Right away I should say that I saw this movie with a close friend who, like me, is a major David Foster Wallace fan. Because we both went into the movie with certain expectations and background understanding (having read the stories, loved them, remembered them well), we had major requirements for this movie that were almost certain not to be met.

In fact, I think that the experience of people like us (or of anyone else who went to see this as a fan of the book, prepared to compare it constantly to the source material) was probably so completely different from that of anyone who went to see the movie blindly with no knowledge of the book, that I almost can’t evaluate the movie just as a movie; only as an adaptation.

Sure, I can conjecture as to whether this movie would be good on its own as a cinematic experience (I actually don’t, so it fails both tests), but for the most part my reaction and opinions are rooted in how well (the answer: not very) I thought the film succeeded as an adaptation of a major, brilliant work of short fiction (that is, the four ‘BIWHM’ stories in the larger collection of the same title).

Anyway, to get into specifics, I need to mention first of all that the entire form of the film is a crude, forced departure from the story, in which, sure, a woman is interviewing, but not only is there no text for her questions (just a clever Q. each time), but as a character she is absent. Not the case in the movie, where the interviewer is a female character, certainly the “protagonist” of the movie if there must be one, and even the focal point of a number of flashbacks about her personal life and romantic background. I understand that this framing device is necessary for the story to be a cohesive movie rather than just a series of interviews (which would be boring, visually) but that’s why, perhaps, the material should not have been adapted in the first place. I applaud John Krasinski for the effort, but to someone who has read them closely and enjoyed them, it was clear before the film came out, and even more obvious now that it has, that the material does not work on the big screen. It’s literature. This ain’t Twilight.

But okay, move past the stuffy, necessary framing device into the actual interviews. Some are terrific and stay very close to the source (I think even using the exact text as dialogue, a la Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespeare movies). Ben Shenkman does his bit—about yelling “Victory for the forces of democratic freedom!” during sex—to perfection. Bobby Cannavale is also very well cast as the guy who uses his deformed arm as an “asset” to guilt women into sleeping with him. Dominic Cooper is also a terrific choice for the ballsy student who argues that being raped might be a good ‘learning experience’ for a woman. Finally, Death Cab front man Ben Gibbard is actually quite solid and appropriately cast in his role as chatty-but-shy/mildly depressed guy.

But there are far more scenes that have been botched in the transfer from page to screen. My personal favorite exchange from the book is when one guy tells his friend the story of being in the airport and picking up a girl who was heartbroken after her boyfriend didn’t show up to visit her. The casting is fine; Denis O’Hare and Christopher Meloni fit into the roles well. But the directorial choices are puzzling, because to show the scene occurring is one thing, and makes sense (it obviously wouldn’t be visually interesting enough to just see the man telling the story) but Krasinski chooses to actually insert the two men into the airport scene as random characters, like bystanders and flight attendants. It’s strange and jarring. It would have better, and simpler, to merely show us the Meloni character in the airport (since he was actually there, it happened to him) interspersed with shots of Meloni now telling O’Hare the story later in a cafe.

Then there’s the story about the guy whose father worked in a bathroom of a fancy office building. In the film, it gets a scene in which the father stands in the bathroom while his son looks on and narrates the story (which gets very, very graphically detailed about shit smells, shit sounds, and routines of ass-wiping and hand-washing). As my friend whispered to me during the movie, the scene feels “weirdly racial.” In addition, it’s the only ‘interview’ of the movie that does not revolve around men and women. Women are wholly absent. It’s about a man’s complicated relationship (pride of work ethic clashing with shame of social class) with his father, and it doesn’t belong in the movie. Strangely enough, my friend and I agreed that, in retrospect, this interview was out of place in the book, too, but for some reason that never occurred to us when reading the book. It must, obviously, be better handled in text form.

Yet the most problematic ‘interview’ of all is the final scene of the movie, for which Krasinski cast himself. Taking the best, most emotionally-charged part seems a little self-important but then again, Krasinski said in a later interview that someone else was cast originally but it didn’t work out, so the director jumped in to save the day. Guess that’s pretty valiant, but the scene itself is kind of ruined from what was a terrific bit of dialogue in the book. Krasinski chooses to have the speech take place as a sort of confessional, with Krasinski’s character basically yelling at the girl who has been conducting the interviews. It doesn’t work as well, mostly because the dialogue in the book feels stilted as spoken word—especially lines like “I believed that she could save me!” and, “I see you there, I can see it on your face, well go ahead. Judge me, you bitch!” Kind of awkward and loses the mingling of  effects (powerful emotion with funny irony) that the text achieves. And that goes for most of the movie, though, again, I admire the attempt at adapting such a work. Let’s hope no one ever tries to make an Infinite Jest movie.

November 26, 2009

Great Thanksgiving Day

Started off with 10 mile run and then I made a coffee cake from scratch which turned out pretty well.  Then Mark got the turkey into the oven.  We usually eat dinner around 4 or 5.  Some people eat at noon, but those people must get up very early with the turkey.  We like waiting all day and have the turkey basically as an early supper.

We’d baked the pies last night, the cherry, the pumpkin, the pecan.  The kids like pecan and pumpkin pies, and I don’t know if Mark and I really care about pies, but we have some.  My mother-in-law arrived and right away she let us know that she wanted to take off at 6 pm to go visit a friend of hers in Pahrump, Nevada.  We ended up serving dinner at 4 pm and she left at 4:15 to drive to Nevada.   I hope she is having a good drive.

But before that, my ex stopped by to see the kids, he seemed in good spirits.   We saw two movies today, Ladykillers and O Brother Where Art Thou? (which we are seeing right now.) We’re at the siren scene, which is so crazy cool.  George Clooney drinking the corn whiskey with one of the sirens and then they decide Pete’s been turned into a toad.

My son brought over two friends who joined us for Thanksgiving and later my friend
Susie came by, so it was altogether a good day.  But unusual.  My ex has always come over on Thanksgiving, and it was great to see him today, the kids were very pleased.  We had our plantains, sangria, stuffed green chilies, Mexican rice, turkey, cranberries, stuffing and tortillas, a perfect Thanksgiving.

I’m still reading Lit and she does like dropping names, now she’s talking about how she knows David Foster Wallace. Right on.  She is a whiner.  She likes to whine about not having enough help with her kids.  She whines about the grandparents not helping with the kids.   Really, my kids never even once had a grandparent who ever took care of them, cooked for them or did anything with them except my ex mother in law who may have taken my daughter to the swap meet a couple times.  She whines and whines; that’s because she’s a whiner.  The more I read it, the more I realize this.  She had it way better than I did, went to way better schools, so her mom was a drunk, I had no mom, I mean I hate to be a whiner, but get over yourself, Mary.  Grow up.  Your mother’s right, you made a fortune off telling stories about your mother and making her sound like a demon.  Hey wait till I tell my stories.  It will take your breath away.  Your mother was a princess compared to my mother or my father for that matter.  But I’m going to keep reading, I still love this book, I love Mary Karr’s writing; it just pulls me in, utterly compelling and visceral.

You notice whining is okay when I do it?  Tomorrow, I’m going to finish Tameka vs. Susie Q.  Then off to Guadalajara on Sunday.

A Thanksgiving question from Booking Through Thursday:

It’s Thanksgiving in the U.S.A. today, so I know at least some of you are going to be as busy with turkey and family as I will be, so this week’s question is a simple one:

What books and authors are you particularly thankful for this year?

That’s quite difficult. When I particularly enjoy books and authors I am usually grateful to the person or persons who brought them to my attention. Being thankful for a book implies something slightly different. I’m thankful for books when they are serving some additional purpose beyond entertainment and /or mental exercise. So we’re talking about the books which serve as a distraction, or place of refuge, at moments of stress; or even those which act as guides through difficult times.

I have three. First Cormac McCarthy. I was reading Outer Dark when my husband was in hospital during the summer. Yeah. Things which had seemed a bit grim were a walk in the park in comparison with a McCarthy landscape.

As the OH recuperated at home, and one routine deprived daughter went into meltdown, I was reading Infinite Jest. Which is quite depressing, but not in the perversely cheering way of Cormac McCarthy. In Infinite Jest you find the pitfalls but also the way out.

Finally, I am thankful for Dickens, whom I am currently reading. Escapism of a very high order.

“You almost never from a Lynch movie get the sense that the point is to “entertain” you, and never that the point is to get you to fork over money to see it. This is one of the unsettling things about a Lynch movie: You don’t feel like you’re entering into any of the standard unspoken and/or unconscious contracts you normally enter into with other kinds of movies. This is unsettling because in the absence of such an unconscious contract we lose some of the psychic protections we normally (and necessarily) bring to bear on a medium as powerful as film. That is, if we know on some level what a movie wants from us, we can erect certain internal defenses that let us choose how much of ourselves we give away to it. The absence of point or recognizable agenda in Lynch’s films, though, strips these subliminal defenses and lets Lynch get inside your head in a way movies normally don’t. This is why his best films’ effects are often so emotional and nightmarish“

- David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.

Everyone needs a direction to go in, some form of inertia that progresses one grey winter day to the next. But what would happen if you had no priorities, no agenda, an utter void of expectations that didn’t pound against the window panes of our collective minds? An aimless wander through the woods, schedules and time constraints be damned.

The work of Ramadanman seems to epitomize this same feeling expressed by Foster Wallace above, and my pathetic attempt to explain. With a soft, percussive progression, the Hessle Audio co-owner lulls you into a familiar tribal dubstep trope, only to peel that comfort and recognition away when things are too good to be true.

the Ramadanman....

A parting taster of Clubroot’s new self-titled LP, very meditative, earthy music right meh…check the Christian Bale sample from Batman Begins, and that mournful sub-bassline that follows…Clubroot- Serendipity Dub

Thank you come again.

È TUTTO VERDE
di David Foster Wallace

Lei dice non m’importa se mi credi o no, è la verità, poi tu credi pure a quello che ti pare. Quindi è sicuro che mente. Quando è la verità si fa in quattro per cercare di farti credere a quello che dice. Perciò sento di non avere dubbi.
Si rasserena e guarda dall’altra parte, lontano, ha l’aria furba con la sigaretta sotto la luce che entra dalla finestra bagnata, e io non so cosa mi sento di dire.
Dico Mayfly, con te non so più cosa fare o cosa dire o cosa credere. Ma ci sono delle cose che so per certe. So che io sto diventando vecchio e tu no. E che ti do tutto quello che ho da darti, con le mani e con il cuore. Tutto quello che ho dentro di me l’ho dato a te. Tengo duro e lavoro sodo ogni giorno. Ho fatto di te l’unica ragione che ho per fare quello che faccio sempre. Ho cercato di costruire una casa per te, una casa di cui facessi parte, e che fosse una bella casa.
Mi rassereno anch’io e getto il fiammifero nel lavandino insieme ad altri fiammiferi, piatti, una spugna e cose del genere.
Dico Mayfly il mio cuore ha fatto il giro del mondo e ritorno per te ma ho quarantotto anni. È ora che la smetto di lasciarmi semplicemente trascinare dalle cose. Devo usare quel po’ di tempo che ancora mi resta per cercare di sistemare tutto e stare bene. Devo provare a stare come ho bisogno di stare. In me ci sono delle esigenze che tu non riesci neanche più a vedere, perché ci sono troppe esigenze tue di mezzo.
Lei non dice nulla e io guardo la sua finestra e sento che lei sa che io so, e seduta sul mio divano fa un movimento. Ripiega le gambe sotto di sé, ha un paio di pantaloncini.
Dico in fondo non mi importa di quello che ho visto o credo di aver visto. Non è più quello il punto. So che io sto diventando vecchio e tu no. Ma ora mi sento come se ci fosse tutto me stesso che va verso di te e in cambio non mi viene più niente.
Ha i capelli tirati su con un fermaglio e delle forcine e si tiene il mento con la mano, è mattina presto, sembra che stia sognando rivolta verso la luce pulita che entra dalla finestra bagnata sopra il mio divano.
È tutto verde, dice. Guarda come è tutto verde Mitch. Come fai a dire di provare certe cose quando fuori è tutto così verde.
La finestra sopra il lavello del mio cucinino è stata ripulita dal violento acquazzone di stanotte e ora è una mattina di sole, è ancora presto, e fuori c’è un casino di verde. Gli alberi sono verdi e quel po’ d’erba che c’è oltre i dossi artificiali è verde e liscia. Ma non è tutto quanto verde. Le altre roulotte non sono verdi e il mio tavolino lì fuori con le pozzanghere allineate e le lattine di birra e le cicche che galleggiano nel portacenere non è verde, né il mio furgone, o la ghiaia della piazzola, o il triciclo che sta rovesciato su un fianco sotto un filo per il bucato senza bucato accanto alla roulotte vicina, dove c’è uno che ha fatto dei bambini.
È tutto verde sta dicendo lei. Lo sta sussurrando e il sussurro non è più rivolto a me, lo so.
Getto la sigaretta e volto le spalle al mattino con il sapore di qualcosa di vero in bocca. Mi volto verso di lei che sta sul divano in piena luce.
Da dov’è seduta sta guardando fuori, e io guardo lei, e c’è qualcosa in me che non si riesce a chiudere, nel guardarla. Mayfly ha un corpo. È lei la mia mattina. Dite il suo nome.

David Foster Wallace, La ragazza dai capelli strani
traduzione di Martina Testa, minimum fax

Animal Collective’s new “Fall Be Kind” EP, released digitally by Domino Records this week, presents five new songs, diverse in their styles and moods but each fabulously perfect in its own way.

“Graze,” the opener, recalls Panda Bear’s “Person Pitch” with its soaring vocal and abrupt shift midway through. “What Would I Want? Sky” echos the cautiously optimistic themes that run throughout “Merriweather Post Pavilion.” All three band member’s talents come together beautifully on the haunting “Bleed,” certainly the most striking and probably my favorite track on the record. “On a Highway” would be the center panel for a triptych that has, to its left, Kerouac’s “On the Road” and, to its right, that wonderful “Tiny Dancer” scene from Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous.” And the finale, “I Think I Can,” brings us back to “Person Pitch” and “Merriweather” too, combining the key elements from both of those previous works.

Some people might dismiss this EP, saying that they got tired of hearing the more popular tracks off “Merriweather.” But that I just don’t understand. To me, that’s like saying, “gee, I’m just kind of bored of looking at ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’” or “yeah, I’ve just seen ‘Lavender Mist’ one too many times.” That’s just crazy!

One last point to make is that I really don’t think it’s a coincidence or accident that the Grateful Dead song sampled in “Sky” is titled “Unbroken Chain.” With their work this year, Animal Collective build on the basic ideas advanced previously by David Foster Wallace and Stephen Malkmus. That irony and cynicism are, at this point, dead ends; that many elements of postmodernism that once felt exciting and bold now seem tired and out-of-date; that the second-rate, faux-Cartesian/solipsistic theorizing that passes for scholarship these days is … well … a lot of worthless junk; and that the search for true emotion, true satisfaction and happiness, and indeed the search for truth itself really require as essential inputs experience, experimentation, and the Popperian scientific method. With their work this year, that is, the members of Animal Collective stand tall, not just with the great creative forces of our time, but all the great intellects extending back to generations past: “The Unbroken Chain.” At least if you ask me ….

Danny, he said, was certain to have been left “with a lifetime’s worth of emotional scars” after his experiences at the Overlook, where his father was possessed by the hotel, tried to kill him and his mother and eventually died.

I’m going to guess two things.  The first being Stephen King isn’t going to name the sequel to The Shining, The Shining 2: Danny Torrance Boogaloo.   Secondly, I’m guessing he’s not going to get Stanley Kubrick to do the film adaptation.

Lit.

• Gigantic continues their Stories in Three Lines.

• L Magazine talks to Jonathan Lethem.  Lethem calls himself “old.”

• Some Rimbaud on Dennis Coopers blog.

• Ever wonder what it would be like if Lewis Carroll had written Twilight? Well, here is your chance to find out.

• Everybody is getting excited for the release of the San Francisco Panorama.  Even the New York Times.

• Top ten short-story collections of the 00’s.

• Somebody blogged the David Foster Wallace conference. (Thanks The Millions)

Thanksgiving is a warped holiday.

• But here is some classic poetry in celebration of the holiday so you can get in touch with your inner pilgrim.

• So warped that the holiday has become synonymous with Detroit Lions football.

Fucked in Park Slope, literally.

• Some heavy drama going down at my favorite little coffee shop.

Dear WFMU,

• Thanks for all you do.  Especially wanna thank you for this live Grass Widow set you gave us.

Many many years ago, I discovered Might magazine.  It was a funny, silly magazine that spoofed everything (but had a serious backbone, too).  (You can order back issues here).  And so, I subscribed around issue 13.  When the magazine folded (with issue 16–and you can read a little bit about that in the intro to Shiny Adidas Track Suits) it somehow morphed into McSweeney’s, and much of the creative team behind Might went with them.

The early volumes (1-5 are reviewed in these pages, and the rest will come one of these days) are a more literary enterprise than Might was.  There’s still a lot of the same humor (and a lot of silliness), but there are also lengthy non-fiction pieces.  The big difference is that McSweeney’s was bound as a softcover book rather than as a magazine. And, I guess technically it is called Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern as opposed to Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Issue #6 came with a CD of music by They Might Be Giants.  And from then on it was anybody’s guess what the next issue would look like.  (This Wikipedia page provides a nice summary of all of the issues that have been published, including authors).

The latest issue (#33) is being printed as a newspaper (just to give an idea of the diversity of product here).

The books (for most of them are books, despite the above newspaper) come out occasionally.  I gather it was supposed to be a quarterly, but I don’t know that they’ve ever really kept a schedule. Many of the books are hardcover (beautifully bound).  Some have been paperbacks.  Occasionally they come in a fancy packaging (boxes, slipcases etc). You never know what you’re going to get, which is a lot of the fun.

Although you do know that you’re going to get quality short stories.  The list of fantastic (and well-known) authors grows and grows. (Just a few: Michael Chabon, Stephen King, David Foster Wallace, George Saunders, Roddy Doyle, A.M. Homes, and Joyce Carol Oates.)  And mixed in with them are less well known (ie. more indie) authors, as well as occasional unknowns.  And even if I don’t love every story, I know that they’ll all be worth a read.

McSweeney’s itself has grown from a publisher of this quarterly to include an empire that publishes books (their book of the month club is the way to go), an official periodical (The Believer), and a video magazine (Wholphin).

I am probably a little too steeped in McSweeney’s-world, but I’ve never been disappointed with a release of theirs (okay, that’s not true, they have published a few clunkers).  I’m always excited to get the box with the little chair as the return address.

And, of course, I began a Wikipedia page of all of the McSweeney’s Books. I’m delighted to see that folks have been adding to it!

Original mention in Periodicals Page:

McSweeney’s. Technically a periodical. A collection of short stories and things like it. I’m usually too overwhelmed by the time this comes in, and frankly, I am many many issues behind on reading this. However, I plowed through 21 and 22 recently, and just got 23. So, I’m looking forward to it and its brethren. I got turned onto McSweeney’s because I used to subscribe to MIGHT magazine (R.I.P) which was a hilarious magazine ala Spy (R.I.P). Might ran for a dozen or so issues and then strangely morphed into McSweeney’s. I think somehow my subscription ran over into McSweeney’s and the rest is 23 issues of fun!

What is there left for me to do in this life?
Did I achieve what I had set in my sights?
Am I a happy man or is this sinkin’ sand?
Was it all worth it?

Due premesse:
1. Mi scuso con i lettori (ma soprattutto con le lettrici), ma si finisce sempre a parlare di lui;
2. il post che state per leggere parla della copertina del numero di dicembre di Rolling Stone Italia. Solo ed esclusivamente della copertina. Non so come siano gli articoli all’interno, ma per il discorso che voglio fare è irrilevante. Il post parlerà della copertina e della copertina soltanto, del modo in cui può essere fruita come testo autonomo e la lettura che ne consegue.

Ok. Un saluto ai tre lettori rimasti, venite pure qui davanti che c’è posto.

Non ricordo di preciso da quando Rolling Stone Italia si sia messa a distribuire il titolo di “rockstar dell’anno”. L’anno scorso era toccato a Roberto Saviano. Ho ancora il numero nello scaffale dietro di me in ufficio. Non perché ci tenga particolarmente, solo che non mi ricordo mai di buttarlo. Comunque, allora quella scelta mi era sembrata stridente. E continua a sembrarmi stridente oggi, solo che ora so anche spiegarmi le ragioni.
Nel mezzo, c’è stata la lettura del saggio di David Foster Wallace E unibus pluram (EUP). Contenuto in Considera l’aragosta, EUP è un saggio che parla del rapporto tra la televisione e gli scrittori americani contemporanei, nel quale Wallace sostiene che il post-modernismo, con il suo ricorso all’ironia disincantata nel descrivere il mondo, abbia dato vita a una generazione di autori che non dicono più nulla “sul serio”. L’argomento è ripreso da Wu Ming 1 nel memorandum sul New Italian Epic, nel quale non a caso si cita più volte Saviano. Il perché spero sia chiaro a chiunque abbia un minimo di familiarità con la sua attività di scrittore (ma anche con i suoi due spettacoli televisivi con Fabio Fazio): Saviano è quanto di più lontana da una sensibilità post-moderna e disincantata ci possa essere. Tanto che a volte anche io trovo quasi straniante questo mio coetaneo che nemmeno per un secondo sembra mai cedere alla tentazione di fare la battuta, minimizzare, accennare un commento cinico.
Al contrario, Rolling Stone Italia è un tempio dell’approccio cazzarone. Nello stesso numero, per dire, si annuncia “l’incredibile faccia a faccia fra Elvis Costello + Nick Jonas (sì proprio lui, quello dei tre fratellini verginelli!)”.
Insomma, una copertina con la faccia di Saviano e sotto la scritta “rockstar” stride come unghie sulla lavagna, perché preleva di peso una persona da dove si trova e la cala più o meno nel contesto in cui amano collocarlo i suoi detrattori: “uno che fa spettacolo”.
Magari le intenzioni erano buone, ma il risultato mi lascia, ancora oggi, perplesso.

E oggi tocca a Silvio Berlusconi.
Metto la foto qui sotto per comodità.

Ecco. L’immagine è opera di Shepard Farey, quello del poster “Change” per Obama.
Berlusconi è raffigurato con una specie di ghigno sul volto mentre strappa in due una bandiera italiana sulla quale è scritto il suo nome, sullo sfondo di un’altra bandiera italiana.
Non solo quale fosse di preciso l’intento dell’artista, né quale sia stata la richiesta di Rolling Stone Italia, ma trovo che l’effetto finale dell’immagine sia quello che si legge in questo articolo del Giornale:

Il rock è provocazione. Non guarda in faccia a nessuno. Entra nei sancta sanctorum e puzza di blasfemo. Non rispetta la nobiltà, la storia, le tradizione. È un talento barbaro, che i custodi del passato faticano a riconoscere. Ribalta i canoni. Il rock è costretto a mostrarsi giovane anche a 70 anni. Quando il Cav entra nel club esclusivo della politica estera lascia fuori i cappelli a cilindro della vecchia diplomazia. È il cucù, le corna (rock, molto hard rock), i kapò, voce alta, scacco alla regina e tutta la geopolitica della pacca sulle spalle. Il rock avvicina, cancella le distanze, alto e basso non si distinguono più. Il motto è: «Hi fratello».

“Distruggere” è un gesto che associamo alla cultura rock. E ha un valore positivo perché, in quella moderna epopea che è “la storia del rock” intesa come fenomeno socioculturale, il rock svolge un ruolo positivo, di rottura di consuetudini e di liberazione. “Elvis ha liberato i nostri corpi e Dylan le nostre menti” diceva John Lennon. Al rock associamo blue jeans, liberazione sessuale, assenza di formalismi, istintività. In parte per innegabili motivi storici, in parte perché sono collegamenti che ci siamo abituati a fare negli anni.
Ha gioco facile la stampa di Berlusconi a usare questa copertina per glorificare quegli aspetti della figura pubblica del PresDelCons che a me fanno rimpiangere il pentapartito e Tribuna Politica. Ha gioco facile perché quella copertina (che sopravviverà molto più a lungo di qualsiasi articolo la commenti all’interno del giornale) sembra proprio, per il contesto, per quello che c’è scritto, perché nasce già per essere un’icona pop (suppongo che a breve avere una propria foto manipolata da Farey diventerà come farsi ritrarre da Raffaello) e per essere letta all’interno del sistema di valori del “pop” e del post-moderno.
Ora, non credo spetti a Rolling Stone Italia fare da baluardo contro Berlusconi. Rolling Stone Italia è una rivista che opera in un regime di mercato ed è liberissima di fare le copertine che ritiene porteranno più lettori la cui attenzione vendere ai propri inserzionisti. E le polemiche, si sa, fanno vendere.
Però, ecco, secondo me questa copertina è così goffa nell’essere un omaggio all’immagine pubblica che il PresDelCons vuol dare di sé che a me sembra più un omaggio spudorato. Esattamente il tipo di ossequio verso un potente e verso il suo culto della personalità che vorrei non vedere mai mai mai.

Let me make myself clear. I am a fanboy.

Infinite Jest is no mean achievement. It’s not just another great work of fiction. It is something else. It is carefully and laboriously constructed, with every sentence crying to be read again, and again. It’s not easy to pick up this book from the shelf and start reading. It’s intimidating for the average reader, 1000 odd pages of text in tiniest of fonts, and close to 400 footnotes. They are actually end notes and to pass of a very low key comment about this book – it was the first book that required two book marks. Some of the end notes contain a whole different chapter, some of them stretch to tens of pages and smugly enough, there are footnotes to these end notes. David Foster Wallace loved the beautiful concept of recursion and he was quite vocal about it. Or should I say verbal?

This is not a review. I don’t think I am qualified enough to do that before revisiting those thousand pages. Twice. And I don’t see myself doing that in the near future because I feel quite spent with all the intense reading and humongous effort the whole thing took. I need to read Archie Comics or something like Chetan Bhagat before moving forward in my literary adventure. It took the whole of Fall (quite ironic that I missed Infinite Summer) to struggle my way through this artwork in the midst of work, family events, joblessness etc. Because whatever presumptions you may have, coffee table or in flight reading, this is not.

But there are a couple of things that could elevate the reading experience and make it relatively easier to complete your Infinite period. These are my observations and some of them I noticed thanks to random flipping of pages and stopping by after I finished the book.

• You’ll start feeling the pinch after about 100 pages. Do not give up. It is a mighty uphill task till page 250. But after that, things start looking good and falling in place. If they don’t, something is not working for you.

• The page that has the year list, somewhere around 220, is important. Mark it. You’ll keep visiting it whenever and wherever you’re lost.

• Don’t forget or ignore the end notes. Some of them may not make sense right away, or ever. But learn to live with them.

• This book is as American as it can get. The soul is so strikingly American that you’d start to think if the author himself is dysfunctional. It’s doubly as interesting if you’ve lived in America at some point of your life. And if you are from the Greater Boston area, it’s a treat. Commonwealth Avenue, Rt 20, I-90, Newton, Brookline and Logan. All of them playing important parts in the storyline. I am not from there. I spent around 7-8 hours of an overcast day, during March of this year, around these very interesting parts of Boston area(much to the disappointment of a dear friend, who I had not called then). But that old world charm of Boston is hard to miss, even for a few hours.

• More than halfway into the book, if a single piece is missing from the puzzle, it more or less means you forgot something. Go back.

• If something is missing from the initial few hundred pages, then don’t fret. They will start making sense soon.

• If you love tennis, or the even the type that watches only Grand Slam finals, pay attention when tennis is the subject or even better, a tennis match is the subject. These are the occasions when DFW is at his best. If you want a mild introduction to DFW’s writing before you start Infinite Jest, read this and this. It is widely believed that his journalism is relatively easy on the eyes and the head.

• Persevere. You’ll feel rewarded in the end. Remember this is something else.

• Before you complete it, don’t ever read anything about the book on the Internet! Cheeky, I know, but beware of spoilers and theories. I was fortunate enough to receive this advice and sensible enough to have followed it. And I am thankful that I did.

I’ll revisit this book two to three years later to see how well it reads then. I have no doubt that it would hold its own and be as lipsmackingly good as it is now. This is the work of a genius, a mind of epic limits that it really makes you think how much David Foster Wallace could have accomplished had he lived on. But as it is often said, you have to give genius its due, they have their own quirky ways of doing things and they know their craft better than anyone else.

]]> http://mimsysnark.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/me-dfw/ Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:45:50 +0000 mimsysnark http://mimsysnark.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/me-dfw/

“It was just feeling as though every axiom of your life turned out to be false. And there was nothing, and you were nothing — it was all a delusion. But you were better than everyone else because you saw that it was a delusion, and yet you were worse because you couldn’t function.”

Mi sento di affermare che il tennis è lo sport più bello che esista e anche il più impegnativo. Richiede controllo sul proprio corpo, coordinazione naturale, prontezza, assoluta velocità, resistenza e quello strano miscuglio di prudenza e abbandono che chiamiamo coraggio. Richiede anche intelligenza. Anche un singolo colpo in un dato scambio di un punto di un incontro professionistico è un incubo di variabili meccaniche. [...] Il processo logico richiesto è del tipo che può essere compiuto solo da un essere vivente perfettamente cosciente, e comunque soltanto a livello inconscio, cioè combinando il talento con la ripetizione al punto tale che le variabili vengono combinate e controllate senza pensiero cosciente.
In altre parole, il tennis serio è una specie di arte.

Ecco, il tennis che pratico io non è né serio né una specie di arte. Però, leggendo “L’abilità professionistica del tennista Michael Joyce come paradigma di una serie di cose tipo la scelta, la libertà, i limiti, la gioia, l’assurdità e la completezza dell’essere umano“, mi trovo d’accordo con ogni parola di David F. Wallace. Le considerazioni poetiche e filosofiche in questo ed altri suoi scritti completano da un punto di vista culturale le lezioni di tennis che ogni tanto prendo da un maestro.

Vado a giocare.

]]> http://linchpin2go.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/fundstuck-des-tages-4/ Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:10:38 +0000 Die Domptöse http://linchpin2go.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/fundstuck-des-tages-4/ http://klammeraufklammerzu.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/schrift-006/ Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:55:27 +0000 sad http://klammeraufklammerzu.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/schrift-006/

sad. Schon mehr als ein Jahr ist es nun her, dass der viel gerühmte amerikanische Schriftsteller David Foster Wallace ums Leben gekommen ist. Sein postmoderner Roman Unendlicher Spaß ist erst nach seinem Tod in deutscher Sprache erschienen, begleitet von euphorischem medialen Getöse: Das Feuilleton hat sich überschlagen, im Fernsehen wurde der ziegelsteindicke Roman präsentiert, die Beiträge in Weblogs sind kaum zu überblicken. In den USA ist Infinite Jest bereits 1996 erschienen, und seitdem hatte sich Wallace mit Kurzgeschichten und Essays vor allem kürzeren Formen gewidmet. Und es lohnt sich, einen Blick über den Tellerrand des wortgewaltigen, komplex verschachtelten opus magnum zu werfen, denn David Foster Wallace tritt dem Leser in einem anderen, deutlicheren Licht entgegen.

2003 ist Wallace von der Zeitschrift Gourmet beauftragt worden, einen Beitrag über das 56. Maine Lobster Festival zu schreiben, ein Festival, bei dem es vor allem um eines geht: das Verspeisen von Hummern. Über viele Seiten schildert Wallace sachlich und detailliert, wie eine kaum fassbare Menge der Tiere in verschiedensten Variationen zum Verzehr angeboten wird, zuvor lebend gekocht im World Largest Lobster Cooker. Die Leser des Magazine of Good Living bekommen zunächst, was sie erwarten: einen Bericht über die populärste Hummer-Sause der Welt. Doch etwa nach der Hälfte des Essays kommt der studierte Philosoph Wallace zu den eigentlichen Fragen, die der kollektive Hummerverzehr bei ihm aufgeworfen hat. Ohne diejenigen zu verurteilen, die Hummerfleisch als Delikatesse genießen, denkt er darüber nach, wie es eigentlich möglich ist, Hummer zuerst bei lebendigem Leib zu kochen, anschließend jedoch mit Genuss zu verspeisen. Geschickt hält er die Leser bei Stange, bis er diese Frage stellt – und nachdem sie bereits Zeit investiert haben, um einen großen Teil des Artikels zu lesen, lesen sie ihn, so ist zu wohl, vermutlich auch zu Ende und weichen den Überlegungen nicht aus.

Sie begegnen einem David Foster Wallace, der mit rationalen, argumentativen Mitteln zu zeigen versucht, dass Hummer entgegen aller Behauptungen vonseiten der Hummerfleisch-Lobby durchaus Schmerzen empfinden können und dementsprechend leiden, wenn man sie dazu vorbereitet, von uns gegessen zu werden. Wallace bewegt sich hierzu in den Untiefen der Psychologie des Geistes und der Biologie. Er sinniert darüber, was es eigentlich heißt, Schmerzen zu haben, und wie wir gerechtfertigterweise davon ausgehen können, dass andere sich in diesem mentalen Zustand befinden, den wir selbst kaum in Worte fassen können. Im Endeffekt, so könnte man seinen Ausführungen entgegenhalten, tappt er schließlich in die Behaviorismus-Falle: Sieht man, wie die Hummer noch etwa eine halbe Minute versuchen, aus dem kochenden Wasser zu entkommen, kann man gar nicht anders, als anzunehmen, was sie erleben, würde ihnen ziemlich wehtun. Dass sie tatsächlich Schmerzen empfinden, weiß man aber natürlich nicht. Es könnte genauso ein einfacher Fluchtinstinkt sein, der auf einer ganz anderen Empfindung beruht, die dem sterbenden Hummer sagt: Das Ende ist nah.

Schön ist jedoch auch das nicht, und ganz unabhängig von Wallace Argumentation kommt man auch auf diesem Weg an den Schlusspunkt seiner Überlegungen: Der Aufforderung, sich Gedanken darüber zu machen, warum wir eigentlich so handelt, wie wir es zumeist eher unreflektiert tun – und darüber, was das Handeln der Hummer-Connaiseure eigentlich mit dem Good Living zu tun hat, dem guten Leben, dass im Namen der inzwischen übrigens eingestellten Feinschmeckerzeitschrift steckt. Diese Appelle scheinen denkbar banal, vage außerdem – und sind gleichzeitig so wichtig. Sie wirken nur deshalb nicht in unangemessenem Maße pädagogisch, weil Wallace sie aus einem Beispiel speist, dessen moralische Tragweite intuitiv einleuchtet. Das Beispiel des Hummers ist schlicht, aber wirkungsvoll: Natürlich kommt der Leser des Essays von selbst auf die Fragen, die Wallace aufwirft. Umso leichter, zu denken, der Autor würde mit erhobenem Zeigefinger tadelnd umhergehen. Doch gerade weil er grundlegende moralische Fragen geradezu naiv stellt, fühlt man sich nicht ernsthaft ermahnt oder zurechtgewiesen. Vielmehr stößt Wallace den Leser auf sich selbst und ist damit wieder bei seinem Thema: Dass wir glauben, die köchelnden Hummer empfänden Schmerzen, liegt daran, dass wir ihr Verhalten so deuten, und zwar weil wir uns ähnlich verhalten würden. Und auch, dass wir Hummerfleisch trotzdem genießen können, liegt an uns, daran nämlich, dass wir den verendenden Hummer im Topf einfach ausblenden. Ebenso blenden wir grundlegende moralische Probleme häufig aus, genau solche, wie sie sich in Am Beispiel des Hummers finden. Das ist ein Grund, sich genauer mit dem Autor von Unendlicher Spaß zu beschäftigen und auch einen Blick in seine kürzeren Schriften zu werfen: David Foster Wallace scheut sich nicht, die einfachen, aber großen Fragen zu stellen.

David Foster Wallace: Am Beispiel des Hummers, übers. v. Marcus Ingendaay, Hamburg, Zürich: Arche 2009. (78 S.)]

Die ersten beiden fest eingeplanten Titel für 2010 seien vermeldet:

Tobias Wimbauer: Personenregister der Tagebücher Ernst Jüngers.
Hagen-Berchum 2010: Eisenhut Verlag, 3., aktualisierte Auflage, ca. 250 Seiten, Broschur
ISBN 978-3-942090-02-5

„This work of Tobias Wimbauer is obviously of tremendous importance.“
(Thomas Rohkrämer, German History)

„… eines der seit langem nützlichsten Bücher zu Jünger…“
(Uwe Pralle, Frankfurter Rundschau)

„… in kühnem Alleingang die unendlich mühsame Aufgabe bravourös bewältigt…“
(Albert von Schirnding, Süddeutsche Zeitung)

TW Register

Tobias Wimbauer: Anarch im Widerspruch. Neue Beiträge zu Werk und Leben der Brüder Ernst und Friedrich Georg Jünger
Hagen-Berchum 2010: Eisenhut Verlag, 2., veränderte Auflage, ca. 300 Seiten, Broschur
ISBN 978-3-942090-03-2

„(…) Der junge Philologe Tobias Wimbauer (…) gilt als der Detektiv des Lebens Ernst Jüngers. Seinen Forschungen ist es nun zu verdanken, daß eine vollständig neue Interpration dieser sogenannten „Burgunderszene“ möglich wird. Sie könnte Anhänger wie Feinde Jüngers verwirren. (…)“
(Martin Thoemmes, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)

„In seinem Aufsatz über die berühmte „Burgunderszene“ aus den Pariser Tagebüchern, legt Wimbauer indessen überzeugend dar, dass Jünger gerade im Tagebuch literarische Fiktion unter dem Deckmantel diaristischer Authentizität verbergen konnte“
(Alexander Rubel, Études Germaniques)

„Wie im Rausch nimmt man dies alles zur Kenntnis, man möchte in jedem einzelnen Punkt zustimmen“
(Jörg Sader, literaturkritik.de)

„An diesem Tag gab es gar keinen Luftangriff auf Paris“
(Harald Schmidt, Harald Schmidt-Show)

Anarch Cover

Inhalt: Tobias Wimbauer: Vorwort. – Friedrich Georg Jünger: Besatzung 1945. – Tobias Wimbauer: Kelche sind Körper. Der Hintergrund der „Erdbeeren in Burgunder“-Szene. – Christophe Fricker:  Gesotten oder gesonnen?  Unkulinarische Beobachtungen zu Hummer und Schmerz bei David Foster Wallace und Ernst Jünger.- Peter Bahn: „Doch blieb er im Kern Theologe“. Begegnungen Friedrich Georg Jüngers mit Friedrich Hielscher.- Wojciech Kunicki: Das Geschichtsbild Ernst Jüngers. – Helmut Lethen: Jüngers Desaster im Kaukasus. – Wilhelm Marquardt: Als Gefechtsläufer bei Ernst Jünger im Sommer 1918. – Wilhelm Marquardt: Wie ich zu Ernst Jünger kam (1934). – Wilhelm Marquardt: Mit Ernst Jünger am Wäldchen 125 (1934). – Ernst Jünger: Briefe an Wilhelm Marquardt und seine Familie. – Martin Thoemmes: Sokratische Existenz. Biographische Notizen zu Leonhard Fischer. – Leonhard Fischer: Vom Verlust der Autorität. – Thomas Rohkrämer: Nihilismus und Wille zur Macht. Zum Verhältnis von Sinnkrise und Schaffensfreude beim frühen Ernst Jünger. – Tobias Wimbauer: Ernst Jüngers Prosastück Ortners Erzählung. – Piet Tommissen: Ernst Jüngers Friedensschrift. Versuch einer Rekonstruktion ihrer Geschichte und ihres Schicksals. – Ernst Jünger: Eidesstattliche Erklärung, 22. Sept. 1947. – Ernst Jünger: Ansprache, 26. August 1984.

It’s been a busy month over at The Fanzine:

Tao Lin, author of Shoplifting from American Apparel, on Werner Herzog’s short documentaries.

Darius James, author of Negrophobia and That’s Blaxploitation! has written a pretty amazing, sad and hilarious piece on his childhood experience watching the film Revenge of the Zombies with an eye for race, identity and voodoo.

Jennifer Blowdryer interviews people about their experiences being kicked out of bars, apartments and restaurants in the the first installment of 86′d stories.

Thom Donovan’s profile on cellist and disco pioneer Arthur Russell and interview with Israeli experimental curator Gail Eilat about the Mobile Archive, an unusual traveling video art exhibit that specializes in war zones.

Daniel Hamilton reviews Chronic City, the latest from Jonathan Lethem and uncovers the latent critique of capitalism in Stephen Soderbergh’s recent films

Amy Meyerson closely reads both David Foster Wallace’s and John Krasinski’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and comes up with some engaging contrasts.

Also: new fiction from Joshua Cohen, who has an 800 page novel forthcoming from Dalkey Archive, and Mike Louie’s stellar review of Girls’ Guide to Rocking.

Finally, a write up and photos of Fanzine’s participation in Kaya Oakes’ independent media discussion panel at Skylight Books in Los Angeles.

I’ve been dealing with a cold/flu with symptoms that go unmatched when compared to the last several times I’ve been ill. This one is seriously a doozy. Nose blowing, coughing, deliriousness, it’s been a real blast. Sans cable TV, a man who is ill can rarely find anything to pass his bacteria-infected time other than by reading. In October, I read a great deal of airtight reporting and just generally good non-fiction. There was a novel in there, too.

I’m liking my new subscription to Columbia Journalism Review. Brent Cunningham makes some strong points in his ‘Take a Stand,’ an essay calling for a massive realignment of mainstream journalism’s priorities to include an effort to “lead a discussion that is broad and fearless enough to challenge the systems and assumptions that shape America’s politics, its economics, and its civic and social life.” Read the whole thing here. On a somewhat related note, Graham Rayman at the Village Voice discusses the surviving seven newspapers in New York here.

I read Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road a few weeks back. I don’t imagine you need me to tell you about this, but Yates’ 1961 masterwork is something I won’t soon forget. I haven’t seen the recent film version yet, but the book chronicles the day-to-day interplay in the suburban home of Frank and April Wheeler, a household defined by general despair and some pretension, heavy drinking, and biting arguments that are long rehearsed, each angle born deep within two people who are just dreadfully, dreadfully sad. Mine is a crude and all-too-brief summary when compared to the words that line this deeply affecting book. Here is an essay from writer Richard Ford, adapted from his introduction to the edition that I read.

The New Yorker profile of Wes Anderson is a great read — I like the idea of The Life Aquatic coming together over many lunches in a West Village bar. I’m rarely anything close to productive in a bar. Subscription required.

My friend’s son penned this heartfelt/-breaking column, Making a Phillies Fan: An Architecture of Heartbreak, about what inspires him to return to the Philadelphia Phillies every year, and I’m recommending that any fan of baseball have a look. It was particularly relevant a couple of weeks ago, but I think it will resonate with any enthusiast of the game.

In the wake of Gourmet magazine’s closing (RIP), I followed a hyperlink to a funny and bleak David Foster Wallace piece from their archives called “Consider The Lobster.” I really wish people wouldn’t eat lobster.

Please don’t miss this excellent celebration of long-form journalism from Mark Reynolds at PopMatters. If you didn’t have the chance to read any of the other pieces that they ran as a part of their ten-year anniversary, I strongly recommend checking them out. Happy Birthday, PopMatters. And track down Issue 37 of Wax Poetics — MJ is on the cover. As usual, it’s chock full of insightful music writing wrapped in marvelous design. (Here, also, is the RSS feed to the stuff I Digg. Please find recent choices to the right of the page — it’s updated regularly.)

Lesen Sie dieses Buch? Warum lesen Sie es? Was können Sie uns bislang berichten? Sie sind gefordert. Wir wollen Ihre Meinung hören. Wir, das sind all jene Menschen, die dieses Buch nicht lesen, weil sie keine Zeit dafür haben oder vorgeben, keine Zeit dafür zu haben, oder weil sie den Rummel um Autor und Werk als einen Hype betrachten, den man besser nicht noch weiter anheizen sollte, oder die lieber auf die Taschenbuchausgabe warten, weil diese erstens günstiger sein, zweitens erst herauskommen wird, wenn die Aufregung sich gelegt hat und es dann nicht mehr so erschreckend angesagt ist, dieses Buch auf dem Schreibtisch, dem Autorücksitz oder dem kleinen MAGAZIN-Beistelltisch liegen zu haben.

November 8, 2009 is not only Day 8 of DrawMo (and NaNoWriMo), but for enthusiasts of David Foster Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest it’s also Interdependence Day. I found an interesting picture of sludge digesters on Deer Island that handle waste from Boston (where Infinite Jest is set) in the book Infrastructure by Brian Hayes. The barely done interloper and offspring behind the digesters in my sketch are there due to my reading The Arrival by Shaun Tan today and having my mind blow by how unbelievably amazing it was.

Grab hands and hold on for Week 2 of DrawMo. We’re all in this together.

Of any character in any book, movie, or television show ever, John Krasinski’s Jim Halpert from The Office has had the greatest influence on me. In my senior bio in the 2009 year book, Jim Halpert is listed under my “most influenced by.” So needless to say, ever since I started watching The Office a couple years ago, I have been a big fan of John Krasinski and the character he helped create.

As a hopeful future director, when I  heard that Krasinski was directing and writing his own feature film, he sky-rocketed even higher than he previously was on my list of most awesome people ever. I had the privilege of seeing a screening of his adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s book, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, last night at Kendall Square Cinema (which is, by the way, the most hidden movie theater I have ever been to) at which Krasinski gave a brief Q&A and introduction.

Krasinski @ Kendall Square

The movie was great and a surprisingly ambitious film for a first time director. It’s intricate non-linear structure and poetic dialogue (both of which were certainly heavily influenced by the source’s author) were also really impressive for a first-time screenwriter. In his introduction of the film, Krasinski shared his two goals in making it:

1. He wanted to make a film that started a dialogue. Like it or hate it, he wanted his audience to leave the theater talking – about what they liked, about what they didn’t like, about what moved them, about what disgusted them.
2. He wanted to bring the work of David Foster Wallace to a larger medium and to a new audience. It’s clear that the late author’s work moved him deeply, and he hopes it can do the same for others through his film.

After having seen the movie, I can certainly say that he achieved both of these goals. The movie undoubtedly will get some kind of emotional or sympathetic response from any audience, especially with his charged performance at the end, and I can attest to the fact that my friends and I left the theater engaged in the very kind of dialogue he hoped for. Additionally, I had surprisingly never heard of David Foster Wallace until I heard about Krasinski’s film, and was excited to purchase the book today at Krasinski’s reading and signing at Brookline Booksmith. I look forward to reading it and am sure that I will enjoy it as much as I did the film.

I should also mention that at the screening, I was fortunate enough to get to ask a question and before I did so, he told me he liked my gloves. Awesome.

Click for higher resolution.

Click for higher resolution.

It’s funny to see Jim Halpert living in the real world. After interacting with Krasinski in real life, its evident that the reason most people love Jim – because he is such a believable character – is valid, because Krasinski in real life is very much like his character on the Office. He was extremely humble, and even admitted to being nervous in front of the group of 200 fans gleefully crammed into the Brookline Booksmith basement.

The crowd at Brookline Booksmith.

In short, the past two days were pretttttttty awesome.

Just sharing a laugh, ya know?

SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-Live at the Botanique, 9th-12 May 2001 (2001).

This is called an “official bootleg.”  It must be very rare as I can’t even find a picture of it online.  My friend Lar must have gotten it for me, as I have never seen the band live and it was (apparently) only available at their shows.  Or maybe I got it online during the tour?  Whatever the case, it’s a great live selection of their later songs.

It’s a cool collection of songs from shows over the course of three days.  It’s also interesting that the track listing is five songs from one gig, then three from the final gig and two from the middle one.  The band sounds great (the live setting always suits them). On this disc, Paula Frazer sings the duet of “Buried Bones” and there are some nice backing vocals from Gina Foster and Viki St. James on the last two tracks.

It’s a rather mellow set list, but the crowd certainly enjoys it.  And, as this is something of a greatest hits (of the more recent tracks), I could listen to it all day.

There appears to have been only one other “Official Bootleg”: Coliseu Dos Recreios De Lisboa – October 30th 2001.  But I’ve never seen it.

[READ: October 25, 2009] “Three Fragments from a Longer Thing,” “Good People,” “The Compliance Branch,” “Wiggle Room” and “Irrelevant Bob”

These are the last pieces of uncollected David Foster Wallace fiction that I had left to read.  I saved this for last because, well, they are supposedly parts of the soon to be released The Pale King.  Some of these pieces are definitely from The Pale King (it states so in the magazine  openings).  A couple are possible contenders for The Pale King, but we won’t know until the book comes out (sometime in 2010, I’m led to believe).  I had read some of these pieces before but it is much more satisfying to read them together.

The strange thing for me about these pieces is that when I read the New Yorker titles initially, there was no indication that the pieces were excerpts.  They treated them as short stories (even giving them titles).  So, when you read them, they feel like something is missing (namely 900 more pages).  And in many respects, I think that’s bad for the author.  Sure its good to get the work out there, but when a story feels unfinished, it leaves a bad taste in the readers’ mouth.

All the bold text comes from The Howling Fantods.  He gives summaries of where the fragments come from.  And since he’s a much bigger DFW fan than I am, I’m going to assume that when he says something is from TPK, he knows what he’s talking about.

“Three Fragments from a Longer Thing”. Lannan Readings & Conversations; Dec. 6, 2000. [NOTES: In December of 2000, DFW read three pieces he referred to as 'fragments' and which he said were from a longer thing (possibly "The Pale King" but this remains unconfirmed). Listen to the reading here or read it, lovingly transcribed by yours truly, here.]

DFW read these pieces aloud in 2000.  [The audio, by the way is fantastic.  It really brings to life the technical and medical sections of the story.]  The Longer Thing is never specified, but it’s possible that it is The Pale King.  These fragments have no direct connection to the later fragments below, but with any DFW novel, you never know how people are going to connect in a book!

FIRST & THIRD FRAGMENT

The first and third fragments are about the same unnamed boy.  This boy, when he was six, decided that he wanted to press his lips to every single inch of his body.  It wasn’t a sexual thing, it was more of an ownership thing.  And so, he sets out to press his lips everywhere.  When he ends up dislocating something, the chiropractor shows him proper stretching techniques and ways to ensure spinal health (without actually asking what the boy was doing).

These chiropractic sections are filled with very technical medical passages.  But DFW has gotten his pacing down so well that after every couple of highly professional lines, he throws in a hilarious non sequitir.  (“No lollipops were anywhere in view.”)

The third fragment continues this boy’s quest.  He’s now older and is showing severe physical deformities from his stretching exercises.  He also acknowledges that some portions of his body will be extremely tough (like the back of his head), but he is determined.

I can’t imagine how this would fit into a larger novel.  The boy has virtually no connection to the outside world.  But I do hope it is, because I’d love to find out more about him and his family.  He spends hours at a time trying these crazy contortions.  Surely they must thing something is amiss.

What a strange conceit.

SECOND FRAGMENT

The second fragment concerns a different boy.  This boy is named Leonard Stesek and he is the most generous, thoughtful, giving boy ever.  And everyone hates him because of it.  And then they feel bad that they hate him, which makes them hate him even more.

This story was so funny for Leonard’s outrageously over the top safety procedures (calling his father every hour on the hour, except when the phone gets disconnected and then calling the phone company to get it fixed) and outrageous generosity (rather than accepting an ice cream from his dad, he requests the money go to UNICEF).

I loved this fragment.  It was funny and twisted.  As with the previous one, I absolutely cannot imagine what more he could do with this.  What would Leonard be like as a grown up??  And, I can’t imagine how it would fit in with a novel.

I mention these fragments not fitting because the excerpts below which are from the novel concern an accountant and his work and home life.  And he is clearly not one of these above boys.  But, given the disparate characters and character arcs in IJ, it’s not outside of the realm of plausibility.  I hope something more comes of these, but I’m satisfied with the fragments.

“Good People”. The New Yorker; Feb 5, 2007. [NOTES: Excerpt from "The Pale King." Read it here.]

This piece doesn’t say in the New Yorker that it is from The Pale King, but it is the same character as the later story that does, so…

This is a very affecting story about a young couple facing a very important decision.  I won’t say what the decision is, but it is quite obvious once the story gets going.  The story  concerns the awkwardly named Lane Dean. (It’s not easy to say).  He and his girlfriend sit by the river.  He is trying to get up the courage to talk to her, yet he remains in his head through most of the story.

There’s very little else to it, but it is powerful and very detailed.  As with many of these fragments, it is weird to read something that is clearly not complete.  This piece does work as a fragment, and you can definitely become invested in these characters. But it would be even better within a longer story.

“The Compliance Branch”. Harper’s Magazine, Feb. 2008. [NOTES: This excerpt from "The Pale King" was originally presented at a reading for le conversazioni on Feb. 7, 2006 as "Untitled Excerpt from Something Longer That Isn't Even Close to Halfway Finished Yet." This version was printed and distributed in a booklet, available here. The Harper's version is available here.]

Harper’s also does not state that this is from The Pale King, but given the work location of the unnamed character, it works quite well as part of the novel.

This is a twisted little story about the narrator’s Group Manager and his son.  From time to time the Group Manager brings his baby into the office with him.  He has a nursery type set up in his office. But that’s not important, because the focus is on the baby.  The baby is described as “fierce, intimidating, aggressive” as he hangs there in his papoose.

In DFW’s inimitable style, he describes the workings and contraptions of the baby gear as if he had never seen any of the apparti before (“a modern, ingenious mobile supporting device”).  After pages of being freaked out about this baby, the day arrives when he is asked to “babysit” the boy.  (The reasons why are part of the story and are a little too detailed to give here).  From there it just gets more surreal.

This hilarious passage will hopefully have a delightful payoff in the novel.  I enjoyed it immensely.

“Wiggle Room”. The New Yorker; March 9, 2009. [NOTES: Excerpt from "The Pale King." Read it here.]

I reviewed this piece back in March.

But having read the other fragments (especially “Good People”) at the same time as this one, made this one that much more powerful.  Lane Dean, having accepted his decision from the earlier story is now in a soul sucking job.  One where he watches the clock incessantly and thinks of the definition of the word “boring.”

He is an IRS auditor who must double check completed files.  And he hates it.

As the story comes to a close, he is visited by what may be a ghost or a spirit of the office.  He sits on Dean’s desk and talks to him about the word “boring” and then leaves.

The amazing part of the story is the intensely detailed opening pieces about boredom.  You can palpably feel the boredom that Dean is dealing with, and yet the writing itself is not boring.  That is no mean feat. I feel like the novel would explain more about this ghost figure (although with DFW, possibly not), but regardless, it will obviously feature more of Lane Dean and his life and challenges.

“Irrelevant Bob”. The New Yorker, WEB ONLY; March 9, 2009 [NOTES: A newyorker.com-exclusive fragment of probably an excerpt from "The Pale King" (this remains unconfirmed) presented as two scanned pages of annotated manuscript. Read it here.]

It’s barely worth mentioning this in a review. It is two pages long and ends in the middle of a sentence.  It is notable for the fact that it is manuscript in process, with corrections and editing comments.  So, for the DFW fan, that’s interesting.  The two pages concern an unnamed narrator (in first person) who is talking about his memory, or lack of it.  Not that he can’t remember things, but that everything he remembers is mundane and 1970s pop culture-y (the clothes they wore, the TV shows they watched (Saturday Night Live features prominently). And that’s about it.  It’s an interesting character set up, but it’s impossible to say anything more about it.

Included in the slide show are two art pieces from Wallace’s wife, Karen Green.  They’re pretty interesting and I have to wonder if they will be included with The Pale King (probably not).

Comments:

As I mentioned, many times, The New Yorker will publish pieces with a title, and it seems like a short story.  But fragments are not short stories almost by definition.  I can remember reading “Wiggle Room” and enjoying it but feeling dissatisfied with the end (and not in a DFW-the-story-ended-without-finishing way).  Knowing they are part  of a longer thing, and reading them together like this has done nothing but whet my appetite for The Pale King. Despite my initial concerns about releasing the novel without DFW’s final input, now I really can’t wait for the book to come out.

Nach fast einer Woche Internet-Pause (wir hatten Besuch von Tochter, Schwiegersohn und den beiden Enkeln) nun wieder ONLINE.
Das heutige Rabe-Kalenderblatt schmückt eine Zeichnung von Werner Gadliger: Eine Dame (wohl des 19. Jahrhunderts?) sitzt mit ihrer Lektüre auf dem Schoß  vor einem Lesetischchen. Im Hintergrund ist ein Porträtbild an der Wand und auch ihr ungemachtes Bett zu erkennen. Ein Hündchen beobachtet sie hinterrücks. Alles wirkt idyllisch. Doch da, was ist das? Ihre rechte Hand, die geöffnet zum Kopf greift… und da… ist kein Kopf zu erkennen! Ein riesengroßes SPIEGELEI bedeckt, verdeckt Haar, Kopf, Hals und Oberkörperansatz wie ein riesengroßer Hut mit Krempe!! Wie eine Riesensonne mit Lichteraura (Eiweiß). “Sonniges Gemüt” eben. ?? Was wollte uns der Künstler damit sagen?

Immer wieder, ja täglich stelle ich verwundert fest, dass viele Taten unserer Zeitgenossen fremdartig, verfremdet erscheinen.

Das kommende Wochende werde ich wie die sich anschliessenden Tage wohl hauptsächlich meiner Vorbereitung für die Antiquariatsmesse in der  nächsten Woche widmen. Von einem guten Bekannten habe ich weitere Kleinode, Literaturperlen in einem großen Paket bekommen. Diese harren nun der Bearbeitung. Es ist mmer wieder belebend, auf diese Weise neue Autoren, Philosophien und Phantasieergebnisse kennenzulernen. So hatte ich jetzt z. B. mit Rochefoucault, einem großen französischen Philosophen und Aphoristiker, zum ersten Mal das Vergnügen: ich erhielt sein kleines Büchlein “De la Rochefoucault’s Sätze aus der höheren Welt- und Menschenkunde.”
Der Bekannte beschrieb ihn mir als einen der weisesten Menschenkenner, und seine Aphorismen als mit die klügsten. Das zweisprachige Büchlein stammt aus 1790 !
Kleines Beispiel gefällig? “Alle Welt beklagt sich über schlechtes Gedächtnis, … und kein Mensch über schwachen Verstand.”

Eben mal wieder Jane Austen im Fernsehen (“Sinn und Sinnlichkeit“), da lob ich mir die Beschäftigung mit Bloggen und Bücher listen.
Soeben auch Werner Gadliger (der mit dem Spiegelei) gegoogelt: der schweizer Zeichner und Photgraph ist so alt wie ich! Und natürlich berühmt. Muss mir auch irgendetwas mit einem Spiegelei einfallen lassen.

Über meine fortschreitende Lektüre von Foster’s “Die Geschichte des Unendlichen” (trotz aller Lesefreude hat er mich zwischendurch mehrfach  mathematisch abgehängt) komme ich auf neue (Bücher-)Sammelthemen: das Unendliche selbst, oder auch Paradoxien. Scheinen unendlich interessante Themen zu sein. Und unerschöpflich. Es gibt sogar eine Paradoxie -mit unmittelbarem naturwissenschaftlichen Anstrich/ Hintergrund und Alltagsbezug-  nämlich die Eierkocherparadoxie (womit wir wieder beim Hauptthema “Sonniges Gemüt” wären). Diese gewichtige Lebensfrage, die absurd klingt und eben paradox ist, beschäftigt mich alle paar Wochen,  jedesmal wenn ich Frühstückseier in unserem Eierkocher zubereite: weshalb muss umso weniger Wasser in den Eierkocher gefüllt werden, je mehr Eier man kochen will? Eigentlich müsste es doch mehr Wasser sein! Beschreibung und diverse Erklärungen des Paradoxons finden sich gottseidank sehr aus führlich bei Wikipedia. Dies unterstreicht die Bedeutung. Und macht Hunger nach mehr, incl. der vielfältigen Literatur dazu.

Stelle fest, dass ich ein viertel Jahr nach Beendigung meines kaufm. Angestelltendaseins mich doch schon sehr weit davon entfernt habe… geistig, etc.

Leo

I’ve noticed a rising trend: online book clubs. My first real sight of it was Infinite Summer, a website dedicated to spending the breadth of the US summer reading the 1000-odd pages of Infinite Jest, by the late great David Foster Wallace. They followed that up with reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and that’s just wound up too. Anyone across the world who wants to join in can, reading a set amount of pages each day, supplemented by commentary, blogging, forum discussion and a huge, collaborative, social-media-fuelled exploration of the texts as everyone else reads along. The very idea of it pushes my booknerdy buttons.

Now there’s The Cork-Lined Room, a similar project but for reading Marcel Proust’s utterly enormous (3000 pages or so?) In Search of Lost Time. I think I’ll leave that one for a while, until I’ve finished War and Peace, Ulysses, Finnegan’s Wake and Moby Dick first. But heck, even one of the dudes from that hip young folk band Mumford and Sons has started a book club on the band’s website, with the first month dedicated to Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. Despite some people’s fears that the internet distracts people from reading books, the two mediums can coexist and, clearly, complement each other.

I was keen to undertake Infinite Summer (well, it would have been a winter for me), but it was far too tricky in the middle of Uni. I’m thinking I might attempt it this summer, or soon at least. Or maybe I’ll wait around for Infinite Summer’s next project, the also enormous 2666, by Roberto Bolaño.

But while I know I’ll be glad to finally have more freedom to plough into my own books soon, I’d also be keen to be part of a real life, face-to-face, genuine book club. I’m not sure how hard it would be to agree on a book or find enough people, but I’m keen. Anyone in Melbourne keen?