Jennifer Shapland over at the American Short Fiction Blog has posted a short article about David Foster Wallace's novella Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way from Girl With Curious Hair. Jennifer writes:
Here’s the thing: I love this story. I love its ambition. The premise is a trip, a journey deep into rural Illinois (funny that his essay on the Illinois State Fair was written years later). The characters are en route to a reunion of everyone who’s ever been in a McDonald’s commercial, held at this pretty sinister physical interpretation of Barth’s funhouse. Basically, Wallace is trying to write his way out of the trap of metafiction set by writers like Barth by using metafiction, stretching self-referentiality to its limits.
I love this story too, just be wary of some spoilers in the article, if you have not read Westward yet.
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