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/lit/ - Literature

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16559832 No.16559832 [Reply] [Original]

What's your favorite DFW essay, /lit/?

>> No.16559960

>>16559832
Big Red Son

>> No.16559976

Consider the Lobster

>> No.16560145

The one about dictionaries

>> No.16560172

The one where he's super disappointed in that lady's tennis biography and concludes that of course it's awful, they're kind of meant to be.

>> No.16560198

>>16560172
That one was really good. His conclusion wasn't all that surprising but the buildup to it and the flow of it was really enjoyable. Listen to the audiobook version if you can.

>> No.16560465

>>16560172
this one is great. Also, the one about Federer.

>> No.16560485

>>16560145
This

>> No.16560490

I want to say it's the one about television because it made me read a few books about the cultural shift from the written word to visual mediums, but I gotta say The Cruse Ship was by far my favorite. It's the one I suggest to people when they ask where to start. It's funny, it's footnotes are on point, it's resulting message and themes about maximizing pleasure's reverse effect, it's all so fucking good.

>> No.16560491

Is there another author with good essay collections I should try next?

>> No.16560550

>>16559832
Is there a collection of these I can pick up?

>> No.16560559

>>16560550
Yeah, I think there are two collections.
Consider the lobster
A supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again.

>> No.16560755

>>16560172
I love this one, mostly because I'm pompous and like to think about athletes as just thinking in straight platitudes.

>> No.16560787

I think there's one in Both Flesh and Not where he analyzes certain words and talks about how they are always misused or something. I can't remember exactly, but I remember it being really interesting at the time. Wish he had written more stuff like it. I'll reread it soon enough.

>> No.16560848

Good old neon is great. I read it often. Almost memorized it now

>> No.16560875

>>16560848
I have not read that one yet but its title is very good. Something about the way DFW names things is crazy.

>> No.16562037

>>16559832
The one about usage was surprisingly engaging and interesting.

>>16560848
That's a short story, not an essay.

>> No.16563181

>>16560559
supposedly fun thing is so good
the titular story had me laughing out loud more than anything i've read before or since

>> No.16563193

>>16559832
I love his essay In Praise of À l'éloge de la chatte du public

>> No.16563285
File: 50 KB, 768x403, CC9361DA-F078-41A5-91DD-B5E5389610FE.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16563285

I remember reading about quite a lot of criticism concerning some of his essays, especially the dictionary one. The essay about Dostoevsky seems to be great, though, I enjoyed that one.

>> No.16563469

>>16559832
I started reading his essays thanks to you. I read 3 today and all 3 of them made me tear up. I did not know I could miss someone I never knew or met before.

>> No.16563476
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16563476

>>16563469
>How many times have I watched the interview? More times than I’d like to share. I once fell asleep to it every night for a week. It was just so calming and evoked a strange temporal comfort, of another time and place where I wasn’t so inundated with trivial information about the world or with ideological predispositions that made me care. You could tell he wanted to either not speak or talk on a point for hours, but the long form interview is the closest thing television got to real informational literature. It’s fantastic. The camera man is a jokester and the interviewer is callously attempting to be genuine only after he forces her to. Their play between preconstructed question and the accidental narrative arc he gives the whole thing is magical. In a twist of irony this interview has had more impact on me than most of his writing. I’ve read lots of his essays and enjoyed them. I’ve tried to read infinite jest twice, both times stopping somewhere between p100-200. His demeanor, his regretful and bashful intellect, it’s all things I wish I could see in myself. I want to be more secluded and smart, but I’m the loud, boisterous and obnoxious fellow at parties everyone either loves or despises. I’ve learned I don’t care much for that life but I’m too deep into my own life to really be able to rewrite my entire personality, and even if I could, wouldn’t it just be a false replication or simulation of who a person wanted to be. I think I’ll watch it to sleep tonight. These past few months have been rough, and DFW in that video is more a friend than any of my personal friendships and relationships have ever been. I hate, and I assume he would go, this idolizing, but I think he gets at it in the interview when he talks about how reading lets you get into the mind of a person more so than we ever will talking to them. I know this may be too sincere or honest for /lit/ and for the dfw meme, but life is just really hard these days. It’s nice to find nice things in the world.

>> No.16563487

>>16560559
Three. Those two plus both flesh and not.
There's also string theory, which collects the tennis ones, but there's nothing new, they were all published in the other three.

>> No.16563504

>>16563476
aaaaahhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

>> No.16564914

The one about the morning of 911 where he woke up and everyone suddenly had a flag

>> No.16565598

>>16563476
Nice.
>>16560172
This

>> No.16566153

>>16559832
The one about David Lynch that I read in PREMIERE while working in a video store in the 90s. The owner saw me reading and asked me if I didn't have enough work to do.

>> No.16566414

>>16559832
>>16560198
Thanks for helping me discover these, these are fantastic.

>> No.16566582

>>16559832
Was DFW a literary genius?

>> No.16566794

>>16566582
Undoubtedly

>> No.16566837

https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWAuthorityAndAmericanUsage2005.pdf The dictionary essay, if anyone’s curious

>> No.16567115

the depressed person counts as an essay amirite

>> No.16567129

The Lynch one about the making of Lost Highway was good, and the one about the ship as well

>> No.16567636

>>16566837
thanks

>> No.16567725

>>16563476
It is a fantastic interview, I've watched it a few times

>> No.16567850

>>16559832
Has anyone read his piece about free will and fatalism? 'lets suppose P = a boat disaster took place and P' = a boat disaster did not take place, now lets, for example, imagine Q = a horrible ship crash happens tomorrow and Q' = a horrible ship crash does not happen tomorrow. Now, lets, for the sake of argument, suppose that S = I read the headline of P, and S' = I read the headline of P'. Now..... lets imagine W = a deathly boating accident takes place in 3 weeks, and on the contrary, W' = a deathly boating accident does not take place. Finally, R = a military ship attacks a harbor ' Is this really necessary for advocating for fatalism? It seems like it would be simpler to explain in prose. Why does he love boats so much? Also, I'm sure its not Mr. Wallace's part, or just an introduction to the argument, but I would like to know if its worth reading.

>> No.16567863

His best writing:

dfw: I’ve had some unpleasant nicknaames and monikers in my time, but nobody’s ever hung “fosty” on me before.

Keats: You know, I still think it should be spelled Fostie, or Fostey.

Keats: Fosty looks too much like “Frosty” and “sty” to me.

Keats: And makes me think of eyeballs packed in ice.

dfw: “Sty” as in an impacted eyelash or a pigpen, you mean?

Keats: Yeah. Is that what a sty as in “sty in your eye” is?

Marisa: I used to think the word “sty” was pronounced “stee”.

Keats: I had no idea exactly, just an unpleasant feeling about it.

dfw: Yes. Massively painful and embarrassing, too. Like a carbuncle on the exact tip of your nose — that sort of thing.

Keats: I used to think the word “trough” was pronounced “troff.”

Keats: You know, I happen to have a carbuncle on the tip of my nose right now.

Keats: Except it’s not a carbuncle, it’s more like a welt. It’s still embarrassing.

dfw: In my very first seminar in college, I pronounced facade “fakade.” The memory’s still fresh and raw.

dfw: I don’t think irony’s meant to synergize with anything as heartfelt as sadness. I think the main function of contemporary irony is to protect the speaker from being interpreted as naive or sentimental.

Marisa: Why are people afraid to be seen as naive and sentimental?

dfw: Marisa: I think that’s a very deep, very hard question. One answer is that commercial comedy’s often set up to feature an ironist making devastating sport of someone who’s naive or sentimental or pretentious or pompous.

Keats: I’m starting to see a lot of irony in Hollywood and in advertising, but its function seems to be to let them talk out of both sides of their mouths.

dfw: Keats: advertising that makes fun of itself is so powerful because it implicitly congratulates both itself and the viewer (for making the joke and getting the joke, respectively).

Wallace also drops a few mentions of some of his favorite authors:

DaleK: Mr. Wallace, I’m curious…who among current novelists do you find the most interesting?

dfw: Dalek — DeLillo, Ozick, R. Powers, AM Homes, Denis Johnson, David Markson, (old) JA Phillips and Louise Erdrich.

>> No.16568001

>>16559832
Big Red Son is really funny. It's about DFW's experience going to a porn convention and attending "the porn oscars" as a journalist. It's really funny since he's really down to earth in it, but everything that's happening around him is anything but.

>> No.16568157

>>16566794
Respected critic Harold Bloom considered him a man of no talent.

>> No.16568267

>>16559960
This one, plus 'Up Simba'

>> No.16568785
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16568785

>>16563476

>tfw I have listened to the interview so many times especially when I'm stressed out

>> No.16568796

>>16568267
What’s up Simba?

>> No.16568867

>>16560172
>>16560198
this one is my favourite one too. having spent some time when i was younger in high-level competition of some sort, this essay helped me understand genius in a very real way. another reason to love this essay is how it points towards the non-verbal as eventual ending point for literature, very much in line with his previous work (broom of the system, wittgenstein-esque ideas etc.) and helps you enjoy the tennis parts of IJ more.

it's called How Tracy Austin Broke my Heart, by the way, and here's the link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7BYK0hZibk

>> No.16568872

>>16568157
Harold Bloom was an obvious midwit

>> No.16568885

>>16568267
Reading this in 2020 is so fucking weird. I remember re reading it too when mccain had that big lump on his head and it was a wonderfully weird experience then too.

>>16568796
Not much how about you

>> No.16568956

I've really enjoyed reading the essays recommended here, what DFW stuff should I read next? I'm torn between reading his original essay about free will or just going to broom of the system

>> No.16570571

>>16568956
free will paper is a meme, read BotS. it's reasonably heady and a hell of a lot more fun

>> No.16570611

>>16570571
Idk bro, I enjoy his non-fiction stuff a lot

>> No.16570670

>>16570611
his free will paper was published posthumously as a cash grab. his nonfiction was written for an audience of readers, that paper was a graduation assignment. i would encourage you to read both (i have), but if you only have time for one, BotS is probably the better use of your time, and more in line with his body of work.

>> No.16571231

>>16568157
"Respected critic" is an oxymoron.

>> No.16571968

>>16560145
This essay was so good

>> No.16572526

>>16559832

His obituary.

>> No.16573190

>>16563181
I think I laughed harder at parts of IJ than any of his nonfiction, but I'll give you that that this essay is laugh-out-loud funny. The part where he goes on at length about leaving his room and coming back at various timed intervals to try and catch the cleaning lady (Petra?) in the act of cleaning his room made me bust a gut so hard that I had to set the book down.