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General Updates
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Wednesday, 21 September 2011 |
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[...] But let us return to Newton's appropriation of Wallace. Her correlation that Wallace's impresario-as-wandering-dude tone in his non-fiction is responsible for a new kind of online and blogging lethargy -- too many watery qualifiers, e.g. "really really," too-self-consciously conversational intros, e.g. "oh, hi" -- is first made possible through a sequence of intentional flattenings. For example, to present Wallace as a 'stoned slacker' (to use Bill O'Reilly's terminology), at even the linguistic level, is a misreading. One does not craft a 1,100 page tome in the form of an arcane mathematical structure (in this case a Sierpinski Gasket or, as Wallace describes it, a sort of "pyramid on acid") by happenstance. Further, Newton's assumption that Wallace is the sole practitioner of the artful defusion of 'high brow' pretension by 'street slang' is an overstatement -- recall Joyce's exhausting of the entire practice in his "Oxen of the Sun" episode of Ulysses where the whole history of the English language is satirized, equally, from its inception to his contemporary cockney. The overall point missing is how Wallace mastered the art of bridging academic sophistry with the innately human: e.g. combining a Wittgensteinian notion of addiction not existing beyond an addict's ability to articulate it with the more immediate philosophy of gotta-have-nonpresent-drugz-in-an-ever-fuckuppable-intensity. He was, as appears to be the too-obvious definition that seems to cow reviewers by its obviousness, the true crafter of a postmodern 'sincerity' -- a seemingly impossible task in the wake of Pynchon and the psychosexual slapstick of characters like "Oedipa Maas" and "Tyrone Slothrop."Continue reading Footnoting David Foster Wallace: Part 1.
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DFW Archive
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Tuesday, 20 September 2011 |
There is some new David Foster Wallace material over at the Harry Ransom Center's Archive. This collection consists of small amounts of David Foster Wallace-related materials acquired by the Ransom Center from various sources. Included are photocopies of Wallace's completed "usage ballots" for the American Heritage Dictionary; items related to "Democracy and Commerce at the U. S. Open," an article Wallace wrote for Tennis magazine in 1995, including correspondence with Jay Jennings, senior editor at Tennis; a photocopy of a typed letter (1993) from Wallace to Brandon Hobson in which he gives writing advice to the 22-year-old Hobson, comparing and contrasting his own experiences at that age; nine annotated copies of the essay "Host" for the Atlantic Monthly, from a heavily marked early draft to a "final final" draft; a photocopied letter from Wallace to Martha Spaulding of the Atlantic and a brief note from Spaulding explaining the editorial process, along with a "Semi mini style sheet for DFW"; a faxed typescript draft of Infinite Jest; and a first edition, first printing of Review of Contemporary Fiction: Younger Writers Issue, Summer 1993, signed by Wallace and William T. Vollman. The materials are arranged in alphabetical order and date from 1993 to 2006. Further acquisitions of Wallace related materials are expected. Spanning nearly thirty years, the Bonnie Nadell Collection of David Foster Wallace documents Nadell's literary representation of Wallace, primarily with personal and professional correspondence between Nadell, Wallace, and publishing insiders. The collection is organized in two series: Series I. Correspondence, and Series II. Agent files. Series I. contains over forty letters (1985-2008) from Wallace to Nadell and about twenty-four email printouts between the two discussing personal and publishing issues. In a 1989 letter, Wallace voices his anticipation of a Nadell visit: ". . . Boston is fun; we'll have laughs, listen to rap and James Brown. . ." In the most recent email (2008), Wallace discusses plans to begin an article for GQ on the just-nominated Barack Obama, stressing his need for "close, candid access to a couple of Obama's junior speech guys" before they become too involved in the campaign. Additional correspondence in Series I. is between Wallace or Nadell and various translators and publishing world colleagues and acquaintances. The content of this correspondence is almost entirely professionally-oriented. In the earliest letter (1985) of the collection, a twenty-three year old Wallace introduces himself and a "representative" chapter of The Broom of the System to Frederick Hill. Series II. contains files relating to Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, The Broom of the System, Consider the Lobster, Everything and More, Girl With Curious Hair, Infinite Jest, Signifying Rappers, and 'periodical publications.' The files mostly contain correspondence between Nadell and editors and publishers, with some Wallace correspondence as well. Interspersed are unmarked, and often undated, typescript copies of various short Wallace pieces that most likely were meant for submission to editors. These typescripts remain in their original locations within the respective folders in which they arrived, perhaps indicating the approximate date Nadell was sending them out. Also present is an essay, "Ralph and the Legal Milestone" (1980), which Wallace wrote for a creative writing class, receiving an A+. The collection remains predominately organized as it arrived at the Ransom Center in 2011, with some minor corrections to the rough chronological order of the correspondence in each folder. [via, Matt King] |
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DFW Remembrance
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Sunday, 11 September 2011 |
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Updated Links (13/9/11) at the end of this post:
This year... I know I'm going to think about David Foster Wallace and his family. I'll read some of his work, and some of the things written about him. I encourage you to as well. It's been a big year for Wallace enthusiasts (and for this site... for a while there I thought it was all gone), The Pale King arrived and along with it hundreds of articles and reviews. The great majority mentioned that it contained some of Wallace's best writing to date (I agree completely), but also lamented as to what it might have been. But it wasn't sad, it was uplifting and rewarding and not at all simply about boredom. A couple of David Foster Wallace interviews surfaced - one old, and one new (but not previously available in English): But most of all - thank you David Foster Wallace, because (cliché of DFW clichés) you changed the way I see and think about my world.
Thoughts Elsewhere:
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General Updates
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Monday, 12 September 2011 |
If you can read this we're on a new server with a new host. I've disabled user logins for comments for the time being. If you notice any problems (including performance) or get any errors please let me know ASAP. |
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General Updates
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Sunday, 11 September 2011 |
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If all goes well The Howling Fantods will be hosted on a new server with new hosts in the next few days. When that happens it's quite likely we'll disappear for a few hours.
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Critical Analysis
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Sunday, 11 September 2011 |
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Someone mentioned this to me ages ago, and I forgot about it until I saw it again on twitter a few weeks ago. Call for essays: Studies in the Novel, a quarterly journal published by the University of North Texas's Department of English since 1969, is calling for polished, professional, and ground-breaking essays focusing on the novels, as well as on the novelistic career, of David Foster Wallace. These essays will be published as part of a special issue of the journal. More specifically, we are looking for essays that address one of Wallace’s three novels, The Broom of the System, Infinite Jest, and The Pale King, as well as papers that illuminate some aspect of Wallace’s achievement in the genre of the novel writ large. In light of the venue, we will not consider essays that focus on Wallace’s short fiction or non-fiction, though the essays may touch upon those texts as part of their primary focus. We are also keenly interested in essays that move beyond the well-trodden themes of irony, postmodernism, solipsism, and addiction. Completed essays are due by January 15, 2012 and should adhere to oursubmission guidelines.
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The Pale King
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Sunday, 11 September 2011 |
Trying to catch up on reviews and articles about The Pale King since the site went off line: Reviews: Non-Review Updates:
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