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R.I.P. David Foster Wallace

R.I.P. David Foster Wallace

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The best American author of the past 50 years.

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No way! A shame, indeed. 🙁

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Originally posted by darvlay
No way! A shame, indeed. 🙁
The plus side is bbarr finally wrote a short post.

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the irony is that a moment of silence would have been much more appropriate.

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Originally posted by Ice Cold
The plus side is bbarr finally wrote a short post.
Right, I should have posted this in 'Culture' to keep the flies away.

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Originally posted by bbarr
Right, I should have posted this in 'Culture' to keep the flies away.
Put out a turd, and then whine about the flies. 😕

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Originally posted by Ice Cold
Put out a turd, and then whine about the flies. 😕
And then what?

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Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
And then what?
i'd assume the smell?😵

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Originally posted by pawnfondler
i'd assume the smell?😵
That's a tough one.

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Originally posted by bbarr
The best American author of the past 50 years.
Suicide, that's very sad.

Which work of his do you recommend most highly? I have a copy of Infinite Jest.

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Originally posted by LemonJello
Suicide, that's very sad.

Which work of his do you recommend most highly? I have a copy of Infinite Jest.
Infinite Jest is stunningly good. The short stories "The Depressed Person" and "Quartet" from Brief Interviews with Hideous Men are great, as are the balance of works, particularly "Good 'Ol Neon" in his recent collection Oblivion. His best non-fiction work is found in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never do Again. Some nice work has been recently made available online at harpers.org.

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Originally posted by bbarr
Infinite Jest is stunningly good. The short stories "The Depressed Person" and "Quartet" from Brief Interviews with Hideous Men are great, as are the balance of works, particularly "Good 'Ol Neon" in his recent collection Oblivion. His best non-fiction work is found in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never do Again. Some nice work has been recently made available online at harpers.org.
Cool, thanks.

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Under the pages, Wallace appears to my taste as paranoid and overtly desperate to be intellectual under a veil of coolness.

A good read, though. He will be missed.

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Originally posted by Seitse
Under the pages, Wallace appears to my taste as paranoid and overtly desperate to be intellectual under a veil of coolness.

A good read, though. He will be missed.
It is that paralytic self-consciousness, and his struggle against it (and against it in it's general modern incarnation as irony), that makes for some of his most powerful work. DFW railed against alienation. What you have noticed is the very thing his work is aimed at exposing to view.