did with DFW in conjunction with the publication of this book. It illuminates not just the essays in the book (notably the Lynch essay), but also Wallace himself.
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