It's been a morbid thing for me to ponder, but ever since David Foster Wallace–author of Infinite Jest, most famously, and a host of short stories and journalism that use humor and language in ways that continually surprise me–killed himself last September, I've been wondering what writing was still on his desk, unfinished and unpolished. … Continue reading I’ve been waiting for this
Tag: David Foster Wallace
John Updike is dead
Just read that John Updike, one of the giants among American novelists in the last few decades, has died at the age of 76. This is probably going to surprise some of those who read this blog, but I've never read any of Updike's work. What's more, it was a conscious decision on my part, … Continue reading John Updike is dead
Just reading DFW
Been reading the late David Foster Wallace's 1997 A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (a collection of thought-provoking and hilarious essays and journalism from the first half of the 1990s). I had forgotten the extent to which reading Wallace requires the reader to sit within relatively close proximity to a dictionary, and as … Continue reading Just reading DFW
Correction!
How quaint and immodest that title looks to me, considering I have, what, three actual readers? I'm kidding, of course. I have four. Anyway, it's come to my attention (thanks Ellen!) that Cornel Bonca's outstanding piece on David Foster Wallace that's running in this week's LA City Beat and that I wrote about here actually … Continue reading Correction!
RIP DFW
David Foster Wallace has long been one of my inspirations. A master of the English language, DFW could string together impossibly long sentences, replete with colorful descriptions, conservational prose and, every now and then, completely made up mathematical formulae. It made no difference what he was writing; Infinite Jest is a delightful monster of a novel; … Continue reading RIP DFW
Anthony Pignataro 