The Howling Fantods

David Foster Wallace News and Resources Since March 97

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Consider DFW Amazon Pre-Order

Update: Announcement by Sideshow Media Group that, Consider David Foster Wallace is back from the printer and Amazon pre-orders will ship ASAP. [via @sideshowmedia]
 
The collection of essays about DFW edited by David Hering, Consider David Foster Wallace, is now available for pre-order at Amazon (I love the cover!). I wrote about the collection not too long ago, and since then I've read a couple more of the essays.
 
Graham Foster's - A Blaster Region: David Foster Wallace's Man-made Landscapes. This essay considers David Foster Wallace's take on the traditional American ideas of wilderness. It closely examines examples from The Broom of the System (The Great Ohio Desert) and Infinite Jest (The Concavity/Convexity).
 
Philip Coleman's - Consider Berkeley & Co.: Reading "Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way". This was particularly interesting for me to read because I have quite a bit of time for this short story/novella. It takes another look at Westward to avoid DFW's (and some critic's) dismissal of its position amongst Wallace's work through close analysis, thus drawing attention to some of its overlooked and particularly successful elements.
 

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Last Updated on Sunday, 22 August 2010 12:46
 

A New Examiner in Fall Harper's

Good news for readers who missed the excerpt from The Pale King, A New Examiner, in the now sold out issue six of The Lifted Brow [previously]. It will be appearing (possibly with a different title, but the same text with a few corrections) in an upcoming Fall issue of Harper's. Keep your eyes open for it - we learn even more about Lane Dean Jr.
 
Update: It's definitely in the September 2010 issue, page 23.  If you are a Harper's subscriber you can read A New Examiner online now.
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Last Updated on Saturday, 21 August 2010 05:43
 

Index for Lipsky Book

Mark over at Ghostwood Hotel has put together a super useful index for David Lipsky's Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself.
 
Cheers, Mark!
 
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The Best Magazine Articles Ever

It's been interesting watching The Best Magazine Articles Ever evolve over the weekend while I was away. Great to see some of David Foster Wallace's best non-fiction there (nothing new for regular visitors here, I don't think, and welcome if you've found this site as a result of the list!), but there are also many, many fantastic pieces of non-fiction to read. Check it out.
 
[Thanks, Jeff]
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L.A. Times Books DFW Stuff

Couple of things from the L.A. Times Books section over the weekend.
 
 
[Cheers, Ian] 
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Bret Easton Ellis on DFW Part II

Irish Times interview with Bret Easton Ellis, End of the novel, end of the empire , turns to David Foster Wallace:
 
“Never met him. Never responded to the work. I pretty much read everything he wrote because you were kind of supposed to. He is a big deal in American letters and . . . I never really liked anything he wrote. I tried to read Infinite Jest three or four times and never cracked it. I found the stories didn’t interest me. And I am in the minority: I didn’t like the essays either. He suffers from a kind of midwestern earnestness that I found unbearable. And I don’t think it is too soon . . . but I find his earnestness very irritating. I just finished reading this long book of interviews he did and . . . you can be too smart for fiction.
“The way he spoke about a lot of things is just not my school of thought. And yes, he was probably a genius. And yes, I was very moved by his death. I was very touched by his pain. I really was. It was a shock. And there was a really moving account of it by I think it was DT Max in the New Yorker . And, you know, I was in tears. But! Let’s just get real and separate the man, who I did not know, and the work.”
 
Bret Easton Ellis on DFW previously.
 
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Supposedly Fun Things...

After some discussion on wallace-l (led by good friend of mine, George Carr) a number of David Foster Wallace enthusiasts decided it might be fun to write about things they'd experienced with the same kind of eye that DFW used in his non-fiction collection, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never do Again. Ryan Blanck (of Letters to DFW - check out his latest about The Depressed Person) jumped on board and set up a blog to host it all on and now there are a number of 'Supposedly Fun Things...' to read about.
 
I've been waiting until there's a bit of content to post about, but they are also after submissions. So please help them out and submit your supposedly fun things. Thanks George and Ryan!
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Last Updated on Saturday, 31 July 2010 04:44
 



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