David Foster Wallace....

[MattZ]

I approach TPK very cautiously. No matter what the reviews say, and no matter how badly I want it to be the final word, the closure, etc., it is still a book that was not finished. I don't know what Wallace would want or would think, but something tells me that he would not have wanted what is about to come, to come.

[Good Old Neon]

I approach TPK very cautiously. No matter what the reviews say, and no matter how badly I want it to be the final word, the closure, etc., it is still a book that was not finished. I don't know what Wallace would want or would think, but something tells me that he would not have wanted what is about to come, to come.

 

I feel the same way, however, for better or worse, my excitement related to the discovery/release of TPK remains undiminished. Karen Green, Wallace’s widow, has stated that the manuscript for TPK was placed, all tidied up, on Wallace’s writing desk.

 

From D.T. Max’s New Yorker article:

 

Green returned home at nine-thirty, and found her husband. In the garage, bathed in light from his many lamps, sat a pile of nearly two hundred pages. He had made some changes in the months since he considered sending them to Little, Brown. The story of “David Wallace” was now first. In his final hours, he had tidied up the manuscript so that his wife could find it. Below it, around it, inside his two computers, on old floppy disks in his drawers were hundreds of other pages—drafts, character sketches, notes to himself, fragments that had evaded his attempt to integrate them into the novel. This was his effort to show the world what it was to be “a fucking human being.” He had not completed it to his satisfaction. This was not an ending anyone would have wanted for him, but it was the ending he chose.

[MattZ]

Karen Green, Wallace’s widow, has stated that the manuscript for TPK was placed, all tidied up, on Wallace’s writing desk.

 

Interesting. I suppose that I will always wonder if "unfinished" meant that Wallace just wasn't happy with it, and so could not bring himself to call it "final," or if it really was "unfinished." I suppose it's a fine line. Your post, and your evidence, makes me think it's the former, not the latter. Which makes it easier to swallow and sadder all the same.

 

I have a feeling that reading this book, no matter what, is going to be unlike any other experience I've had and ever will have. It will not be easy.

[Good Old Neon]

Interesting. I suppose that I will always wonder if "unfinished" meant that Wallace just wasn't happy with it, and so could not bring himself to call it "final," or if it really was "unfinished." I suppose it's a fine line. Your post, and your evidence, makes me think it's the former, not the latter. Which makes it easier to swallow and sadder all the same.

 

I have a feeling that reading this book, no matter what, is going to be unlike any other experience I've had and ever will have. It will not be easy.

 

I don’t want to overstate the degree to which Wallace thought TPK was/is publishable. Only 200 or so pages exist, along with lots of notes and character bios, etc – and it was nowhere near completion. Given the degree to which Wallace obsessed over his writing, if he were alive, there’s not a Trial-Sized Dove Bar’s chance in hell he would have ever allowed it to be published as is. Perhaps, facing death, he sort of just capitulated to the inevitable, and, suspecting that at some point in the future, it would see publication, did what he could to make it at least somewhat presentable before taking his own life, I just don’t know.

 

From what I gather (and much of what I have gathered can be found in Max’s article), he was driven a little nutty attempting to complete it and/or put all the pieces together to shape a coherent whole. As he describes it:

 

“…many, many pages written, then either tossed or put in a sealed box. The whole thing is a tornado that won’t hold still long enough for me to see what’s useful and what isn’t. I’ve brooded and brooded about all this till my brooder is sore. Maybe the answer is simply that to do what I want to do would take more effort than I am willing to put in. Which would be a bleak reality indeed, if that’s all it is.”

 

But yeah, reading it will be quite an experience.

[MattZ]

Yeah, I just did some snooping around, and according to New York magazine it was only 1/3 done, and:

 

"...despite the fact that he allegedly 'tidied up the manuscript so that his wife could find it' in his final hours, it was clearly unfinished, definitely not intended for publication..."

 

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/03/will_david_foster_wallace.html

 

The blurb itself is pretty negative, and frankly, New York magazine sucks ass, so I don't care what they say. But this blurb has me a bit worried about what sort of expectations to have going in. I hope, as you say, that Wallace knew what was coming, and in the face of this, simply did the best he could to make it presentable.

[Good Old Neon]

Brilliant blog post regarding the Entertainment’s entertainment value vis a vis video games, IJ’s Buddhist tendencies and some other stuff from Mathew Baldwin of Infinite Summer fame.

 

That's Entertainment

 

At some point in Infinite Jest, around page 73, I abandoned my highlighter. There was simply too much to absorb on the first read, I decided, and I would save the markup for the second pass.

But last week, on page 389, Old Yeller rode again:

 

‘You burn to have your photograph in a magazine.’ ‘I’m afraid so.’ … ‘You feel these men with their photographs in magazines care deeply about having their photographs in magazines. Derive immense meaning.’ ‘I do. They must. I would. Else why would I burn like this to feel as they feel?’ ‘The meaning they feel, you mean. From the fame.’ ‘Lyle, don’t they?’ … ‘Perhaps the first time: enjoyment. After that, do you trust me, trust me: they do not feel what you burn for. After the first surge, they care only that their photographs seem awkward or unflattering, or untrue, or that their privacy, this thing you burn to escape, what they call their privacy is being violated. Something changes. After the first photograph has been in a magazine, the famous men do not enjoy their photographs in magazines so much as they fear that their photographs will cease to appear in magazines. They are trapped, just as you are.’ ‘Is this supposed to be good news? This is awful news.’ ‘LaMont, are you willing to listen to a Remark about what is true?’ ‘Okey-dokey.’ ‘The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.’

 

The conversation between LaMont Chu and Lyle–and the highlighted passage, specifically–was eerily familiar. About a month ago I read an article entitled Creating the Illusion of Accomplishment, in which a video game developer pointed out how easy it is to design titles that are addictive without being especially fun. “There’s a vital question that is rarely asked,” he said. “Does our game make players happy when they play, or just make them sad when they stop? This is a subtle distinction, and irrelevant to sales, but I think it’s very important. Medicine and heroin both sell for a high price, but I would sleep better at night selling one than the other.”

 

It’s more than just the similar choice of words that caused my spider-sense to tingle, of course. At the heart of Infinite Jest is an entertainment so alluring that people are literally unable to pull themselves away. In the novel it is (presumably) a film, which would have been a natural choice at the time the book was written. After all, the most compelling video game in 199460 was Donkey Kong County which, while fun, is not strap-on-a-dinner-tray-and-crap-your-pants addictive by any stretch.

 

But by the time Infinite Jest was released, 1996, the video game landscape was already changing. A little company called Blizzard Entertainment released Diablo, a near-perfect distillation of addictive video game elements. Eight years later Blizzard combined Diablo with another hit series and gave us the closest real-life analog to The Entertainment: World of Warcraft.

 

I am not making the comparison in (um) jest. Tales of people neglecting themselves and their dependence while playing World of Warcraft (WoW) are only a Google search away. And the game is notorious for wreaking havoc on marriages, friendships, employment, bank accounts, and hygiene.

 

How did video games come to usurp television as entertainment’s most irresistible siren? Marthe could tell you the answer to that one: choice, or the illusion thereof. Television ladles out its rewards for free: excitement, romance, shock, horror. But you have to work to reap the same benefits from a video game, and that investment of effort (no matter how minor) amplifies the pleasure, because you feel like you’ve “earned it”. It’s a principle harnessed by everything from roulette tables to Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, but video game designers in particular have figured out how to hijack our innate risk-reward mechanism for their own enrichment. Or as David puts it in the Creating the Illusion of Accomplishment article cited above, “Many games use well-designed rewards to convince players that they’ve accomplished something important, even when they’ve only completed a trivial task.”

 

And this is one of the central themes of the Marthe / Steeply chapters. Steeply insists that choice is what makes a people free; Marthe counters that choice can be used as a tool to enslave.

 

There is, of course, an even quicker way of stimulating our pleasure centers: rather than simulate an experience that causes the production of mood-elevating substances, you injest chemical compounds that will stimulate the production directly. But as the members of Tough Shit But You Still Can’t Drink learned at cost, and LeMont Chu learned for free, what at first makes you happy when you have it may eventually just make you sad when you don’t. In fact, to hear Infinite Jest tell it, Lyle’s warning applies to nearly everything: drug use, success, entertainment, videophones. Even a family and the company of the Pretty Girl of All Time isn’t enough to prevent a head / microwave rendezvous.

 

I am no scholar of Eastern religions (or Western, for that matter), but I get a distinctively Buddhist vibe from Infinite Jest. That “attachment to a permanent self in this world of change is the cause of suffering and the main obstacle to liberation” (Thanks Wikipedia!).That the body and it’s cravings are just the map, and should not be confused with the territory. How else to interpret that only truly happy character in the novel is the one at E.T.A. who will never be in The Show, who doesn’t use drugs (as far as we know), and can’t even be said to at least have his health?

 

As for the rest, it seems that for every character that is grappling with their desire–be in Chu for success or Erededy for pot–there is another feverishly working to undermine the efforts.

 

Charles Tavis knows what James Incandenza could not have cared about less: the key to the successful administration of a top-level junior tennis academy lies in cultivating a kind of reverse-Buddhism, a state of Total Worry.

 

The truth will set our heroes free. But not until C.T., and The Entertainment, and NoCoat tongue scrapers are finished with them

[mpolak21]

Here's a great audio archive of various interviews, readings, etc that DFW did over the years, the Brief Interviews With Hideous Men audiobook as read by David was recently uploaded. The best places to start in my humble opinion are the all of the Bookworm Interviews and the this American Life McCain piece.

 

--Mike

[anthony]

I recently began reading Infinite Jest (about 100 pages in, so far). A few initial impressions:

 

1. The language is both captivating, as well as, infuriating. How is that possible?

 

2. The filmography of James Incadenza in the footnotes could be a very interesting stand-alone short story, no? I need more time to digest it.

 

3. I am learning more than expected about drugs and tennis.

 

4. I feel like I am slowly being let in on a secret club or an inside joke.

 

5. Coincidentaly, I am also reading Y: The Last Man whose protagonist is named "Yorick". Yorick being the skull who Hamlet describes with the phrase "Infinite Jest". Weird, huh?

[Good Old Neon]

Wisconsin Public Radio has posted some fantastic interviews with Wallace, his sister, Amy, DT Max, author of The New Yorker piece, his editor, Michael Pietsch, David Lipsky, he of the Rolling Stone piece, and several other contributors. There is also a clip of Wallace giving the Kenyon College address, now known as, This is Water. The site includes some of the best stuff I've come across yet - it's also terribly, terribly sad - especially the interview with his sister.

 

The link - http://www.wpr.org/book/davidfosterwallace/

[mpolak21]

Wisconsin Public Radio has posted some fantastic interviews with Wallace, his sister, Amy, DT Max, author of The New Yorker piece, his editor, Michael Pietsch, David Lipsky, he of the Rolling Stone piece, and several other contributors. There is also a clip of Wallace giving the Kenyon College address, now known as, This is Water. The site includes some of the best stuff I've come across yet - it's also terribly, terribly sad - especially the interview with his sister.

 

The link - http://www.wpr.org/book/davidfosterwallace/

 

Wonderful link, thanks. I downloaded that show and all of the bonus links they had on the site as well.

 

--Mike

[Good Old Neon]

Wonderful link, thanks. I downloaded that show and all of the bonus links they had on the site as well.

 

--Mike

 

 

You're welcome.

 

Here's a long (video) interview with German Television.

 

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/content/823228?inPopup=true

[MattZ]

I just convinced a friend of mine to read IJ, and I think he's the type to love it, and finish it. This would be the first real live human being that I've ever met who read it and finished it. The only freaks I know who love that book as much as me are people who might just be a whole bunch of 0s and 1s. I am not sure any of you exist.

 

Every other friend of mine threw in the towel somewhere between the Year of Glad and page 100.

[Good Old Neon]

I just convinced a friend of mine to read IJ, and I think he's the type to love it, and finish it. This would be the first real live human being that I've ever met who read it and finished it. The only freaks I know who love that book as much as me are people who might just be a whole bunch of 0s and 1s. I am not sure any of you exist.

 

Every other friend of mine threw in the towel somewhere between the Year of Glad and page 100.

 

I am in here.

[MattZ]

I am in here.

 

amen buddy.

 

(as a side note, I ran the NYC half-marathon two wkds ago with that shirt on.)

[MattZ]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/14/AR2009091402387.html?hpid=moreheadlines

 

 

D.C. Police Search for Suspect in Wheelchair

 

By Paul Duggan

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, September 14, 2009; 6:11 PM

 

D.C. police said they are searching for a gunman in a wheelchair who shot a woman in her right foot Monday, then fled before patrol cars arrived.

 

The attack occurred about 1 p.m., moments after the 47-year-old victim had stepped off a Metrobus in the 1200 block of H Street NE, said Capt. Mike Gottert.

 

The woman, whose wound was not life-threatening, told police that "she had some kind of verbal dispute with the guy two weeks ago," Gottert said. "She was riding the bus. She got off. He came up and shot her. Didn't say anything. Just shot her."

 

Then the man, described as being in his early 20s, wheeled himself away. It was unclear whether the woman was able to identify him by name.

[Good Old Neon]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/14/AR2009091402387.html?hpid=moreheadlines

 

 

D.C. Police Search for Suspect in Wheelchair

 

By Paul Duggan

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, September 14, 2009; 6:11 PM

 

D.C. police said they are searching for a gunman in a wheelchair who shot a woman in her right foot Monday, then fled before patrol cars arrived.

 

The attack occurred about 1 p.m., moments after the 47-year-old victim had stepped off a Metrobus in the 1200 block of H Street NE, said Capt. Mike Gottert.

 

The woman, whose wound was not life-threatening, told police that "she had some kind of verbal dispute with the guy two weeks ago," Gottert said. "She was riding the bus. She got off. He came up and shot her. Didn't say anything. Just shot her."

 

Then the man, described as being in his early 20s, wheeled himself away. It was unclear whether the woman was able to identify him by name.

 

Ahhhh, it's the Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents!!

[Good Old Neon]

John Krasinski will be in town(Boston)at Brookline Booksmiths this weekend to discuss DFW and his adaptation of Wallace’s, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.

 

Saturday, November 7, 4pm

John Krasinski

David Foster Wallace’s Brief interviews with hideous men

 

Boston-bred actor John Krasinski (“The Office”) dreamt of one day bringing the work of his favorite writer to film. A year after David Foster Wallace’s untimely demise, Krasinski makes his directorial debut with Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, based on Wallace’s book of that same name. Join him at the Booksmith as he sings the praises of one of the 21st century’s great luminaries and signs film postcards.

 

Unfortunately, I have some prior commitments, however, if you do attend, please report back well and truly.

[Sir Stewart]

He'll also be appearing at the 7 & 9 showings at Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge on Friday.

[radiokills]

i just bought the official hardcover version of "this is water," the Kenyon college commencement speech. and i'm excited for The Pale King.