I just finished Brief Interviews with Hideous Men: Stories, by David Foster Wallace.
Wallace killed himself at a fairly young age, and the amount of writing he produced is amazing. The quality is staggering. But, if you read too much of his writing, you will begin to see his suicide as something completely predictable.
I have never read a more talented writer. His pure ability is unmatched by even the masters (provided you can stomach his style). He seems intent on mastering every possible writing stunt and he finds ways to make use of every possible writing tool.
As much as I love his writing, his content will mess with your head. And, this particular book has been really messing with me. Consider the Lobster, also a compilation of stories, articles and such, was so much lighter and more enjoyable (provided you can tolerate the most in-depth and artistically-written analysis of grammar and Dostoevsky ever produced by man kind).
I think this book should have been titled This is Some Dark Shit, by David Foster Wallace. It should say something that I went back to War & Peace for a break. And Tolstoy was absolutely a breath of fresh air. Tolstoy is never easier to read than following David Foster Wallace.
Every book of his fatigues me. I love his books, but by the end of any of them, I'm just worn out. This one utterly exhausted me because of the topics.
So, what did he write about? In no particular order (and not all-inclusive):
-- A father who secretly loathes his son for intruding on his life, manipulating his wife and basically severing his relationship with her;
-- a sexual predator;
-- a story called "the Depressed Person" which literally follows a borderline personality over the edge to such an amazing degree that you won't know to even close your mouth while reading it and won't acknowledge the world for a solid hour after you finish it. Seriously, this story is riveting and ruinous. His writing mirrors the descent and by the end his sentences go for pages as he illustrates the logical clutter of a panic-stricken mind. Let's just say the illustration is so vivid, and its effects so strong, that you will feel as though his suicide (with such a personal insight into such mental workings) makes complete sense and was really a mercy-killing. It may be a work of fiction, but no mentally-stable person could ever pull this from imagination.
-- a "pop quiz" which morphs from pop quiz into an essay about the manipulation of readers through the use of a pop quiz (designed to make you give a particular type of attention); followed by his admitted and complete manipulation of you the reader; followed by a moral discussion of the propriety of that trick; and you finish it feeling completely used as a reader and yet apologized to and ... just... weird. It's like he's screwing with you from the grave. Eerie as all hell.
-- a story titled "Suicide as a sort of present." I'll just say it's another gut punch.
I've left out much, but I think you get the idea.
So, why would you read David Foster Wallace? Good question, because this doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement.
Well, because he was completely and totally brilliant. Just don't read this book. Read Consider the Lobster or A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, but not Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.
I'm supposed to read Infinite Jest, which is considered his masterpiece, but I need a break. I'll get to that one later. To be honest, I'm not sure I want to get stuck in his mind for 800+ pages. We'll see.
As for this book, ruinous as it was to my psyche, there were still brilliant lines and concepts. So, I'll give a little taste.
Some favorite lines...
"...sad near-pink color of bad candy."
-- Just a small example of his unique descriptions.
"People's psychological dynamics are fascinating - that a subject's first, unconscious concern is what it might be about her that might prompt such a proposal, might lead a man to think such a thing might be possible."
-- Analysis of a man who asks after every third date if she wants to be tied up.
"eyes resemble two enormous raw cigar-burns in an acrylic blanket..."
-- Again, just a neat description.
"For one it's perilously close to 'Do you like me? Please like me,' which you know quite well that 99% of all the interhuman manipulation and bullshit gamesmanship that goes on goes on precisely because the idea of saying this sort of thing straight out is regarded as somehow obscene. In fact one of the very last few interpersonal taboos we have is this kind of obscenely naked direct interrogation of somebody else. It looks pathetic and desperate. That's how it'll look to the reader. And it will have to. There's no way around it."
-- This is from the story where he literally screws around with you, the reader.
"(The memory of this paralyzed feeling would astound her later in life, when she was a very different person.)"
-- Seriously, his insight into people is amazing.
"That one's own wife might judge you deficient simply for remaining the man she married. Was I the only one not told?"
-- The father's deathbed confession of hating his son for being born.
"Who could - where was it determined that this sort of thing is acceptable, that such a creature must be not only tolerated no but soothed, actually placated as she was on her knees doing, tenderly, in gross contradiction to the unacceptability of what was going on. What sort of madness is this?"
-- That father's description of the coddling his wife did for their son. He was not given a voice in rearing the child without such coddling and his pent-up rage over this led to hatred for his son.
Finally, DFW will outsmart your dictionary. Many of the words he uses are not even in there. Not just a few, either. Here are a few of the kinds of words he uses casually. Most are in the dictionary, but I've had to really dig for some definitions. Either read his stuff on an e-reader or with a dictionary not two feet away. Do not try otherwise. You've been warned. Examples:
otiose; coprophagous; antediluvian; sedulously; insouciantly; solipsistic (he uses this word like 4 times a book and why not? It's a great word); Onanistic; lugubrious; nomological; katexic; lapidary; sybaritic; "piacular recompense"; Nehruesque; sapropel; thanatotic; atavistic; "eccrine tang"; and Shibboleth (to name but some).
Nine of those words are not found by this blog's spellchecker. I'm just saying...
Like I said... you WILL need a dictionary. You might also want to rid yourself of sharp objects... you know, just in case.
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