On the wild assumption that anyone besides Bill is reading the blog, I'm inclined to voice an opinion on our current project. So far I have read four of the essays: The Visit to the Porn Convention, The reviews of the John Updike's Novel "Toward the End of Time" , Tracy Austin's autobiography review, and "Consider the Lobster."
I was reminded of the early works of Tom Wolfe and the essays of Hunter Thompson. I used to love this kind of hip writing, that someone described as, "PHD writing about lowbrow subjects." But nowadays I find it less engaging. I did enjoy the elegant trashing of Updike and the others. But I felt that cute little Tracy Austin should have been spared, as she is not and doesn't pretend to be a writer.
I think Wallace is a great writer, with an eye for exquisite detail and a penchant for witty observation. However, his writing is so densely erudite as to leave the reader (me - at least ) exhausted after wading through ten pages or so of prose -- and don't get me started on those fucking tiny font footnotes....
I don't know if I will read the other essays before the group meeting on the 25th, but I think I have enough to join the conversation and I always look forward to the usual excellent libations.
Dennis Noonan
Dennis. Thanks for this note.
ReplyDeleteYeah, for me it's really hit or miss too, for a lot of the same reasons you mentioned...."phd writing about low brow subjects" really does sum it up.
I think the NYTimes review by Jay McInerney of Infinite Jest gets to some of the ways that DFW was exciting, but also exhausting. http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/03/news/infinite-jest.html
I had mentioned to Bill previously that there were a lot of aspects in DFW that reminded me of JD Salinger's Glass family, and that DFW himself could have been an incarnation of Seymour Glass, who kills himself in Perfect Day For Bananafish. DFW has those same qualities Salinger adulated so much in his books: precociousness, spiritual curiosity, yet spiritual lostness, cynicism, hyper intellectualism....
At the same time, I do also feel that DFW is probably the best writer on the sentence level as we've seen in a very long time. Ironically, he interrupts his own beautiful prose flow far too often with his footnotes--I just end up ingoring them.
See you later.
Mark, I liked the NYT review, probably a lot more than I would have if I actually read the book. From my foray into CTL I already agree with , "...if Mr. Wallace were less talented, you would be inclined to shoot him -- or possibly yourself." Agree with your analysis that he is one of best writers we've seen but incapable of self editing. (I think Hemingway said every writer needs a well-honed "shit detector."). Salinger is ten times more readable. One thing I forgot to mention is that I am totally UNinterested in the writer's personal background when I read a work of prose. The work is either great or not, whether it was written by a room full of chimpanzees or a 12 year old girl or a bi-polar genius. I know a lot of readers like to know that info, but to me, biographical info is the realm of MFA candidates looking for a topic for their thesis. With the possible exception of Steven Hawking's work (which I also haven't read directly) I do not want to know how the sausage was made.
DeleteDear Dennis: does that put me in the category of MFA candidate looking for a thesis? Them's fighting words!!!!
DeleteJust kidding. For me it really does matter what kind of person the author is. I mean it's not the most important thing about the book, but the way I look at books is sort of like this: there's a person you're sitting down with and they're telling you a story. That person has certain points of view, certain views on life and people, and I'm curious to know why he has those views, or how he got to that way of thinking. The author's background is sometimes helpful here.
And I agree that Salinger is better: he's like David Foster Wallace, except he was able to edit himself. Both those guys have incredible sense for what reads well. With DFW, he just gets lost in his own tangents. Part of the job of a writer is to determine what's most important, and give that to us. And he seemed unable to judge that.
Thanks Dennis, I didn't realize you posted anything until Mark commented, so I need to check my alert status. Although they are longer essays, I enjoyed the McCain article and the discussion of word usage. Also, Mark and I had an offline discussion about the Dostoevsky review, which is shorter and worth reading because it speaks to some of the ongoing conversations we've had during our previous meetings. However, some of those points are highlighted in the New Yorker article I put out earlier. Lastly, Larry Rosen sent out this Youtube link https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IYGaXzJGVAQ to the DFW Kenyon College Commencement speech (This is Water) which was published several years ago.
ReplyDelete