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Fiction. Literature. Humor (Fiction.) HTML:In this thought-provoking and playful short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the boundaries of fiction with inimitable wit and seductive intelligence. Wallace's stories present a world where the bizarre and the banal are interwoven and where hideous men appear in many guises. Among the stories are 'The Depressed Person,' a dazzling and blackly humorous portrayal of a woman's mental state; 'Adult World,' which reveals a woman's agonized consideration of her confusing sexual relationship with her husband; and 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,' a dark, hilarious series of imagined interviews with men on the subject of their relations with women. Wallace delights in leftfield observation, mining the absurd, the surprising, and the illuminating from every situation. This collection will enthrall DFW fans, and provides a perfect introduction for new readers..… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member oddbooks
I wanted to love this book. I wanted to love David Foster Wallace. I bought this book after I had a dream. I dreamt of a strong-jawed man with long hair and later, when I saw the tail end of the movie based on this book, I Googled "David Foster Wallace" and realized he was the man I had dreamed
It wasn't and I feel sort of odd that I didn't love this book from a literary icon.
It had its moments. "The Depressed Person" for me was the best story in this collection. I think it was the best story for me because, as a completely depressed person who feels a particularly deep horror about testing people with the depths of my loathing self-involvement, it resonated a bit closely. Despite the fact that this story has a long, droning quality, it suited the sort of long, droning quality of persistent, intractable depression.
"Octet" was too meta, too... something. It seemed too self-conscious, forcing me to engage with the writer when I just wanted to engage with the story. I felt like a meta-brick was thrown at my face as I read it.
The first few stories with the hideous men flowed well. But then we got to the later interviews with hideous men and the droned on, piling on when brevity would have made the point even better. I got lost at times, wondering if the men were really hideous, if they were, in some sense, just lost because the narrative was lost, meandering.
Take this sentence, for example: "The fact that the Inward Bound never consider that it's the probity and thrift of the re-- to occur to them that they themselves have themselves become the distillate of everything about the culture they deride and define themselves as opposing, the narcissism, the materialism and complacency and unexamined conformity -- nor the irony that they blithe teleology of this quote impending New Age is exactly the same cultural permission-slip that Manifest Destiny was, or the Reich or the dialectic of the proletariat or the Cultural Revolution -- all the same."
I fancy that I have enough intelligence that if I have to read a sentence more than three times then there is something going on that is deliberately distracting from clear meaning, that perhaps a clear meaning is not what is needed here and while I understand this style of writing in a manner that defies basic understanding appeals to people who find meaning in a disjointed narrative, I am not one of those people.
It feels bad to want to love a book and not be able to do it.
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about. So because I am sort of daft, I felt this was a sign.It wasn't and I feel sort of odd that I didn't love this book from a literary icon.
It had its moments. "The Depressed Person" for me was the best story in this collection. I think it was the best story for me because, as a completely depressed person who feels a particularly deep horror about testing people with the depths of my loathing self-involvement, it resonated a bit closely. Despite the fact that this story has a long, droning quality, it suited the sort of long, droning quality of persistent, intractable depression.
"Octet" was too meta, too... something. It seemed too self-conscious, forcing me to engage with the writer when I just wanted to engage with the story. I felt like a meta-brick was thrown at my face as I read it.
The first few stories with the hideous men flowed well. But then we got to the later interviews with hideous men and the droned on, piling on when brevity would have made the point even better. I got lost at times, wondering if the men were really hideous, if they were, in some sense, just lost because the narrative was lost, meandering.
Take this sentence, for example: "The fact that the Inward Bound never consider that it's the probity and thrift of the re-- to occur to them that they themselves have themselves become the distillate of everything about the culture they deride and define themselves as opposing, the narcissism, the materialism and complacency and unexamined conformity -- nor the irony that they blithe teleology of this quote impending New Age is exactly the same cultural permission-slip that Manifest Destiny was, or the Reich or the dialectic of the proletariat or the Cultural Revolution -- all the same."
I fancy that I have enough intelligence that if I have to read a sentence more than three times then there is something going on that is deliberately distracting from clear meaning, that perhaps a clear meaning is not what is needed here and while I understand this style of writing in a manner that defies basic understanding appeals to people who find meaning in a disjointed narrative, I am not one of those people.
It feels bad to want to love a book and not be able to do it.
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LibraryThing member hemlokgang
I have rarely, if ever, encountered a writer who demonstrates such creative, brilliant use of language as David Foster Wallace! He ranks with Nabokov in my opinion! This is not so much a collection of stories as a collection of notions, ideas, and vignettes. Difficult to read, because the reader
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must read every word and take time to savor it. No skimming allowed here! Show Less
LibraryThing member nog
A not terribly successful experiment at postmodern ficton. There are really not stories being told in some cases, and even those that qualify are basically narration describing action or thought. I thought it was disappointing overall, although 'The Depressed Person' might allow the reader to
I enjoyed 'Infinite Jest' and Wallace's essays, so I was rather surprised that this one fell flat with me.
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speculate how Wallace's own depression might have informed the story. I found the 'Hideous Men' sections tedious.I enjoyed 'Infinite Jest' and Wallace's essays, so I was rather surprised that this one fell flat with me.
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LibraryThing member lmichet
I just finished reading Breif Interviews With Hideous Men. This book is some kind of a literary masterpiece yeah. I just didn’t enjoy reading it that much.
I understand what this book is supposed to be, and it’s very eye-opening to note what he is doing/trying to do/succeeding to do in any one
The big thing is this: yes, it is clever to be all sorts of postmodern, and yes, those who can pull it off well are all geniuses and deserve much praise– and DFW can pull it off well, frequently– but this is still not the kind of thing that books were invented for. They’re not enjoyable as short stories. I don’t care if they are a ‘delight’ and a ‘harassment of the short story form’. I am not going to want to read short stories if the writer of the short stories wrote them in order to harass me. In the same way, though I would credit laudable creativity to an artist whose form of sculpture involved filling a room with knives, I would not particularly enjoy being in that room, and would instead feel a degree of tension of be a little bit upset.
The only one of these stories I actually enjoyed was ‘Forever Overhead,’ a brilliant piece about a boy on a high-dive. I think it is stunning. Other sections– the first of the ‘Hideous Men’ sections, for instance, or ‘Church Not Made With Hands’, a story about a young family in a tragic situation– are wonderful also, but are, in the case of the first, not as easy to enjoy, or, in the case of the second, so buried into the abrasive unpleasantness of the rest of this excellently-written book that by the time the reader gets to it he or she is simply too mentally exhausted to even recognize that this story is well-done and pleasant instead of abrasive. Putting the book down does not help– remembering prior sections can so trouble or bore that reading onward simply becomes as unpleasant as they were, regardless of whether or not the bit you are actually reading is itself unpleasant. The writing gets to be its least-bearable when he starts to write totally ironically about how stupid it is to always be totally ironic. I don’t know if it’s possible to sarcastically criticise sarcasm without sounding like a jerk, even if you ARE DFW.
The fact is this: when DFW wants to make you experience, as in ‘The Depressed Person,’ what it is like to enter the mind of a severely depressed person, he does it in such a way and with such accuracy and force that there is practically no room for the reader to reflect. That’s how genuine it gets. It is the same, though less so, with the bit about an honored playwright’s father who, on his death bed, insists on going on and on a bout how much he hates his talented son. DFW simply presents these relentless neverending trauma-filled paragraphs one after another as if he is pounding the reader’s head with a bloody brick, and the reader must shout ‘God, this is spectacular, DFW! Now please get the brick out of my eye!’ The question we should all be asking is NOT ‘Is this good?‘ The question should be, ‘Am I having a good time reading this?‘ It is a totally inescapable fact that wholly unpleasant things are rarely saved for posterity. Even upsetting or pathologically-focused books, like Crime and Punishment, are saved because there is something accessible or somehow pleasant about the reading experience that makes at least some of us refrain from hurling it out of a window. There is barely any such redeeming factor here.
So. DFW is some kind of literary god. But it is now perfectly self-evident to me why more writers are not running around trying to be as horrifically postmodern as he was. It is soul-crushingly unhappy to be so postmodern. I do not mean to be crass, but these stories make it clear that DFW understands human agony and disgrace and depression. And he killed himself. So, I say this: it is okay not to like this book. Read it and perhpas admire it, but it is okay to dislike it. The reason you dislike it so much is that you have understood what DFW was trying to do. And the thing he was trying to do was not to write an accessible, edifying book, but to conduct ‘a harassment of the short story form,’ which is the opposite of what short stories are for. One does not go around trying to become a successful baker by baking breads which are a harassment of the mouth. There is a reason for this.
I understand what this book is supposed to be, and it’s very eye-opening to note what he is doing/trying to do/succeeding to do in any one
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of these stories, but it is simply not enjoyable to read. It is rather like– as a child does in one of the earlier stories in this book, the only story I enjoyed– finding yourself forced to leap off of a high-dive. Post-leap, there are several different ways to consider yourself as having grown somehow, but during the dive it is not at all entertaining. You may find yourself feeling harassed, terrified, bored, or any other of a number of unpleasant emotions, and when you are finished you will cry GOD I AM GLAD THAT IS OVER and you will go on living some kind of expanded life and cease to think much about said high-dive UNLESS you are one of those people who find themselves compelled constantly to do unpleasant things and therefore suddenly find yourself compelled, through this unpleasant childhood experience most other people are busy forgetting, to become a world-class high-dive leaper. The big thing is this: yes, it is clever to be all sorts of postmodern, and yes, those who can pull it off well are all geniuses and deserve much praise– and DFW can pull it off well, frequently– but this is still not the kind of thing that books were invented for. They’re not enjoyable as short stories. I don’t care if they are a ‘delight’ and a ‘harassment of the short story form’. I am not going to want to read short stories if the writer of the short stories wrote them in order to harass me. In the same way, though I would credit laudable creativity to an artist whose form of sculpture involved filling a room with knives, I would not particularly enjoy being in that room, and would instead feel a degree of tension of be a little bit upset.
The only one of these stories I actually enjoyed was ‘Forever Overhead,’ a brilliant piece about a boy on a high-dive. I think it is stunning. Other sections– the first of the ‘Hideous Men’ sections, for instance, or ‘Church Not Made With Hands’, a story about a young family in a tragic situation– are wonderful also, but are, in the case of the first, not as easy to enjoy, or, in the case of the second, so buried into the abrasive unpleasantness of the rest of this excellently-written book that by the time the reader gets to it he or she is simply too mentally exhausted to even recognize that this story is well-done and pleasant instead of abrasive. Putting the book down does not help– remembering prior sections can so trouble or bore that reading onward simply becomes as unpleasant as they were, regardless of whether or not the bit you are actually reading is itself unpleasant. The writing gets to be its least-bearable when he starts to write totally ironically about how stupid it is to always be totally ironic. I don’t know if it’s possible to sarcastically criticise sarcasm without sounding like a jerk, even if you ARE DFW.
The fact is this: when DFW wants to make you experience, as in ‘The Depressed Person,’ what it is like to enter the mind of a severely depressed person, he does it in such a way and with such accuracy and force that there is practically no room for the reader to reflect. That’s how genuine it gets. It is the same, though less so, with the bit about an honored playwright’s father who, on his death bed, insists on going on and on a bout how much he hates his talented son. DFW simply presents these relentless neverending trauma-filled paragraphs one after another as if he is pounding the reader’s head with a bloody brick, and the reader must shout ‘God, this is spectacular, DFW! Now please get the brick out of my eye!’ The question we should all be asking is NOT ‘Is this good?‘ The question should be, ‘Am I having a good time reading this?‘ It is a totally inescapable fact that wholly unpleasant things are rarely saved for posterity. Even upsetting or pathologically-focused books, like Crime and Punishment, are saved because there is something accessible or somehow pleasant about the reading experience that makes at least some of us refrain from hurling it out of a window. There is barely any such redeeming factor here.
So. DFW is some kind of literary god. But it is now perfectly self-evident to me why more writers are not running around trying to be as horrifically postmodern as he was. It is soul-crushingly unhappy to be so postmodern. I do not mean to be crass, but these stories make it clear that DFW understands human agony and disgrace and depression. And he killed himself. So, I say this: it is okay not to like this book. Read it and perhpas admire it, but it is okay to dislike it. The reason you dislike it so much is that you have understood what DFW was trying to do. And the thing he was trying to do was not to write an accessible, edifying book, but to conduct ‘a harassment of the short story form,’ which is the opposite of what short stories are for. One does not go around trying to become a successful baker by baking breads which are a harassment of the mouth. There is a reason for this.
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LibraryThing member Sean191
This was the first book I've read from David Foster Wallace. I had purchased it over a year ago and unfortunately, didn't get to reading it until I was reminded I had it upon reading of his death. Overall, I can understand why he was considered a writer to watch. But, perhaps based on his suicide,
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I had a bias reading these stories. Especially the one specifically dealing with suicide. I began to wonder if his writing at least in this particular instance wasn't so much a creative fiction as something that he was mentally trying to unburden himself with. Show Less
LibraryThing member hendy
Hated this book, didn't read past the first 20 pages. I think you would have to be a real literary genius to appreaciate and enjoy this form of literature. I'm a well educated woman who enjoys reading and I just did not get it. It didn't flow, didn't make sense, and you spend more time analyzing
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what the author is getting at or what he's trying to convey more than just enjoying it. Show Less
LibraryThing member kevinspoelma
Beautiful. Important. Perhaps necessary. But above all - painful.
LibraryThing member kirstiecat
This book has some priceless oddities and interviews from many men who are willing to divulge all things fantastical that have to do with psychosexual but it also deals with women too and there are two incredibly long passages where the woman is the main character. In one, she is the 'the depressed
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person' and it is easy to get lost in the tediousness of this. In another, she is a hippie who is telling her story to a man who went in thinking just another one night stand. The story ends up being an incredibly intense account of her being picked up as a hitchhiker and being raped with the intention of murder thereafter. Another rather long one is the account of an old dying man who detests his own child. So, in some ways, interviews is sort of misleading...the interviews are interspersed with stories and pop quizzes regarding morality making this a hodge podge. Some of the stories are redundant and could have used some editing...some of the asides become overwhelming and take away from the main story. Otherwise, a very worthwhile read. Show Less
LibraryThing member rdaneel
A wonderful collection of short stories, and quite subtle. Contains the only story I have ever read whose point is actually to bore the reader :-)
LibraryThing member DRFP
The more I read of David Foster Wallace's output the more it seems like his short stories exist as a playground for him to show off. Their are plenty of textual tricks on show in this collection and while that's admirable it's also alienating. Wallace talked up the idea of a "new sincerity" but
In his novels DFW's desire to make a scene of his smarts is either reigned in by his editor or feels less invasive amidst the surrounding text. Likewise, one suspects his non-fiction is extremely readable because either Wallace or the magazine editor employing him deliberately craft his pieces in order to appeal to a relatively wide audience. Oblivion, which I haven't read yet, looks an interesting case - with its lack of footnotes (from what I've seen flicking through it) it perhaps indicates a more mature short story style from DFW, where he feels less of a need to display his bag of tricks. Wallace's early short story collections really aren't the place to see the best of him.
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these stories fly in the face of such words. The stylistic pyrotechnics are bold and smart and for that DFW is to be applauded; that doesn't make them stories that are easy to become emotionally invested in and that is my problem with this collection. There are probably only two stories in the book that I like and it's no coincidence that they are among the very shortest in the collection. Even a potentially very poignant and personal story like The Depressed Person is so overwritten that it becomes tedious and funny in ways that I'm not sure it's supposed to.In his novels DFW's desire to make a scene of his smarts is either reigned in by his editor or feels less invasive amidst the surrounding text. Likewise, one suspects his non-fiction is extremely readable because either Wallace or the magazine editor employing him deliberately craft his pieces in order to appeal to a relatively wide audience. Oblivion, which I haven't read yet, looks an interesting case - with its lack of footnotes (from what I've seen flicking through it) it perhaps indicates a more mature short story style from DFW, where he feels less of a need to display his bag of tricks. Wallace's early short story collections really aren't the place to see the best of him.
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LibraryThing member amydross
I read this because I enjoyed the stories in Oblivion so much, but I'm sorry to say I didn't think nearly as much of this collection. So many of the main characters -- especially in the longer stories -- are whiney and self-obsessed, and obsessed with their self-obsession, and whinily apologetic
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about their whineyness, that it's hard to spend so much time with them. I didn't actually find much that I would call "postmodern" about this work. There's a level of playfulness in the text, but then the content undercuts it with so much self-seriousness. Some of the shorter stories, or the "brief interviews" of the title, were more interesting. Show Less
LibraryThing member roblong
You don't read much like this - every story is an experiment in style and overflowing with brilliantly marshalled ideas. It doesn't always work - one story, written in Clockwork Orange-esque language didn't work for me at all - but most of the time it does and it is always challenging and
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surprising, and often very funny. One story in particular, 'The Depressed Person', goes straight into my personal list of favourite short stories. Show Less
LibraryThing member trinibaby9
This had a lot of what one expects when reading works by David Foster Wallace. It was complex, original, saturated, rambling, puzzling and overwhelming at times. Underlying all of those things is an air of genius. The man was a master at his craft, his writing is unlike anyone else's. The way he
Praise for the man and his writing style aside this book was great for me on some levels and terrible on others. I have to say much of this was rather dark, but then I guess that's what should be expected considering the title. Much of it is strange and more than a little twisted, he's definitely giving us a glimpse of the dark and depraved side of humanity. Most of the stories revolved around sex, relationships and depression. At times I was fascinated and thought he'd hit the nail on the head, really made me think about things, and exposed the subject matter in a profound new light. At other times I was just completely put off and though what kind of mind thinks these things, let alone writes them. Some of the vulgarity and shock seemed unnecessary, but in the end it all adds to the over all work. This is definitely not as good as Jest, and I think in part it's because we are dealing with short stories or glimpses, as he calls them. I think DFWs work needs to breathe and be spread out a bit more in order to really work. A great if perplexing read, but definitely not light reading.
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fills a sentence with such detail, is amazing. At times it almost feels as if the words are falling over themselves, trying to get out and be heard. Praise for the man and his writing style aside this book was great for me on some levels and terrible on others. I have to say much of this was rather dark, but then I guess that's what should be expected considering the title. Much of it is strange and more than a little twisted, he's definitely giving us a glimpse of the dark and depraved side of humanity. Most of the stories revolved around sex, relationships and depression. At times I was fascinated and thought he'd hit the nail on the head, really made me think about things, and exposed the subject matter in a profound new light. At other times I was just completely put off and though what kind of mind thinks these things, let alone writes them. Some of the vulgarity and shock seemed unnecessary, but in the end it all adds to the over all work. This is definitely not as good as Jest, and I think in part it's because we are dealing with short stories or glimpses, as he calls them. I think DFWs work needs to breathe and be spread out a bit more in order to really work. A great if perplexing read, but definitely not light reading.
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LibraryThing member loafhunter13
Some of the 23 stories in Wallace's bold, uneven, bitterly satirical second collection seem bound for best-of-the-year anthologies; a few others will leave even devoted Wallace fans befuddled. The rest of the stories fall between perplexing and brilliant, but what is most striking about this volume
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as a whole are the gloomy moral obsessions at the heart of Wallace's new work. Like his recent essays, these stories (many of which have been serialized in Harper's, Esquire and the Paris Review) are largely an attack on the sexual heroics of mainstream postwar fiction, an almost religious attempt to rescue (when not exposing as a fraud) the idea of romantic love. In the "interviews," that make up the title story, one man after another--speaking to a woman whose voice we never hear--reveals the pathetic creepiness of his romantic conquests and fantasies. These hideous men aren't the collection's only monsters of isolation. In "Adult World," Wallace writes of a young wife obsessed with fears that her husband is secretly, compulsively masturbating; in "The Depressed Person," one of Wallace's (rare) female narcissists whines that she is a "solipsistic, self-consumed, endless emotional vacuum"--this, to a dying friend. Yet these stories, at their best, show an erotic savagery and intellectual depth that will confound, fascinate and disturb the most unsuspecting reader as well as devoted fans of this talented writer. The review states it all. It is a moving book overall and Wallace wit and love of language is on display. The message and impact of the understandable stories are immense, provoking further introspection and thought. A portion of the stories are impenetrable, their purpose and direction completely unknown. Maybe hardcore fans would be better equipped to analyze the book as a whole. It was enjoyed and lamented, alternating with my ability to grasp the individual stories direction. It is uneven at times but unlike anything else out there that suffers from that descriptor, enjoyable. Show Less
LibraryThing member moonimal
I'm working through Wallace's 'Infinite Jest', which I like quite a lot, and since I'm on a short story kick, I decided to pick this up.
The first story is 79 words long, so it's easy to get into the collection.
I like Wallace's writing in the novel form, but the short stories didn't do it for me.
I
The first story is 79 words long, so it's easy to get into the collection.
I like Wallace's writing in the novel form, but the short stories didn't do it for me.
I
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would like to revisit this, after I've read a lot more short stories, and could better evaluate his short story works. Show Less
LibraryThing member ben_a
Bought after reading Wallace's commencement speech at Kenyon, and his splendid demolition of the standard Updike narrator "he persists in the bizarre adolescent idea that getting to have sex with whomever one wants whenever one wants is a cure for ontological despair. ... it never once occurs to
So I came to this book predisposed to like it, and the author. And while it had moments -- some of the men are quite compelling in their hideousness -- I never felt hooked, or believed the characters, or felt emotional content. I ended up half reading half skimming.
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him that the reason he's so unhappy is that he's an *ssh*l*."So I came to this book predisposed to like it, and the author. And while it had moments -- some of the men are quite compelling in their hideousness -- I never felt hooked, or believed the characters, or felt emotional content. I ended up half reading half skimming.
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LibraryThing member alexrichman
Excellent in parts, with the interviews, footnotes and predictions of future techno-sexuality borrowing heavily from Infinite Jest. The more experimental passages were just too much for me - but when he's in full flow, Foster Wallace is peerless.
LibraryThing member RajivC
This book by David Foster Wallace is spotty. Some essays are excellent and portray tortured relationships, personalities and society. Others are long-winded without a clear direction and meander.
I may attempt to reread the book after a few years.
I may attempt to reread the book after a few years.
LibraryThing member JeffV
With one exception, "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" aren't really interviews at all. More like depositions, or in some cases, one-sided conversations as if observing someone talking on the phone; it is never the less a hallmark DFW book, meaning lots of literary voyeurism. Sometimes we get in
David Foster Wallace was a master at making mundane people interesting, finding a story where most would find none. This book is a lot of little such stories. It is inconsistent, however; some worked, many did not. The array of readers on the audiobook is almost worth the effort of listening.
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depth stories about how characters feel -- mostly about relationships, or attempted relationships. Some of these hideous men have serious, physical handicaps that can make realization of their dreams difficult at best. Some of these are funny, some are disturbing, and some are downright uncomfortably hostile. The unfortunate guy with a "flipper" for an arm was amusing in a pathetic sort of way, while the long story about another guy's sexual acquaintance getting raped by a psychopath was very much on the disturbing end.David Foster Wallace was a master at making mundane people interesting, finding a story where most would find none. This book is a lot of little such stories. It is inconsistent, however; some worked, many did not. The array of readers on the audiobook is almost worth the effort of listening.
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LibraryThing member cattylj
Read this. Now. And if you can't read it, listen to it as an audio book. That's what I did (read by the man himself). Unbelievable. If you go the audio book route - you may just end up sitting in your parked car for 45 minutes unable to tear yourself away before the story's over.
LibraryThing member datrappert
Wallace's focus on minutia is somewhat impressive at first, but after a while it just becomes annoying. It is filled with men talking nonsense, full of academic jargon worthy of the son of professors and a professor himself. There is an obsession with abuse and rape--Wallace himself was apparently
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quite abusive in his personal relationships. Frankly, this is pure drivel--basically literary masturbation. But if these are the things that were going through the author's head every day, it is no surprise he took his own life. Giving this a half star, so no one thinks I forgot to rate it. It deserves zero stars. Show Less
LibraryThing member modioperandi
A thoroughly disturbing collection of short stories. A dive into the point-of-view of troubled mostly dangerous people. Some stories are not that and the ones that are not in the interview form are, in places, too few, and those are quite good. In sentences within the interview-stories are portions
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and that are illuminating and beautifully written. Mostly, for this reader, an unsatisfying read. Other writers who explore messy troubled even dangerous people do not dive and dig and inhabit the dangerous messy thoughts and internal/external dialogue that Wallace takes lengths to inhabit. The writing is good. Good enough to pull a resistant and unwilling reader along through a unpleasant reading experience. I was not wild about this book at all. I would never reread it. Having read it - and actually highlighted a few portions - I would not recommend. Especially now in 2021 the entire project of this collection seems entirely not-worthwhile. Show Less
LibraryThing member KRaySaulis
Did you know David Foster Wallace wrote about you? He wrote about me, too. Don't worry, I didn't know it either. But he wrote about me all through this book. The parts of myself that I hide, the features I don't want. Even some things that aren't about me but I fear others think might be. Sometimes
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it was too much, too revealing. Other times it was refreshing, comforting... Perhaps even a relief. Go ahead, find some relief in this book. You'll find yourself somewhere in it. Examine your flaws and maybe you can learn to be okay with them. Show Less
LibraryThing member billycongo
Like most books with collections of stories, these are very uneven in terms of quality. The title stories are quite good, and I would also recommend the movie.
LibraryThing member stillatim
My favorite DFW fiction so far, though that only includes IJ and Girl With Curious Hair. This collection has a much better balance between stories I just want to read, and stories I only want to write criticism about, and (best of all) stories that make me want to do both. GWCH had too many
That said, there are some truly awful pieces here. I approve of experimentation, strongly approve, but sometimes experiments fail, and even if you can get them accepted by a journal, you shouldn't publish them in books. You'll know which ones they are. They can be skipped entirely.
One that you shouldn't skip, failed though it is, is 'Octet.' DFW tries to write a piece comprising eight pieces, fails, and then writes a kind of essay-fiction about why he failed and what he wanted to do. It's interesting and moving, unlike the fiction it's describing, and it's nice to see the author just say what he wishes his work would do. Compare 'Adult World,' which comes in halves: the first is okay. The second is a set of notes and drafts for how the story could have been completed. That's not interesting.
The showpieces, of course, are the brief (and sometimes not brief) interviews, and you can't imagine a better, more pitiless skewering of men. God, we are horrible, horrible creatures, and the interviews make it clear that fixing our horribleness is going to be very, very difficult.
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criticism-only pieces. IJ... I mean, the more I think about it, the more I think it's a tragic failure. Nothing wrong with that. That said, there are some truly awful pieces here. I approve of experimentation, strongly approve, but sometimes experiments fail, and even if you can get them accepted by a journal, you shouldn't publish them in books. You'll know which ones they are. They can be skipped entirely.
One that you shouldn't skip, failed though it is, is 'Octet.' DFW tries to write a piece comprising eight pieces, fails, and then writes a kind of essay-fiction about why he failed and what he wanted to do. It's interesting and moving, unlike the fiction it's describing, and it's nice to see the author just say what he wishes his work would do. Compare 'Adult World,' which comes in halves: the first is okay. The second is a set of notes and drafts for how the story could have been completed. That's not interesting.
The showpieces, of course, are the brief (and sometimes not brief) interviews, and you can't imagine a better, more pitiless skewering of men. God, we are horrible, horrible creatures, and the interviews make it clear that fixing our horribleness is going to be very, very difficult.
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Awards
Aga Khan Prize for Fiction (1997)
Original publication date
1999
ISBN
8806154672 / 9788806154677