Just finished A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace a couple hours ago. Here's my Goodreads revew (5/5):
A couple months ago, I resolved to read the collected works (well except for the math and philosophy stuff) of David Foster Wallace prior to the release of The Pale King in April. And in reading and talking about Wallace, I kind of had this preconceived notion re the quality of his work from friends who had read him, from Goodreads, from y'know the internet or whatever - that it got better as one went along, that The Broom of the System is very good but very clearly a collegiate work, that Infinite Jest speaks for itself, that his short fiction gets better and better and that his non-fiction is across the board as good as the pieces I had read in passing. Later I would decide to go through his oeuvre chronologically, but I started with Consider The Lobster because it was on my Kindle and looked great and why not. And it's excellent, so excellent that going into A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, coupled with my preconception, I thought there was simply no way it would be as good as Consider The Lobster.
I was wrong. It's better.
It certainly helps that I remember summers in the mid-90s when my pre-teen ass would plop down in front of my family's living room television for two weeks straight to watch HBO's Wimbledon coverage. Or that I enjoy serious film. Or that I spent a huge amount of my childhood watching television only to rarely turn it on anymore in favor of reading postmodern literature. It's as if this collection was custom tailored to be read by me at this point in my life. But beyond that, these essays are almost pitch-perfect from cover to cover, teeming with humor and warmth and humility (stop me if you've heard this one before w/r/t Wallace, yeah, yeah) and an absolute joy to read.
Today in my local library I was reading the titular essay with a constant smile on my face, literally laughing at a clip surpassing once per page, when it kind of dawned on me that there aren't going to be any more of these essays, that there could have been thirty more years of them, if only, and fuck it I'll say it, I started to cry.
I really wish I had the time or drive to write these reviews more seriously, because this book really deserves it. It's easily the best collection of non-fiction I've ever read, but that's not really saying it all.
A couple months ago, I resolved to read the collected works (well except for the math and philosophy stuff) of David Foster Wallace prior to the release of The Pale King in April. And in reading and talking about Wallace, I kind of had this preconceived notion re the quality of his work from friends who had read him, from Goodreads, from y'know the internet or whatever - that it got better as one went along, that The Broom of the System is very good but very clearly a collegiate work, that Infinite Jest speaks for itself, that his short fiction gets better and better and that his non-fiction is across the board as good as the pieces I had read in passing. Later I would decide to go through his oeuvre chronologically, but I started with Consider The Lobster because it was on my Kindle and looked great and why not. And it's excellent, so excellent that going into A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, coupled with my preconception, I thought there was simply no way it would be as good as Consider The Lobster.
I was wrong. It's better.
It certainly helps that I remember summers in the mid-90s when my pre-teen ass would plop down in front of my family's living room television for two weeks straight to watch HBO's Wimbledon coverage. Or that I enjoy serious film. Or that I spent a huge amount of my childhood watching television only to rarely turn it on anymore in favor of reading postmodern literature. It's as if this collection was custom tailored to be read by me at this point in my life. But beyond that, these essays are almost pitch-perfect from cover to cover, teeming with humor and warmth and humility (stop me if you've heard this one before w/r/t Wallace, yeah, yeah) and an absolute joy to read.
Today in my local library I was reading the titular essay with a constant smile on my face, literally laughing at a clip surpassing once per page, when it kind of dawned on me that there aren't going to be any more of these essays, that there could have been thirty more years of them, if only, and fuck it I'll say it, I started to cry.
I really wish I had the time or drive to write these reviews more seriously, because this book really deserves it. It's easily the best collection of non-fiction I've ever read, but that's not really saying it all.
