The Howling Fantods

David Foster Wallace News and Resources Since March 97

  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size
Home Supposedly Fun Thing

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

1997

In A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace brings to non-fiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that animated his bestselling novel, Infinite Jest. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again collects David Foster Wallace's writings on a range of subjects that only he could bring together. From personal narratives to tennis, film, philosophy, and postmodern literary theory, no subject is outside the play of his imagination. In "Getting Away from Already Pretty Much Away from it All," a finalist for the 1995 National Magazine Award, Wallace gorges himself on corn dogs, gawks at baton twirlers, and gropes toward the true meaning of the all-American institution the State Fair. In the title essay, one of the most talked about (and frequently photocopied) nonfiction pieces of the year, Wallace reports with excruciating humour the agonies of enduring forced fun on a commercial cruiseliner. Wallace's sports obsession comes out in an essay about the unfathomable gulf between professional tennis players and the merely excellent."E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction" explores the deep currents affecting both popular arts and literary craft, while "David Lynch Keeps His Head" is at once a portrait of the artist at work and an appreciation of the far-reaching cultural influence a popular artist can have. Unfolding from familiar starting points to inspired leaps of imagination and logic, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again showcases the extrordinary writing and fascinating insights of one of the most exciting and original writers at work today.

1997 Little Brown Hardback

 



Earlier (and often shorter) versions of those in the collection available elsewhere:

 

  • Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All in Harper's as Ticket to the Fair , July 1994.

 

Links on the web:

Share
Last Updated on Friday, 06 April 2012 01:36  

The Howling Fantods