Infinite Jest

[Rores28]

I haven't read it but am considering picking it up as I just got a BandN coupon.

Thoughts?

[Babbalanja]

I'm a huge fan of David Foster Wallace, and was devastated to hear of his suicide. He had a comic genius and loved to satirize the way our culture processes information. His verbal generosity is too much for a lot of readers, and I don't blame anyone for not tackling the unnecessarily hefty Infinite Jest. However, I think it's an embarrassment of riches for fans of Flann O'Brien-style brainy humor. It's got a cast of thousands, digressions and running gags aplenty, and a hundred pages of endnotes.

Many people stand by his nonfiction writing, particularly A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, but I've always preferred his fiction. It's messy, obsessive stuff, and certain readers won't be able to stand the way the stories usually collapse instead of coming to a tidy close. His first novel Broom of the System, though not quite as exuberant as Jest, was very accomplished, and the short story collection Oblivion was feverishly inventive.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, in my opinion, is the best thing he ever wrote. These stories satirize the modern male in all his selfish, gadget-obsessed, infantile cruelty, as well as the convoluted intellectual ploys he devises so he can live with himself. Considering his lifelong battle with depression, Wallace makes the story "The Depressed Person" a merciless examination of the narcissism that lengthens and lubricates the downward spiral into the abyss. I should add as a warning to sensitive readers that it's also laugh-out-loud funny.

Wallace was a wonderful writer. I'll really miss his comedic voice.

Regards,

Istvan

[Jozanny]

I have not gotten to Infinite Jest yet, but I am reading Oblivion, and at this point I cannot make up my mind as to whose writing genius is more super-attenuated, David Mitchell's or Wallace's--but if the former constituted a spiritual experience for me, the latter articulates an agony of precision that pushes the limit of what I can handle.

I'm not saying Wallace isn't funny; I get the humor compacted in all those layers, but my god, what a price an empathetic reader/writer has to pay. The danger both men pose for me is the danger of silencing me--never in a million years could my work perform at that level, even if I sold my flat screen and stopped distracting myself with online gab, and I am good at what I do, at least when I'm on and can get work.

If anyone would like to read Oblivion with me, btw, I did post a request in Book Buddies (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=880254#post880254), Scher's thread.

[Rores28]

ahhh. Well now I'm up in the air between Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and Oblivion.

[Babbalanja]

Much as I was blown away by David Mitchell's Ghostwritten, this unfairly talented author is a much different animal than Wallace.

Wallace seemed obsessed with the way society processes information, and the way he satirized the media and academia should remind readers of Flann O'Brien. His obsession with footnotes and corporate-speak demonstrated a real understanding of the issues involved with communication and learning in our millennium.

Regards,

Istvan

[Jozanny]

Istvan:

I agree that the two men are a different animal, but their brillance is co-measurable in terms of verbal density, agility, and such precision with the English language that it is almost less writing than it is music, or a kind of new nutrient. Indeed, in Oblivion the first story is about a dense, nearly restaurant grade, chocolate cake.

I also think that Wallace and Mitchell represent a new breed of post modernists, if one can call them that, less interested in the self-conscious irony of a late 20th century Gardner, or the cheap tricks of the Black Mountain school.

Both Mitchell and Wallace seem to have an intense focus on accuracy becoming the vehicle of the ironic intent, rather than self-reference, or violating the integrity of the text, as such--something they may share with the Mexican who just died from his liver, and put out his last book. I think I have him on my wish list, but his name escapes me. The novel may have been titled 2001, but I'd have to spend some time searching.

*Correction: 2666 by Roberto Bolano, sorry for my error.

There are things not to like about Wallace--his very textual density can and probably does amount to overkill of the comedic bent, but there are probably not more than a handful of Europeans who can compete with such talent as they represent, (he and Mitchell) and I know of no other author, not even Byatt, who can burn the wick on both ends, with such ability as theirs, though as we know, sadly, Wallace didn't leave enough riches behind for the fans in his wake.

[Rores28]

Alright well on my sporadic trips to BandN I have started to skim both hideous men and oblivion and I think I'll probably start on oblivion first. I found myself grinning quite a bit and even an audible chuckle escaped me with that one. I don't know if I quite understood what he was trying to do in some of the stories of Hideous Men, particularly the first story. The stories I read in that book (and admittedly it was only a few) seemed more obscure, particularly the first.

I didn't totally understand the title. Was I to understand that the character had produced all he would produce in life and now was "dead" / resigned to stay in the lazy comfort of his upper middle class manicured yard? The last sentence and accompanying footnote threw me a bit. Or was it simply satirizing all the political bs that occurs in literary academia and presenting a comical apposition between the elevation of one's image imparted by awards and titles and one's actual manner in everyday life?

[sixsmith]

One is often reminded of Wallace's comic talent but, as Joz points out, the humor is to a considerable extent buried beneath a kind of hyper-mimesis and, partly as a corollary of this, an almost preternatural ability to describe psychological pain. To give but the most obvious example of my own experience, I don't recall finding anything in 'The Depressed Person' funny, though I concede that it probably contains moments of genuine humor. That said, in no way do I find his textual density abstruse or forbidding One of his great talents, for mine, is that his precise and over-stuffed observations are eminently accessible.

I agree with what you say about the correlations with Mitchell, Joz. I also take Istvan’s point on the areas of difference. I'll refrain from turning this into a David Mitchell love-in. I’ll simply say that he is, in my opinion and experience, one of, if not the most gifted novelists writing in English today. I suspect his (novelistic) talent is wider than Wallace’s and likely of a similar depth.

[billl]

babba, have you read Nicholson Baker's 'The Mezzanine'? A great read, and interesting for all the footnotes. Especially the footnotes. (And it pre-dates I. J. and its "end notes").

[Jozanny]

One is often reminded of Wallace's comic talent but, as Joz points out, the humor is to a considerable extent buried beneath a kind of hyper-mimesis and, partly as a corollary of this, an almost preternatural ability to describe psychological pain.

Very eloquently put six. Getting through Wallace rips my psychic pain right out of me, which is why I have to take him in tempered doses, and fall into the use of divine outcry, and probably why I take his biography, his work, and those writing about him, to heart.

If you will all forgive me an indulgence, I have always *gotten through* (and I will not be specific) because I held to writing as a kind of salvation, and Wallace has blown right through my use of that notion as a life raft, and I don't know yet how I will ultimately process that; it will be kind of wait and see.

[sixsmith]

babba, have you read Nicholson Baker's 'The Mezzanine'? A great read, and interesting for all the footnotes. Especially the footnotes. (And it pre-dates I. J. and its "end notes").

Bill, Baker deserves more recognition in my opinion.


If you will all forgive me an indulgence, I have always *gotten through* (and I will not be specific) because I held to writing as a kind of salvation, and Wallace has blown right through my use of that notion as a life raft, and I don't know yet how I will ultimately process that; it will be kind of wait and see.

I can't give an appropriate response to that in this thread. I'll simply say that there a special kind of mental purgatory reserved for those who won't even build a raft.

[billl]

Bill, Baker deserves more recognition in my opinion.



Ah, terribly sorry, now I remember


I can't give an appropriate response to that in this thread. I'll simply say that there a special kind of purgatory reserved for those who won't even build a raft.

Well said.

[Babbalanja]

I don't recall finding anything in 'The Depressed Person' funny, though I concede that it probably contains moments of genuine humor. In fact, "The Depressed Person" (http://www.harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-1998-01-0059425.pdf) is the story I consider the most jaw-droppingly brilliant of all the fine work he put into Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.

Maybe sensitive souls find it cruel to mine humor out of depression, but Wallace (no stranger to depression himself) was never sentimental enough to avoid satirizing modern narcissism. This tale about a depressed woman doesn't make fun of her affliction; it (like so many of the interviews) examines the twisted logic that people concoct so they can excuse their colossal narcissism. The depressed person treats the death of her long-suffering therapist not as a random event in the universe, but as a deeply personal affront that sends her further and faster down the inevitable spiral. Then she exhausts the patience of all her friends (even one dying of cancer) in her attempts to make them substitute for the departed therapist. Wallace's books are full of descriptions of therapy as an unhealthy network of mutual dependence and deception, and this one is undoubtedly the most extensive of the lot.

The layers of satire in this narrative, in which the depressed person executes every conceivable rhetorical cartwheel in order to validate and reinforce her narcissism, are truly masterful. If Wallace's verbal exuberance is too much for some readers, well, that's the entire point. You're looking into the convoluted thought processes of an emotional black hole that sucks everyone else's cognitive energy into itself.

Regards,

Istvan

[Jozanny]

Annihilation of comfort zones in great literary works is nothing new, and according to psychoanalytic theory, it is nuturing, and this is something I often find to be the case when I read difficult authors (Mitchell is a decent example) and it is why tragedies like Macbeth continue to resonate, particularly the "Tomorrow" soliloquy--but reading Wallace doesn't necessarily reassure any innate need.

[Babbalanja]

reading Wallace doesn't necessarily reassure any innate need.It's pretty comical that anyone would expect reassurance---even resolution---from Wallace's work. But good luck with that.

Regards,

Istvan

[Jozanny]

Why comical? And why would I have necessarily expected reassurance? Infinite Jest may have reached my radar screen as a passing reference years ago, before I registered in this community, but it was his suicide that brought Wallace to my attention.

I wasn't sure what to expect, now I do, and I am still processing my way around that, and will continue to do so without peremptorily summing up the cat in the bag. I am not sure his gifts, considerable as they are, cement his staying power, but these assessments take time.

Added: You can satirize a dog with its tail on fire, but I don't know how effective that satirizing is when the suffering of the animal is relentlessly ground away into the exposition--and to the degree that I have issues with Wallace it resides in that. The demands he places on the reader can be excruciating.

Maybe he becomes an outlier of acquired taste, maybe not--but to borrow a phrase from a religious observer of Pope John Paul 2: Wallace's verbal pyrotechnics becomes the dazzle of *too much*.

[sixsmith]

You can satirize a dog with its tail on fire, but I don't know how effective that satirizing is when the suffering of the animal is relentlessly ground away into the exposition--and to the degree that I have issues with Wallace it resides in that. The demands he places on the reader can be excruciating. I agree. I don't have a moral objection to Wallace's 'mining humor out of depression'. My contention, like Joz's, is that the humor is rendered almost nugatory by the rigorous dissection of the illness.

[Selfsame]

There's plenty of reassurance in IJ, and a certain amount of resolution. The stuff in IJ about listening and patience and taking it one moment at a time were huge for me a couple years ago.

It's also a damned fine book. Wallace maybe was too much a sucker for cheap gags, but when his writing is on it's pretty much impeccable. The gately fight scene, lucien's death, gately w/ the wraith, gately and fackleman, the Madame P call-out to the hideously deformed, the Incandenza family dinner, the monologue from Jim's dad—some of the best writing out there. Oh, and the hilarious intro, and the pot-smoker scene immediately after.

[Jozanny]

Self: I was thinking of an old literary theory book on the classics when I was groping for the appropriate distance from Wallace, and I think Bab misunderstood what I was driving at--that articulated despair can be comforting on a psychological level, and for me that is usually case even when I am reading modernist/postmodernist masters, including Mitchell.

But this is not the case, for me, thus far, getting into Wallace's head, but, despite this, I still intend to read more of him after Oblivion. I have IJ and Hideous on my wish list, depending when I feel up to the endurance that for me is necessary.

PS: Welcome to the forum.

[c aesura]

Alright well on my sporadic trips to BandN I have started to skim both hideous men and oblivion and I think I'll probably start on oblivion first. I found myself grinning quite a bit and even an audible chuckle escaped me with that one. I don't know if I quite understood what he was trying to do in some of the stories of Hideous Men, particularly the first story. The stories I read in that book (and admittedly it was only a few) seemed more obscure, particularly the first.

I didn't totally understand the title. Was I to understand that the character had produced all he would produce in life and now was "dead" / resigned to stay in the lazy comfort of his upper middle class manicured yard? The last sentence and accompanying footnote threw me a bit. Or was it simply satirizing all the political bs that occurs in literary academia and presenting a comical apposition between the elevation of one's image imparted by awards and titles and one's actual manner in everyday life?

I haven't read Infinite Jest, so I can't say much about it, but the thing about Brief Interviews is that while it claims to be a "short story collection" it is really meant to be read as a unified work. That's not to say one might be any less confused by the end of the book, but you may be able to understand that story better. (By the way, I would consider that the second story--the first story, "A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life" is thematically probably the most important part of the entire work.) Consider the tediously self-reflective nature (after all, the narrator is none other than the character himself--viewing himself in third person) of "Death is Not the End" as a lead-in to the point he's trying to make about the postmodern self-consciousness...

[Mudge]

Having just finished Infinite Jest, I conclude Foster Wallace to have been a writer of remarkable scope, and, I'm afraid, in many ways unable to control his own gift for irony. I suspect he most clearly reveals himself through the character of Mario, who is deeply sympathetic, yet destined to trudge, encumbered, through the world filming notable events as mere puppet shows.

[Brad Coelho]

Rores-
You get into Wallace yet? Hideous men was my catalyst- I'm now reading Broom & Jest at the same time...I'll be finished w/ Broom months before- but am enjoying the racketballing of chaotic echoes to & fro each novel. Whatcha think thus far?

His nonfiction can be found online- Consider the Lobster, his interview w/ Lynch (one of my favs) & the post 9/11 reaction are all accessible & worth the read.

[Rores28]

Rores-
You get into Wallace yet? Hideous men was my catalyst- I'm now reading Broom & Jest at the same time...I'll be finished w/ Broom months before- but am enjoying the racketballing of chaotic echoes to & fro each novel. Whatcha think thus far?

His nonfiction can be found online- Consider the Lobster, his interview w/ Lynch (one of my favs) & the post 9/11 reaction are all accessible & worth the read.

Very into him. Right now I am still trying to tackle a wide breadth of classic / older lit and am determined to finish Brother's Karamazov so I have not started Infinite Jest thought I picked it up last week.

I've read at this point just a few stories from Brief Interviews, and all of the stories in Oblivion but two.

I think he may actually be my favorite writer. His stuff is difficult and I definitely don't understand all of it and frequently I have to look up words and latin phrases and often retrace my finger back up the page to see where a parenthetical started, but despite all that I rarely feel like I'm trudging through it.

Of the more modern (time wise not movement) writers I've read (Le Carre, O'brien Vonnegut, McCarthy, Wallace) I think he is far and away the best and most enjoyable, and I like McCarthy and Vonnegut pretty well.

There is a short story in Oblivion entitled "The Soul is Not a Smithy" which pretty much blew me away.

[Brad Coelho]

Enjoy BK; I'm one of the few that prefers Crime & Punishment but I think my lack of interest in straight forward theology hamstrung my enjoyment of BK. You've definitely got some colossal sized work in front of you!

His lexicon is certainly challenging and reading him either beefs up your cerebral matter or dumbs you down out of frustration. I enjoy all the writers you'd mentioned, particularly Vonnegut. I love the irreverent take on life that still maintains a soul at the core of the work.

Oblivion is in the on deck circle for me and I'm looking forward to the Soul is Not a Smithy. You may enjoy reading Wallace's essay on autobiographical works of Dostoevsky (which brings your literary exercises into collision)- it is in Consider the Lobster. DFW is an addictive taste; I read him w/ OCD goggles & his techniques only tend to exacerbate my neurosis!