Status Updates From Brief Interviews with Hideo...

Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (VI): 2/5. Dialogue piece that further contextualizes the origins of the divorce litigator in The Depressed Person. But otherwise, doesn’t do much.

Brief Interviews (3): 4/5. Weakest batch so far, but still great; the opening interview about the hideously over-analyzed masturbation fantasy was very funny and sad.

The Devil is a Busy Man (2): 3/5. Furthers the “I-don’t-care-if-I’m-a-good-person, only-that-I-appear-a-good-person” theme that is one of the most central to the book, but doesn’t add too much to the conversation apart from yet another possible sociopath’s perspective on life.

Church Not Made With Hands: 4/5. Easily Wallace’s most poetic (and inaccessible) work. Beautifully impenetrable. (n.b. Reread)

Adult World (I & II): 4/5. Explores the complex nature of marriage in a rather biting way. Love the formal shift from simple narrative piece to (assumably carefully constructed) schema for Pt 4.

Octet: 5/5. This feels like an encapsulation of DFW’s entire oeuvre. Double-binds, belletristic anxieties, a search for something human and ‘real’ w/r/t writing (to transmit to a reader), and—specifically relevant to this book, it seems, but overall as well—the idea of genuine, meaningful connection (desired) vs. usage as ego-boost/narcissistic, pseudointellectual posturing (very much not desired).

Datum Centurio: 2.5/5. Cute, but feels a little bit ridiculous to read. Funny enough, but clinical and lifeless. Thankfully, very short. But I prefer the humanist Wallace to the textually playful-show-off Wallace.

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (2): 5/5.

#46 and #48 are the highlights, but #2 and #42 were also fantastic. Wallace can really bring me down—he does so often in these interviews, but never without bountiful, rewarding insights into the human condition.

The Devil is a Busy Man (1): 4/5. Give a man a freebie, he thinks you strange. Give him a bargain, he thinks you’re his friend.

Think: 3.5/5. This one kinda puzzles me… I like it, but find it a bit cryptic. Though the title makes me want to … think … about it some more.

Signifying Nothing: 4/5. Really kinda fucked up story that won’t soon leave my mind.

The Depressed Person: 6/5. Seriously… this captures the duplicity of middle-class white America in 2023 better than anything I’ve ever seen, read, heart, etc.; the kind of “I’m-not-ok-but-that’s-who-I-am-so-why-change” narcissism-veiled-as-depression complex that has become valuable social currency in the economy of today’s ethos. Of course, no one wants to talk about it; people turn away from this.

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (1): 4.5/5. Hilarious, dark, uncomfortable. These snippets really get at something that’s hard to pinpoint, but that we all know is more or less true. The most fun is figuring out what ‘Q.’ is asking or how they are responding to the interviewees.

Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (XI): 4/5. Another piece dealing with overthinking and ennui. Great, sad.