From the Bookshelf of Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace…

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

David Foster Wallace

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Hamlet
By Jason , Himself · 23 posts · 297 views

last updated Jan 17, 2015 12:33PM

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
By Jason , Himself · 19 posts · 69 views

last updated Apr 03, 2013 01:30PM

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Oct 19, 2012 B0nnie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The cover, someone wearing a paper bag, presents a sad, pathetic image. That - along with the title - implies elephant man ugliness, and I'm inclined to be sympathetic before I even start to read. It quickly becomes apparent that the hideousness does not refer to any exterior quality (sometimes there is a physical component to the ugliness, but that fact is secondary). These guys are creeps. The real problem is always within. The “Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed” services are not ...more

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Dec 25, 2012 Jason rated it liked it

Shelves: for-kindle, reviewed

I sold my first car just a little over a year ago. It was sort of a bittersweet thing for me because even though that rustbox was old and broken there was a comfortable familiarity there. I loved it in spite of itself. I venture to guess that if I were ever to get back into the driver’s seat (theoretically, of course—the car is long gone now), I’d be awash in nostalgic warmth and tenderness for it. Then, I’d start driving it and quickly remember that yes, the turn signal does sometimes blink spo I sold my first car just a little over a year ago. It was sort of a bittersweet thing for me because even though that rustbox was old and broken there was a comfortable familiarity there. I loved it in spite of itself. I venture to guess that if I were ever to get back into the driver’s seat (theoretically, of course—the car is long gone now), I’d be awash in nostalgic warmth and tenderness for it. Then, I’d start driving it and quickly remember that yes, the turn signal does sometimes blink spontaneously without driver input and yes, the heater fan does get “tired” if you keep it too long at Level 4. Oh, not to mention that weird noise when you first start it but I swear it will go away on its own once the car warms up. Still, I would love to be driving it again. In a lot of ways it was a great car; so what if it had a few shortcomings?

DFW’s got a few shortcomings. He’s got that twitchy way of winking at you in his footnotes (some of which go on for pages). He’s got the long, winding sentences that often have a kind of manic quality to them. And often times he devolves with his storytelling choices into an almost experimental writing style (e.g. providing the reader with a story in the form of his narrative notes rather than that of the finished product itself).

And yet, there is definitely still a loveable familiarity there. The footnotes are entertaining, sometimes even fairly amusing. The long sentences are actually pretty brilliant for the most part and lend his stories a qualitative edge that is unique to DFW and somehow just…works. I’m not particularly fond of the writing experiments but I can look past them when they crop up here and there and appreciate the story for what it is. All in all it’s not a bad drive and even with those DFW-isms I hated while reading Infinite Jest, it was nice being back in DFW territory.

Of course not every story in this collection worked for me, which is why I’m only giving it three stars. (Infinite Jest got four.) I hated “Church Not Made with Hands” and “Tri-Stan,” for example. That said, the stories I did like, I loved. Here are my favorites:

“Forever Overhead”
“The Depressed Person”
“Signifying Nothing”
“Octet”
“Adult World”

Oh and but except the other thing this DFW car does that’s pretty quirky sometimes is instead of successfully ending a story it’ll just ...more

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Mar 31, 2023 Shmuli Cohen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: unfinished

I listened to the audio book which is abridged. Missing The Depressed Person which is his best short story. Still some very cerebral high thinking sexually intrepid moral anecdotes. Wish he was still alive

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Jul 30, 2015 Dave Barie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Wallace's stories operate in such a way that you step out of your body, face yourself, then slowly turn your head inside out so that you can see the inside of your very own personal brain's cerebrations. An emotional thrum abounds in many of the stories, though not all, setting the Geiger counter a'ticking. ...more

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