Rating: 
Summary: Extremely enjoyable and funny
Review: David Foster Wallace has a great way with words. His philosophical mindset and ironic attitude combine to present us with a deep, unexpected view of items we might not have thought had such meaning.
Rating: 
Summary: Not that much
Review: I love Foster Wallace, but this is NOT his best....
Rating:
Summary: Read at least seven times
Review: With variety, wit, and simple truths about human nature, David Foster Wallace writes a collection of essays that makes me think and makes me laugh every time I read it.
Rating: 
Summary: BOOORRIIIINNNNNGGGGG
Review: I had to read this for summer reading and the only good that i got out of it was the nicee tan i got after i feel asleep @ the pool while i was TRYING to read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Introduction to One of America's Finest Young Authors
Review: "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" is a collection of seven essays originally published between 1992 and 1996. They range over a variety of topics and, while somewhat uneven in quality, demonstrate that David Foster Wallace is one of contemporary America's most intelligent and imaginative writers.The best of the essays are two that were originally published in Harper's magazine, "Getting Away from Being Pretty Much Away from It All" and the title essay, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again". In "Getting Away from Being Pretty Much Away from It All", Wallace relates a visit to the Illinois State Fair in 1993 in a style that alternates between intellectual ponderousness and hilariously obsessive description and commentary on the minutest details of his experience. Approaching his task with the wonder of a child, Wallace, in a passage illustrative of his style (or at least one aspect of it), reflects: "One of the few things I still miss from my Midwest childhood was this weird, deluded but unshakable conviction that everything around me existed all and only For Me. Am I the only one who had this queer deep sense as a kid?-that everything exterior to me existed only insofar as it affected me somehow?-that all things were somehow, via some occult adult activity, specially arranged for my benefit? . . . The child leaves a room, and now everything in that room, once he's no longer there to see it, melts away into some void of potential or else (my personal childhood theory) is trundled away by occult adults and stored until the child's reentry into the room recalls it all back into animate service." Similarly, in the title essay, Wallace spends nearly a hundred pages describing a seven-night Caribbean cruise on a Celebrity Cruise Lines megaship. Wallace ponders the fantasy the Celebrity brochures are selling, wanting to believe "that maybe this Ultimate Fantasy Vacation will be enough pampering, that this time the luxury and pleasure will be so completely and faultlessly administered that my Infantile part will be sated." But it will not be, for, as Wallace relates in another ponderous/humorous philosophical musing: "But the Infantile part of me is insatiable-in fact its whole essence or dasein or whatever lies in its a priori insatiability. In response to any environment of extraordinary gratification and pampering, the Insatiable Infant part of me will simply adjust its desires upward until it once again levels out at its homeostasis of terrible dissatisfaction." It's like watching a show like "The Love Boat" filtered through a humorous Heideggerian lens. In both essays, Wallace brilliantly and humorously captures his experience, writing obsessive and, at times, gut wrenchingly funny commentary on everything from the baton twirling competition at the Illinois State Fair (which had me laughing out loud while riding the exercise bike at the YMCA, drawing querulous stares) to the dangers of the vacuum sewage system on board the Celebrity cruise ship. And the humor is magnified, again and again, by footnote after digressive footnote, each microscopically elaborating Wallace's observations, commentaries and deductions. Another outstanding essay is Wallace's piece on director David Lynch ("David Lynch Keeps His Head"). Originally published in Premiere magazine, it is an incisive examination of Lynch's films commingled with a typically zany journalistic relation of Wallace's visit to the shooting of Lynch's "Lost Highway" in 1995. For anyone who has read Wallace's doorstop of a novel, "Infinite Jest", there is another essay here that is worth reading, "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction". Here, Wallace provides an analytical view of how fiction has changed in the U.S. over the past forty years and how fiction has been influenced by pervasive cultural presence of television. It is an essay full of thoughtful musings, although I found it, at times, too long and disjointed to keep my full attention. If any piece in this collection deserves editing, this is it. The other essays include a fascinating essay on Wallace's visit to a professional tennis tournament (and, in particular, Michael Joyce, "whose realness and approachability and candor are a big reason why he's whom I end up spending the most time watching and talking to"), a piece on Wallace's adolescent days playing competitive tennis in Illinois (and the way play was affected by the winds and geometry and so forth), and a short book review that delves into the long-standing topic of "the death of the author". "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" is ultimately the best introduction to the writing of David Foster Wallace, a collection I strongly recommend to anyone interested in contemporary American fiction and this brilliant young writer.
Rating:
Summary: You'll wish you were this smart.
Review: In the essay about the professional tennis player Michael Joyce, Mr. Wallace talks about how when he, himself was a junior tennis player, he felt that he was pretty darn good, but that "if I'd been just a little bit better, an actual regional champion, I would have qualified for national-level tournaments, and I would have gotten to see that there were fourteen-year-olds in the United States who were playing tennis on a level I knew nothing about." In the same way, most people who read collections of essays are probably pretty smart; may even think we'd be pretty good writers, if we put our minds to it. This guy is writing on a whole 'nother level. Read this and you will be thoroughly amused, as well as impressed. And yes, you'll wish you were this smart. This is a man who sees the same things you and I do, but by describing them the way he does, allows us to see things in a way we otherwise never would. And he's funny. This man has a power over language and perception that is awesome to behold. I find myself wanting to be able to experience my life the way he describes his. I wish I could describe anything as well as he describes most things. But then, I wish I could serve like Pete Sampras. And Mr. Wallace's description of the skill level of professional tennis players make it clear neither wish is going to come true.
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Summary: The book in context of an australian Person.
Review: Pop Culture at the smartest/ most cynical, witty and explorative. I was totally absorbed by the essays on tennis( much more respect now), blue velvet,(the aunt is not eating an actual bug but something representing a bug- in my opinion) the mammoth white decaying boat with the stereotypical americans on board and the state fair. Sometimes it is good to see Americans be more than a little subjective rather than objective, excluding the hero worship of david lynch 9(but I totally agree.) Love the title anyway.
Rating:
Summary: Guy can write an essay
Review: When David Foster Wallace dies, he'll get a seat next to Montaigne in the afterlife.
Rating:
Summary: The title I have chosen for my review is "David is funny"
Review: My friend give me this book and I am so happy! I read it all the time and I like it very very much. David is such a funny man! Hold on...the phone is ringing. Anyway, I keep hearing about how smart David is. I'm afraid this contradicts the evidence. I quote the top of page 258: "I...have lost at chess to a nine-year-old girl". No, David is not very smart, but he is very funny. I think of him as a man of modest intellectual means who uses all he has on top to be amusing. You too could be as funny as David if you spend all your time and devote your whole day to this. How funny do you think David would be if he also had to be corporate lawyer or a handyman. Anyway, in this book David tells so many funny stories. I prefer the last story in which David goes on a cruise and he has a really bad time because he is thinking so much and always worried. Like when he gets the baggage handler in trouble to keep his nose from burning. That one. I'm tired now, so I just say get this book because it will make you laugh so much. But that's Como!
Rating:
Summary: David and David
Review: Most people will be able to find a "favorite" essay among the wide variety of topics which DFW so ably analyzes in this book. I was intrigued by his account of visiting the movie set of David Lynch. This book was the first of Wallace's writing I ever read, and I can still remember the thrill of discovery that I felt. Some firsts always stay with you.
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