Always so careful and earnest in his answers. I love so much that he prefaces a lot of his comments with, "In the US, in US lit". He understood that what happens there is not always universal. He was brilliant, but could be quite humble.
“Only boring people get bored.” - Charles Bukowski. Boredom is the fuel by which society uses to power their manipulation machine disguised as entertainment.
I did a two part podcast series on DFW’s E Unibus Plurum. What stuck with me the most is the idea of taking a photo of a photo. Everything becomes a profile. Everything becomes spectacle. We do things to be watched doing them. No longer are we able to swim in the lake, we are merely the image of someone swimming in a lake. We mimick behavior and catch phrases of TV people and TV mimicks reality. And so we live in a fictional world where everyone and everything is manufactured for our mindless consumption.
I've watched that commencement speech more than once over the years. It is great. Strangely, that was some in his writing style that I found off setting. Stop, I was very sad when I read how he died. So talented, so caring.
"his writing exudes his desperation for sincerity." What a beautiful thoughtful observation Brock. I've felt this amorphically when reading David's work, but it never coalesced into a solid thought until now. Well done as this explains alot for me.
I don't know if I'd call them insincere as the first adjective that comes to mind. Some of them seemed very dedicated to me. I read the book a while ago, but the manic dwarf in the wheel chair made me laugh outloud and the guy in rehab seemed pretty sincere to me. I like David's work and I think he was an extremly sincere guy. I'm not trying to argue, but sincerely want to you know what you think. Educate me as to your point of view. I'll listen.
His sincerity is clear not only in the essays but in the videos you chose, because you can see at every moment his hesitation: little winces when he realizes something he's thinking of might not sound right, quick smiles when he figures out how to express a thought. I can't imagine anyone criticizing that kind of care, and he is one of the prophets of the internet age. (Though there are many others, for whom social isolation wasn't linked to sincerity: Debord, Virilio, Baudrillard.)
But there's a twist here. Wallace's speaking voice is as we can see it in these videos, but in writing he was committed to a level of eloquence, precision, and articulateness that are well outside even the professionalized norms of what he called "US" literary fiction. Wallace's prose has a supernatural and artificial sharpness. His control of vocabulary, as we know, attracted the attention of dictionary editors. Every sentence is as sharp as an ultramicrotome blade. Readers have pointed out that Wallace began to experience his performance of written language as a problem, and tried to find his way out of it in The Pale King.
I mention this because an appreciation of sincerity is complicated by the fact that the price of sincerity, in literary prose, seems to have been an unnatural, willful, intentionally showy and intimidating precision. But why would sincerity be linked to such a practice?
Wallace wasn't like Nabokov, wanting to show a preternatural control of a foreign tongue. Unlike Celan, Wallace didn't need to remake his language in order to save it from a historical past. Unlike Joyce, he didn't believe modernism required fundamental reinvention at the level of words and sentences. Wallace's precision is a kind of exhibition compulsion: he needs language to be as clean as possible, like one of those trilobites miraculously freed from its rock matrix by a pneumatic air scribe, so that its antennae and spiny limbs can look like they might micraculously begin to move.
Teach it in schools. Day one for kids - meditate journal or sit in silence for one minute to start the day this week. Build to 3-5 etc. this would go a long way. You’d be startled how many college age kids can’t or refuse to do this yet
Poor DFW. Changed my young mind, even though we were the same age.
Some people are profoundly touched by his work, others not.
But I think a copy of “This is Water” should be handed out with every new diploma.
Thanks for the essay.
That’s a wonderful idea
Not with the diploma. But with the application .
Always so careful and earnest in his answers. I love so much that he prefaces a lot of his comments with, "In the US, in US lit". He understood that what happens there is not always universal. He was brilliant, but could be quite humble.
“Only boring people get bored.” - Charles Bukowski. Boredom is the fuel by which society uses to power their manipulation machine disguised as entertainment.
I did a two part podcast series on DFW’s E Unibus Plurum. What stuck with me the most is the idea of taking a photo of a photo. Everything becomes a profile. Everything becomes spectacle. We do things to be watched doing them. No longer are we able to swim in the lake, we are merely the image of someone swimming in a lake. We mimick behavior and catch phrases of TV people and TV mimicks reality. And so we live in a fictional world where everyone and everything is manufactured for our mindless consumption.
https://open.substack.com/pub/intotheabsurd/p/56-dfws-e-unibus-pluram-an-analysis-ecc?r=3m2w5j&utm_medium=ios
I've watched that commencement speech more than once over the years. It is great. Strangely, that was some in his writing style that I found off setting. Stop, I was very sad when I read how he died. So talented, so caring.
I’m on a DFW kick at the moment and loved this
"his writing exudes his desperation for sincerity." What a beautiful thoughtful observation Brock. I've felt this amorphically when reading David's work, but it never coalesced into a solid thought until now. Well done as this explains alot for me.
But Infinite Jest has nothing but insincere characters in it 😎
I don't know if I'd call them insincere as the first adjective that comes to mind. Some of them seemed very dedicated to me. I read the book a while ago, but the manic dwarf in the wheel chair made me laugh outloud and the guy in rehab seemed pretty sincere to me. I like David's work and I think he was an extremly sincere guy. I'm not trying to argue, but sincerely want to you know what you think. Educate me as to your point of view. I'll listen.
no I agree but I think that the everyone associated with the tennis school is insincere😎 Also I am only 1/3 of the way through!
yes…everyone associated with the tennis school is exactly that!
His sincerity is clear not only in the essays but in the videos you chose, because you can see at every moment his hesitation: little winces when he realizes something he's thinking of might not sound right, quick smiles when he figures out how to express a thought. I can't imagine anyone criticizing that kind of care, and he is one of the prophets of the internet age. (Though there are many others, for whom social isolation wasn't linked to sincerity: Debord, Virilio, Baudrillard.)
But there's a twist here. Wallace's speaking voice is as we can see it in these videos, but in writing he was committed to a level of eloquence, precision, and articulateness that are well outside even the professionalized norms of what he called "US" literary fiction. Wallace's prose has a supernatural and artificial sharpness. His control of vocabulary, as we know, attracted the attention of dictionary editors. Every sentence is as sharp as an ultramicrotome blade. Readers have pointed out that Wallace began to experience his performance of written language as a problem, and tried to find his way out of it in The Pale King.
I mention this because an appreciation of sincerity is complicated by the fact that the price of sincerity, in literary prose, seems to have been an unnatural, willful, intentionally showy and intimidating precision. But why would sincerity be linked to such a practice?
Wallace wasn't like Nabokov, wanting to show a preternatural control of a foreign tongue. Unlike Celan, Wallace didn't need to remake his language in order to save it from a historical past. Unlike Joyce, he didn't believe modernism required fundamental reinvention at the level of words and sentences. Wallace's precision is a kind of exhibition compulsion: he needs language to be as clean as possible, like one of those trilobites miraculously freed from its rock matrix by a pneumatic air scribe, so that its antennae and spiny limbs can look like they might micraculously begin to move.
DFW seemed to understand with his 'New Sincerity' idea that there's no way to be both universally-relatable AND truly sincere.
That's where his acknowledgement of the edges of influence (US lit) shows his depth of thought.
This is one of the most satisfying Substack reads I've had in a while.
“Artists are the antenna of the race.” (Ezra Pound)
An antenna with an awesome video calling system! 😁
Thank you for reminding me of how much I love and appreciate DFW and his work.
Thanks. Just listened to ‘This is Water’. Magnificent.
…however, I never made it through Infinite Jest
Jest read it already 😎
“This is Water” is brilliant.
“Infinite Jest” is not.
Infinite jest is my bible
Teach it in schools. Day one for kids - meditate journal or sit in silence for one minute to start the day this week. Build to 3-5 etc. this would go a long way. You’d be startled how many college age kids can’t or refuse to do this yet
Great piece, to be content with being bored certainly is a skill in todays world. Thanks for sharing
Good work, brother.
Such a beautiful meditation on such a beautiful mind, thank you for sharing.