The Howling Fantods

David Lipsky was interviewed about Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace on the Leonard Lopate last week listen to it here.

 

Wyatt Mason's review, Smarter than You Think, from the New York Review of Books is a worthwhile read. It is a review of the book that also considers how DFW's book were reviewed. Too difficult to pick a choice quote, have a read.

 

Finally, David Lipsky will be appearing TODAY (26/6 5pm) as part of his book tour at BookPeople 603 N Lamar Blvd Austin, Texas 78703-5413.

 

There is a giveway for the audiobook version of The Broom of the System over at Simply Stacie. Only open to the US and Canada. Thus I'm not able to enter... but if you are eligible it might be worth having a go.

Yesterday I received a galley copy of Sideshow Media Group's David Foster Wallace paper collection edited by David Hering, Consider David Foster Wallace. (Available for pre-order now at Amazon.com).

 

The collection stems from the papers delivered at the Liverpool DFW conference organised by David Hering last year.

 

It opens with a preface by David Hering and leads into an updated version of Greg Carlisle's (author of Sideshow Media Group's IJ guide Elegant Complexity) Liverpool Keynote (which you can read the original version of by scrolling down, here).

 

David has ordered the papers broadly chronologically in relation to DFW's output, so of course I jumped around the collection and read what caught my eye.

 

Highlights so far:

 

Adam Kelly's —David Foster Wallace and the New Sincerity in American Fiction. A fantastic paper that considers DFW's place in the current movement of American Fiction.

 

David Hering's —Infinite Jest: Triangles, Cycles, Choices, & Chases. David Hering literally maps the movements of Poor Tony Krause's and Randy Lenz's movements from a pivotal moment in Infinite Jest, with surprising results.

 

Clare Hayes-Bradys's - The Book, the Broom and the Ladder: Philosophical Groundings in the Work of David Foster Wallace. This paper is a great overview and introduction to the philosophical underpinnings of DFW's first novel, The Broom of the System, as well as some of his short fiction. As I don't have a particularly broad understanding of the philosophy in this novel I found this paper particularly engaging.

 

Gregory Phipps'—The Ideal Athlete: John Wayne in Infinite Jest. This paper is dedicated to the most detailed (and only) analysis I've read of the character of John Wayne from Infinite Jest. It is amazing.

 

[Big thanks to Matt Bucher of Sideshow Media Group Press and wallace-l. Also a big hello to David and Adam, both of whom I had the pleasure to meet at the NY conference last year.]

 

Re: Comments - New Sincerity?

 

MTV Music Blog speaks to Doomtree's Dessa about David Foster Wallace and Consider the Lobster:

 

Has it [Consider the Lobster] influenced your music?

 

I’d flatter myself to suppose that DFW and I are mining similar veins. I don’t know how much he’s influenced by most recent songs, but he’s certainly informed the way I think about art. He proved that an artist need not dilute his expressions in an effort to market to the masses. When a big word was the best word— he used it. He didn’t spend his time wringing his hands and worrying if his readers would “get it.” He wrote the best material that he could: erudite, and often challenging, and risky. I want to trust my listeners in the way that he trusted me— as one of the readers he’d never met. I read him with a dictionary on hand and a pen in my hair. It’s work. And worth it.

 

[via Matt Bucher]

David Rylance over at Transductions has posted a substantial review of David Lipsky's DFW book, and presents his opinion after considering the spectrum of criticism and support the book has received:

 

I'm not a champion of Apple (I don't own any), but I do read about their new products with interest because more often than not it means that a piece of general technology I'm interested in will be more affordable in the near future. Thus, the iPad is exciting to me not because I want one, but because it will (hopefully) lead to cheaper ebook readers - I'm after one that supports lots of different, and open, formats - and a touch screen tablet device on which I can install whatever O/S I'd like.

 

The recent iPhone 4 announcement also included the announcement of FaceTime, a wifi only video chat application. I'd be surprised if DFW fans didn't make the connection to the wonderful videophone section in Infinite Jest (which still haunts me every single time I use video chat with friends and relatives online) straight away.

 

Even though I'm sure you've all read by now (it spread throughout the web very quickly) Jason Kottke wrote a great piece over at kottke.org (with quotes from Infinite Jest) about the whole deal. 

 

Velocity's Brian Caulfield presents an alternate view, he thinks FaceTime will never die.