The Howling Fantods

Ryan M. Blanck (https://www.facebook.com/RyanMBlanck, @RyanMBlanck) has published a collection of narrative and critical essays influenced by David Foster Wallace, Supposedly Fun Things.

If you followed his Letters to DFW or Supposedly Fun Things…  Essays and Reflections Inspired by the Non-fiction of David Foster Wallace then you'll be familiar with Ryan's passion for David Foster Wallace and may well find his collection of revised essays Supposedly Fun Things just the thing to tide you over until next year's critical works about Wallace.

Ryan agreed to a little chat about his passion for writing, for David Foster Wallace and the nexus of the two, Supposedly Fun Things. Enjoy. (It's long, so make sure you click on read more if you're reading this on the front page)

Nick Maniatis -  Thanks for joining us, Ryan! How about we start with a little introduction about yourself?

Ryan Blanck - I am a high school English teacher (and newly appointed department chair) at a charter school north of Los Angeles. I've been teaching for 14 years in a variety of public and private schools. I am a husband and father of two girls, ages 7 and 10. My daughters are incredible dancers and voracious readers and freakishly smart. My younger daughter wrote and published a book last summer; it's nice to have a child following in my footsteps. My wife is a "retired" teacher who stays home with the girls.

I've been writing for about ten years; writing seriously for about the last four. My Letters blog played a big part in getting me focused and motivated in my writing. Supposedly Fun Things is my third book.

Aside from teaching HS English and writing, I also teach an online creative writing class and am the part-time youth director at my church. In the little free time I have, I have taken up the sport of curling.

NM - Writing for about 10 years? How did that come about?

RB - I've sort of always been a writer. In elementary school I would write very lengthy and very imaginative stories. But it really started in earnest in college. Some friends and I had aspirations of writing and producing a magazine, but it was hard to do when we had no money and very little time to do so.

Can't wait for my copy to arrive.

Alan Yuhas reviews Quack This Way for the Guardian, A lifelong apprenticeship: David Foster Wallace and Bryan A Garner on writing:

Continue reading...

Buy Quack This Way at Amazon.

Erasing the Infinite, a found poetry project by Jenni B. Baker (@erasinginfinite), erasing David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest one page at a time.

Bits and pieces from the past few weeks you may not have seen. Have I missed any? Let me know.

• Love Note #9: Bodega Flowers by Meredith for New York Love Notes. [14/10/13]
• Excessive Irony Dilutes Genuine Meaning by Jason Bates for UDK. [15/10/13]
• Information Overload What did Tom Clancy and David Foster Wallace have in common? Not much… but they were both obsessed with packing in all the facts by Morgan Meis for The Smart Set. [15/10/13]
• William Gass Introduction of David Foster Wallace Audio
• Hypnoetic's Peter on the notes he found in a used copy of Infinite Jest Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6. [Sep - Oct 2013]
• Himself's Figurants by Tom Winchester for Summer of Jest. [27/10/13]
• 'The Pale King’ Shows Importance of Discipline for Long-term Success by Jason Bates for UDK. [28/10/13]
• Bryan A. Garner's (@BryanAGarner) The Quack this Way interview was released too!
• 

Oh, and I updated the DFW Bookstore.

So I've been reading Greg Carlisle's, Nature's Nightmare: Analyzing David Foster Wallace's Oblivion, and it's all that I expected. What I absolutely love about it is the way it guides the reader through the nested narratives of all the stories in my favourite collection of Wallace's short-fiction.

It begins with a concise introduction that orients the reader to Oblivion's position among Wallace's fiction and then presents the structure and method of analysis. Carlisle states that subsequent chapters, "summarize and comment on each of the eight stories in Oblivion section by section. In some cases Wallace has already divided his stories; in others I infer divisions."

Like Carlisle's Elegant Complexity the structure of Nature's Nightmare is clearly defined and allows for cross-reference between sections and stories. I like it. It's accessible for new readers, easily searchable for those familiar with the stories (the sub-headings throughout are logically drawn from the text of the stories), and delivers enough theory and analysis to point readers in the direction for further study of the kinds of literary, philosophical and intertextual references we're used to finding in Wallace's writing.

Added value comes from tracking of thematic motifs, and the ongoing comparisons and "assessment of content in relation to Infinite Jest and The Pale King" that map the changes of focus, development and maturation of Wallace's writing between IJ and TPK.

All of this is supported by magnificent diagrams. These detail the meticulous reading Carlisle has undertaken for each of the stories and reveal the astounding underlying narrative structure of the stories in this collection: team organisational charts and nested test diagrams for Mister Squishy; classroom seating plans forThe Soul is Not a Smithy; nested tellings within Another Pioneer; a mind-blowing denial chart for Oblivion and, "A partial diagram of David Wallace's flash of thoughts representing nested flashes of realization and moments of significance for Neal all the way back to age 4" from The Soul is Not a Smithy [Check out the snapshot posted over at Biblioklept that I've also posted below].

If you liked Elegant Complexity (or love the Oblivion collection) I've no doubt you'll like Nature's Nightmare. If you found Elegant Complexity a little too expansive and unwieldy (it did, after all, attempt to guide readers through one of the most complicated narratives of the 20th century... without spoilers!) then I think you'll happily find this volume to be a more concise and focused distillation of Carlisle's analytical perceptiveness.

Nature's Nightmare is a more-than-worthy addition to your Wallace collection. I'm glad I own it.

Purchase it from Amazon right here. Visit the DFW Book Store.

Another task complete!

The DFW Book Store is now updated and (finally) embedded in the site. Hopefully it is a better place to browse for new Wallace material.

Check out the store here.

(If you're new, commission via my Amazon referrals supports the hosting of this site.)