C) --although, that’s not really relevant here; only as a general rule. In this case, I was inspired to post because someone started a thread on a topic regarding which I had something specific and personal to add. I have participated in other funeral threads positively, and my initial post in this thread was, I hope, honest and even-handed; not intended as threadshit. In future funeral threads, if I have something to add I will add it, I hope just as honestly, and if other participants disagree with me I hope they will address what I have added rather than try to tell me my own motivations for adding it.
(ETA, in response to your post above: Happy to drop it too. As you probably knew when you changed the subject from Wallace to me, I sometimes have a hard time suppressing my instinct for self-defense in such instances, but I’ll let it go since you have.)
I largely agree with this. I think he did some fascinating, if crude, experiments with what was, essentially, hypertext–“linking” to the footnote on the page, rather than to another web page. I wish he’d lived long enough to take those experiments further. I think he was, to a certain degree, very much a representative voice of his “generation” of fiction writers (much as I hate that phrase). I think one of his greatest flaws as a writer–this will sound odd–is that he was so, um, what, undeveloped. In other words, I think the ideas he had were much bigger than he was able to accomplish; I’d like to have seen him perfect them. Other writers of his, what, his “school”–Leyner, Franzen, Eggers–had smaller ideas and so achieved them more fully. His reach far exceeded his grasp, for which I will always respect him, and for which I will always mourn his unfulfilled promise. Puts me in mind of another writer whose early death foreshortened her huge ideas and potential accomplishments, Kathy Acker (who was, surprisingly (contrarily?) a real sweetheart in person ).
Some of you might be interested to know that there’s a movie version of *Brief Interviews *being made. It’s a passion project of John Krasinski (Jim from The Office). I don’t know that it’s going to be a wide-release movie–sounds like it’s going to be more of a small indie type of film.
Infinite Jest, Girl With Curious Hair, and *Remember the Lobster *are three of my favorite books, and I’m not afraid to say I think the guy was a genius. I couldn’t care less if he was a jerk. I’ll miss having his brain, and its printed jetsam, in the world very much.
Wallace always gave me this beautiful impression that he was smart and fearless enough to take the world head on, to see as it is with all its bullshit and misery, to never shy away from the grotesque, to use it, conquer it, make it do his bidding, but somehow never drown in it.
I thought the version of “Host” that was in this compilation was almost unreadable… but the original magazine version is very nice. It reads like a standard article, but with the pull-quotes and photos replaced with footnotes, and they’re in muted colors so they don’t intrude.
The online version of this is pretty nice too (I just re-read it today) in that the footnotes are hyperlinked pop-up boxes with the same muted color scheme from the magazine. Link here: Host. It still seems like a very relevant take on right-wing talk radio, even though it was written 4 years ago.
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