Item: 1 copy of Consider the Lobster and Other Essays by David Foster Wallace
In one way or another, this book has been my real mental occupation for a couple of weeks. As in: I'm going to drag myself to this meeting/my job/this social event now, but what I really want to do is continue reading/thinking about this book.
Most reviewers I've read concur that Mr. DFW is some kind of genius writer, and probably also a plain genius. Anyone who can get into both Science and Playboy, plus a whole slew of other major publications, automatically commands a certain level of respect. Respect is great, but it also happens that nearly everything he writes is major fun to read. It doesn't matter much what the topic is: he will do something intellectually interesting and personally effective with it. This is why, whenever he writes a book, I will want to read it.
So, the following are my observations about this one:
-The heart of the book, for me, is the 60-page "Authority and American Usage" essay, which I remember reading when I used to get Harper's, but had no objection to reading again. This is a review of a dictionary, with discussions of political correctness, literary theory, usage errors, etc., done in a gloriously complex and giddy way.
-The opening essay is about an awards ceremony for porn movies, but it's not written in that sort of twitchy heh-heh manner which men typically use in reference to porn and related topics.
-The title essay is supposed to be about the Maine Lobster Festival, but then sort of plunges you into unpleasant ethical questions relating to the lobsters being boiled alive (unpleasant for me, at least, and I don't even like lobster).
-There's a 9/11 essay, which was disappointing to me only because it was too short. By this point in the book I'd become accustomed to a level of exhaustive clarity, where almost no angle goes unexamined, and then the piece goes and trails off into vague remarks that could be taken any of several ways, most of which I ended up hoping were not what was meant.
-There's just enough cussing in these pages to give the language that definite male imprint, but not so much that you'd tell the guy to get out of your house.
-This isn't in the book, but from what I can tell it seems to be the case that the author doesn't like talking to interviewers (who would?) and thus tends to attract a lot more interviewers, suckups, and stalker-type people wanting to talk to him. I generally opine that if a person is a genius, he should be left alone to continue producing works of genius and not bothered just because somebody wants a quote. Actually, I think that even if a person isn't a genius, he should be left alone, but this is off-topic.
-At the beginning of the American Usage essay, there's a whole page in very fine print of linguistic aggravations in common use (eg irregardless, to message, alot), which list he mentions was collected in "about a week of semi-attentive listening and note-taking." This means that DFW was probably sitting in meetings, standing in line at the bank, listening to the radio, etc. and copying these things down, and how is it possible to not like a person who does that?
-This casual assumption, from a footnote re: the Joseph Frank biography of Dostoevsky, has the same effect: "you end up getting immeasurably more out of his discussions if you go back and reread whatever novel he's talking about."
-DFW is the only writer I can think of who actually seems to be aware of or care about the difficulties of handling any sort of moral or ethical content in the age we live in.
If you're reading carefully, you'll notice that many of these are observations not about a book but about a person. Actually, most reviews I've seen of Wallace's books tend to do the same thing: talk about how he's young and brilliant and so educated and so mysterious and so fascinating and so cool.
Once, when I was in college, a friend of mine was remarking on another guy in relation to the pickup football game they had been playing, and it went something like this: "Dude. He's so big, and he's so strong, and he's so fast, and he's so nice." This last was said with emphatic disgust, or at least recognition that he (the speaker) was finally outclassed.
The brilliance of what David Foster Wallace does, I think, is useless to argue over. It's the last part that is completely uncertain. Namely, can he really think sort of the way I do only with far greater probity and experience, and never accidentally say "the reason is because" and also be a person I'd want to have around? This is the nagging and unsolvable question.
Therefore, reading his books produces basically the same feeling as banging my head against the wall, because I can't quite eliminate the undercurrent of "Why can't I talk to this guy? Why? Why? Why?" What remains unexplained is how I wind up thinking this is fun, but when he does it, it is.
Most reviewers I've read concur that Mr. DFW is some kind of genius writer, and probably also a plain genius. Anyone who can get into both Science and Playboy, plus a whole slew of other major publications, automatically commands a certain level of respect. Respect is great, but it also happens that nearly everything he writes is major fun to read. It doesn't matter much what the topic is: he will do something intellectually interesting and personally effective with it. This is why, whenever he writes a book, I will want to read it.
So, the following are my observations about this one:
-The heart of the book, for me, is the 60-page "Authority and American Usage" essay, which I remember reading when I used to get Harper's, but had no objection to reading again. This is a review of a dictionary, with discussions of political correctness, literary theory, usage errors, etc., done in a gloriously complex and giddy way.
-The opening essay is about an awards ceremony for porn movies, but it's not written in that sort of twitchy heh-heh manner which men typically use in reference to porn and related topics.
-The title essay is supposed to be about the Maine Lobster Festival, but then sort of plunges you into unpleasant ethical questions relating to the lobsters being boiled alive (unpleasant for me, at least, and I don't even like lobster).
-There's a 9/11 essay, which was disappointing to me only because it was too short. By this point in the book I'd become accustomed to a level of exhaustive clarity, where almost no angle goes unexamined, and then the piece goes and trails off into vague remarks that could be taken any of several ways, most of which I ended up hoping were not what was meant.
-There's just enough cussing in these pages to give the language that definite male imprint, but not so much that you'd tell the guy to get out of your house.
-This isn't in the book, but from what I can tell it seems to be the case that the author doesn't like talking to interviewers (who would?) and thus tends to attract a lot more interviewers, suckups, and stalker-type people wanting to talk to him. I generally opine that if a person is a genius, he should be left alone to continue producing works of genius and not bothered just because somebody wants a quote. Actually, I think that even if a person isn't a genius, he should be left alone, but this is off-topic.
-At the beginning of the American Usage essay, there's a whole page in very fine print of linguistic aggravations in common use (eg irregardless, to message, alot), which list he mentions was collected in "about a week of semi-attentive listening and note-taking." This means that DFW was probably sitting in meetings, standing in line at the bank, listening to the radio, etc. and copying these things down, and how is it possible to not like a person who does that?
-This casual assumption, from a footnote re: the Joseph Frank biography of Dostoevsky, has the same effect: "you end up getting immeasurably more out of his discussions if you go back and reread whatever novel he's talking about."
-DFW is the only writer I can think of who actually seems to be aware of or care about the difficulties of handling any sort of moral or ethical content in the age we live in.
If you're reading carefully, you'll notice that many of these are observations not about a book but about a person. Actually, most reviews I've seen of Wallace's books tend to do the same thing: talk about how he's young and brilliant and so educated and so mysterious and so fascinating and so cool.
Once, when I was in college, a friend of mine was remarking on another guy in relation to the pickup football game they had been playing, and it went something like this: "Dude. He's so big, and he's so strong, and he's so fast, and he's so nice." This last was said with emphatic disgust, or at least recognition that he (the speaker) was finally outclassed.
The brilliance of what David Foster Wallace does, I think, is useless to argue over. It's the last part that is completely uncertain. Namely, can he really think sort of the way I do only with far greater probity and experience, and never accidentally say "the reason is because" and also be a person I'd want to have around? This is the nagging and unsolvable question.
Therefore, reading his books produces basically the same feeling as banging my head against the wall, because I can't quite eliminate the undercurrent of "Why can't I talk to this guy? Why? Why? Why?" What remains unexplained is how I wind up thinking this is fun, but when he does it, it is.
posted by Karen at 10:12 PM
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