Pun Salad

Back in 2008, shortly after David Foster Wallace hanged himself, Shawn Macomber, frustrated by all the eulogies, urged his readers to "read something by Wallace rather than about him. It'll be a much more gratifying experience." I'm (slowly) taking that advice.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again is a collection of seven of Wallace's articles and essays from the 90s. In order, they are: (1) a memoir of DFW's life as a very good high school tennis player in Illinois; (2) an exploration of the effects of US television on young American fiction writers; (3) a visit to the Illinois State Fair; (4) a (blessedly short) review of a work of literary criticism; (5) a visit to the set of Lost Highway and a discussion of the career of David Lynch, its director; (6) a trip to Montreal for the Canadian Open, a professional tennis event; and (7) a seven-night cruse aboard the Zenith—which DFW dubs the Nadir throughout—then owned by the Celebrity Cruises line. Most articles originally appeared in popular magazines: Esquire, Harper's, Premiere, as the front matter tells us "(in somewhat different [and sometimes way shorter] forms)".

Wallace was full of sharp observations and (sometimes brutal) honesty. His prose here was, as usual, pyrotechnic and personal; not for him was the invisible author mode. (Some essayists try to be a clear pane of glass between the reader and the subject under discussion. Not DFW.) The results, in any case, are (mostly) a lot of fun to read.

Unless, of course, you were seated at DFW's Table 64 in the Zenith's "Five-Star Caravelle Restaurant". DFW's brutal honesty extended to his eating companions as well, and… well, I hope they didn't read it.

Wallace is (for me) at his best when he was doing "straight reporting". The sections where he lapses into Criticism (articles 2, 4, and parts of 5) are opaque and kind of a slog. (Right on page 201, just after one of those slogs, he writes: "I have no idea whether any of this makes sense." This made me feel better about myself, since I had no idea either.)

I got Wallace's final, unfinished novel, The Pale King, for Christmas. Given the height of my virtual ToBeRead pile, it might take awhile, but I hope to get to it.