I just read the first essay in Foster Wallace's new book "Consider the Lobster." In this essay he details his experiences when covering the AVN awards for Premier magazine. Very, Very funny. I haven't read much of the fiction, though "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" is more then enough to warrant a Not Crap.

I've only read his first novel The Broom of the System. It is awful, but I could not put it down and finished the whole thing. There's merit in that, but I still vote Crap.

Wallace is the kind of pop culture phenom I was born to hate, but his essays on the Illinois State Fair and taking a cruise (both in A supposedly Fun Thing...) are hilarious, and Infinite Jest is just a really smart, funny book.

Based on these two books, I gotta give him a "not crap."

SO NOT CRAP. VERY, VERY, VERY FAR FROM CRAP.

First I will say that I didn't much care for Broom of the System or Oblivion, and apparently some of the math in Everything and More is faulty or at least very questionable (of course I myself have no idea whatsoever as to its accuracy, and have to take the word of math-savvy reviewers on this point). Also, in the late 80's he coauthored a book on rap music called Signifying Rappers, which I haven't read; I gather that DFW now regards it as not very good.

STILL. My copy of Infinite Jest is ragged and stained and falling apart -- god DAMN do I love that book. Also Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and the newest essay collection Consider the Lobster: all FUCKING GREAT. I had just gotten that last one a couple months ago when I came across a topic on the General Discussion forum entitled "Your Very Favorite Person" or something like that, and I had to put DFW. I expect he will be regarded in the future as one of the greatest American writers. I so fucking wish I could take his class at Pomona. And I demand another, even more bizarre and painful and funny, Infinite Jest-sized novel from the man, STAT.

Also he is not unattractive, for a wordy neurotic motherfucker. I hear he got married recently. Alas. (As if.)

P.S. "True story. As an undergraduate, my friend took a creative writing course from David Foster Wallace at Illinois State University. On the first assignment he turned in, Wallace wrote, “I swear to God if you ever turn in a piece of shit like this to me again I will flunk your ass. I shit you not.” The meaning of this anecdote is open to interpretation, but to me it suggests several things about Wallace's way of relating to others." -- from bookslut.com. Actually, what that suggests to me is that that is my kind of English professor. SALUT!

ctrl-s wrote:P.S. "True story. As an undergraduate, my friend took a creative writing course from David Foster Wallace at Illinois State University. On the first assignment he turned in, Wallace wrote, “I swear to God if you ever turn in a piece of shit like this to me again I will flunk your ass. I shit you not.” The meaning of this anecdote is open to interpretation, but to me it suggests several things about Wallace's way of relating to others." -- from bookslut.com. Actually, what that suggests to me is that that is my kind of English professor. SALUT!

I know a couple chill-the-shit-of-creative-writing-student stories. The first I witnessed first hand. The second I only heard about.

On the first day of workshop, I and a bunch of my grad school classmates awaited our instructor, James Tate, who had just recently won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. After he bumbled into class, late, to begin this first day of workshop, Jim, disheveled and quite possibly hung over, lsat down, looked around the room at our eager faces, sighed heavily, and said, "I'm so tired of what you feel."

Allegedly, Philip Levine once critiqued a poem submitted for workshop thusly. After the student read his (or her) poem aloud to the class, Levine held up the page it was printed on. He said, "This poem...," displaying to the class the blank backside of the poem, "is better than this poem," turning it around to show them the poem they'd just heard.

That Philip Levine anecdote, if true, is an example of utter flaming asshattery. Humiliating a student in front of their classmates after they'd read their own poem? Without knowing anything more about the situation, it just sounds pointlessly malicious. The Tate one, on the other hand, sounds like a total cliche -- precisely what one would expect from a highly regarded older male writer teaching MFA students. Yet I can find nothing but total kick-ass-ness and charm in Wallace's comment. If a writing instructor I respected had EVER had the guts to tell me something that harsh, privately, in plain language, without making it into a gross little public performance of "curmudgeonliness" / spectacle of cruelty, I would've fucking thanked them for it. I wonder, too, 1) what the recipient of that written comment was like to have as a student, 2) what the piece that he turned in was like, and 3) if there were further written comments beyond those two quoted sentences. In any case I empathize strongly with experiencing violent negative reactions to extremely bad writing, lacking diplomacy on occasion (especially in moments of aesthetic horror), and having a tendency to express oneself a tiny bit more forcefully in writing than is necessary. (Fortunately I am not a teacher and do not have to worry about the possible effects of these traits on young people in my scholarly charge.) And, to be honest, I probably like Wallace's comment partly just because it's by far the bluntest, harshest single remark I've ever read or heard of him making about anything; from all available evidence he seems not a particularly spiteful person at all, if somewhat fucked up. ...Before anyone suggests that I might have drunk some scary DFW-brand kool-aid, though: if credible accounts of Wallace pulling Levine-anecdote-style-and-level bullshit on students were ever to surface, I would be surprised and bummed out but I don't think I would try to find excuses for it.

Infinite Jest was the first thing of his that I read. It was a very fun book to read, and with it, he created a world that I'll probably not forget. NC for the Eschaton alone. His essays tend to be very good, as well.

The Eschaton! What a piece of work! The MILABBREVs! The propeller beanie signifying Utter Global Crisis! Michael Pemulis jumping up and down so hard that his hat bounces on his head a little bit!

But I think my favorite set piece might be later in the book, when Hal goes by mistake to a New Age men's support group at Quabbin Recovery Systems; either that or the NA meeting where Ken Erdedy has to deal with hugging a very intimidating fellow addict. Or maybe it's when Gately gets shot. GOD! So much amazingness in one (huge-ass, copiously footnoted, diabolically complex) book! Dude can write his fucking ass off. That is all.

Only read 'Infinite Jest' which was certainly NOT CRAP.

phenomenally not crap, even though i often need two bookmarks and some thinking time. one of my favorites.