This is very exciting news! In December last year fellow wallace-l reader, Greg Carlisle, posted me a draft of his study of Infinite Jest to read and comment upon. I'm not sure I provided too much useful feedback, but I did get to read an awe inspiring critical text about Infinite Jest. It is now called Elegant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, due for release on November 30 and is available for pre-order over at amazon.com right now. Elegant Complexity is wonderful for many reasons (and I'll go into them more as the release approaches), but the two things that struck me most about it were: a) it functions very well as a guiding text for a first time reader (Greg has managed to keep it pretty much spoiler free as you read along with the novel) and b) its detail, depth, scope of observations, and conclusions are such that it is quite possible that people who have read Infinite Jest more than once (in my case many more times than that, and much more obsessively than is probably healthy) and feel they have a pretty sound grasp of the complexity will have new horizons of understanding and enjoyment opened to them. I kid you not, Elegant Complexity is this good. I can't wait until it is released. You can pre-order it at Amazon now: E.legant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.
The decision has been made. Over to George: And the winner is ...
Andrew Warren!
This was actually kind of an agonizing decision, which is why I took
longer than I originally intended. I really really liked Brandon
Hobson's piece, but ultimately concluded (again, after much agonizing)
that it couldn't be fairly called a legitimate parody: it's just very
good writing in DFW's style. I also really liked Casey Anderson's
piece, and how it poked fun at DFW's footnoting (and generally, DFW's
digressive mode). But it lost by a nose to Andrew's piece, which I
thought had more comic flair and poked through the fourth wall in a
fresh way that parodied DFW very very well.
So, first prize of an Advance Reader's Copy of Oblivion goes to
Andrew; an advance teaser of Consider the Lobster goes to Casey; and
Brandon gets an honorable mention and my genuine exhortation to
continue writing, in DFW's mode or others.
Thanks,
George
PS winners please send in your mailing addresses, for your prizes.
Nine entries were submitted, and George (competition organiser) has selected three amazing finalists: Brandon Hobson, Casey Anderson and Andrew B. Warren. First and second place (and thus prizes) will be announced later this week. Until then, read the entries over at the Parody Comp 2007 finalists page. All discussion is welcome, let us know what you think!
Only a couple of days to go until entries close for the Parody Comp Part 2. There are two great prizes and a number of entries have already been submitted. Check out the details and get writing!
Some of you may already know that McSweeney's are holding a big sale after the 'distributor bankruptcy' situation. I've just been made aware of the following: McSweeney's is holding a big sale and auction to make up for $130,000 lost in a distributor bankruptcy; click here for the full story. A thousand thanks to everyone who has helped out the past few days. The sale is going great, and we are humbled by all the encouragement and support. We've just added one-of-a-kind pieces from John Hodgman, Miranda July, Sarah Vowell, and Marcel Dzama, and gems from Michael Chabon, Art Spiegelman, and David Foster Wallace are coming soon. http://mcsweeneys.net/
[Thanks, Drew!] If you visit the McSweeney's Store you'll find some EBay auctions for the one-of-a-kind stuff. I expect this will be where the DFW related item(s?) will show up.
Last Updated on Thursday, 21 June 2007 16:34
The steady flow of "John Krasinski has this movie coming out and it's based on this book by David Foster Wallace" [ Brief Interviews with Hideous Men ] posts around the web have not let up, unfortunately all of them pretty much say the same thing. The latest is from ALLDay over at MSNBC, short, but nice to see the film being promoted all over the place. By the way, The Howling Fantods would love more info, contact us here.
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A post to wallace-l by George Carr a couple of days ago was the impetus for me to make the old parody comp winners and entries available again. That was just the first step... Entries are now open for the 2007 David Foster Wallace Parody Competition! George is running the comp with The Howling Fantods hosting. Follow the read more link below for details.
Last Updated on Sunday, 17 June 2007 16:29
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