4 ms·

In my opinion DFW is a much better essayist than novelist, so I'd recommend you start with his essays to see if you like him and then move on to his fiction if

In my opinion DFW is a much better essayist than novelist, so I'd recommend you start with his essays to see if you like him and then move on to his fiction if you feel like it. Many intelligent, well read people (including literature professors) dislike his fiction, so know that it's not just you if you don't enjoy it. Consider the Lobster is a good collection of essays to start with. The essay on Joseph Frank's biography of Dostoevsky is probably my favorite DFW essay.

everybodyknows 8y ago
A New Yorker "Shouts and Murmurs" piece mentions Infinite Jest: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/03/what-i-have-in-common-with-trump https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/03/what-i-have-in... FWIW, I've only read the first 1/3 of IJ, and much of it is now burnt into my memory like the scars of a branding iron. Resolved to never pick up the book again.
- codq 8y ago
  Even more recent and relevant: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/05/how-to-read-infinite-jest https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/05/how-to-read-in...
- sanderjd 8y ago
  Personally, that is exactly what made me decide that I actually loved Infinite Jest. I was deeply unsure what I thought about it. But it was indelible, I found it popping back into my thoughts constantly over the next few months, even (or especially) while reading other, less memorable, novels. Still, many years later, there are a bunch of specific scenes and themes that I find myself thinking about. I particularly think its vision of addiction in a broad sense is spot on and was ahead of its time.
maroonblazer 8y ago
Agree, start with his essays. "Consider the Lobster" is great. The collection that hooked me is "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again". That essay in particular he wrote for Harpers where they sent him on a 7-day cruise in the Caribbean. The title says it all. It's hilarious. Or there's this, which is free and also great. Wallace writing about talk radio. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/04/host/303812/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/04/host/30...
lordgrenville 8y ago
I agree, and as a gateway to his fiction I'd maybe recommend the short story 'The Depressed Person' (https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-01-0059425.pdf https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-...) which is characteristically both very depressing and very funny.
seanhunter 8y ago
If you like short fiction, I really recommend "Little Expressionless Animals". It's not as much of a complete head-scrambler as some of his other short fiction. If you like journalism, some of his pieces on tennis are astounding, eg "Federer as religious experience" or the one where he follows some guy who's worked his ass off his whole life and is one click below the top tier and will probably never make it (forgotten that one). If you like criticism, "E unibus pluram" (on TV) and "Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young" (about postmodernism, irony and the whole clique of people around Brett Easton Ellis) are both outstanding. For novels, he only wrote 3 (as far as I know) and they're really great. I personally read "Broom of the System" first because I like reading things in order (I've done this with a number of other authors I like). It's a really cool book, very funny and not quite as huge a commitment as "Infinite Jest". So don't feel you have to start with Infinite Jest, you really don't. It's great though, as is "Pale King". Had he lived to complete "Pale King" I think it would easily have been his greatest novel, but in the state it was published in, it's still outstanding.
- seanhunter 8y ago
  Oh yeah I forgot. "Supposedly fun thing" is hillarious, as is it's predecessor, "Getting away from already being pretty much away from it all".
- charlysl 8y ago
  Maybe the tennis journeyman's essay you referred to is the one about Michael Joyce

everybodyknows 8y ago

A New Yorker "Shouts and Murmurs" piece mentions Infinite Jest: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/03/what-i-have-in-common-with-trump https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/03/what-i-have-in... FWIW, I've only read the first 1/3 of IJ, and much of it is now burnt into my memory like the scars of a branding iron. Resolved to never pick up the book again.

codq 8y ago
Even more recent and relevant: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/05/how-to-read-infinite-jest https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/05/how-to-read-in...
sanderjd 8y ago
Personally, that is exactly what made me decide that I actually loved Infinite Jest. I was deeply unsure what I thought about it. But it was indelible, I found it popping back into my thoughts constantly over the next few months, even (or especially) while reading other, less memorable, novels. Still, many years later, there are a bunch of specific scenes and themes that I find myself thinking about. I particularly think its vision of addiction in a broad sense is spot on and was ahead of its time.

maroonblazer 8y ago

Agree, start with his essays. "Consider the Lobster" is great. The collection that hooked me is "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again". That essay in particular he wrote for Harpers where they sent him on a 7-day cruise in the Caribbean. The title says it all. It's hilarious. Or there's this, which is free and also great. Wallace writing about talk radio. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/04/host/303812/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/04/host/30...

lordgrenville 8y ago

I agree, and as a gateway to his fiction I'd maybe recommend the short story 'The Depressed Person' (https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-01-0059425.pdf https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-...) which is characteristically both very depressing and very funny.

seanhunter 8y ago

If you like short fiction, I really recommend "Little Expressionless Animals". It's not as much of a complete head-scrambler as some of his other short fiction. If you like journalism, some of his pieces on tennis are astounding, eg "Federer as religious experience" or the one where he follows some guy who's worked his ass off his whole life and is one click below the top tier and will probably never make it (forgotten that one). If you like criticism, "E unibus pluram" (on TV) and "Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young" (about postmodernism, irony and the whole clique of people around Brett Easton Ellis) are both outstanding. For novels, he only wrote 3 (as far as I know) and they're really great. I personally read "Broom of the System" first because I like reading things in order (I've done this with a number of other authors I like). It's a really cool book, very funny and not quite as huge a commitment as "Infinite Jest". So don't feel you have to start with Infinite Jest, you really don't. It's great though, as is "Pale King". Had he lived to complete "Pale King" I think it would easily have been his greatest novel, but in the state it was published in, it's still outstanding.

seanhunter 8y ago
Oh yeah I forgot. "Supposedly fun thing" is hillarious, as is it's predecessor, "Getting away from already being pretty much away from it all".
charlysl 8y ago
Maybe the tennis journeyman's essay you referred to is the one about Michael Joyce