A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

Rating:
Summary: A Supposedly Fun Author I'll Never Read Again
Review: While some essays were entertaining, on whole I found this book to be quite annoying. The author tries to combine stuffy academic writing with popular non-fiction, with decidedly mixed results. For example, Wallace seems obsessed with footnotes (several of his footnotes have footnotes!) which disrupts the narrative flow on nearly every page of some stories. He also comes across as a whiny outsider; his stories about the state fair and life aboard a cruise ship reveal more about the author than about the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of weird stuff put together in one place
Review: Wallace is precocious--no doubt; his grammatical shenanigans shine in this work and inspired me to vow to risk more with my own writing from now on.

He is also very, very funny when he trusts himself to get beyond junior high boy humor. I quickly tired of the "ooooo let's snigger at the fat women" snidery in his essay about the Illinois State Fair. (Please! It's tiresome when Letterman pulls out that old schtick, let alone some one with Wallace's obvious literary gifts.) Other than this, Wallace has a fine sense of the ridiculous as well as the salient: despite their supposed lightness, the state fair, cruise, and television essays have poignant observations about how we Americans consume entertainment.

Rating:
Summary: Doggedly trudged through the whole thing for a just reward
Review: This book was recommended by a highly regarded friend. Little did she know that I am truly an ignoramus and had in fact never even heard of Mr Wallace. I do have to say, as difficult as it was for me to read each painfully heavy page, I did come away with several observations: Tennis is way cool. David Lynch movies should at least be rented and watched. State Fairs, thank goodness, come around only once a year and last, but not least: I want very badly to go on a sea kayak tour of British Columbia with Mr. Wallace.

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Summary: Is DFW a white male East-Coast elitist pig? Hmmm?
Review: Since the publication of A Supposedly Fun Thing... DFW's been the target of some erudite name-calling. It's easy to see why; his essays (especially the famous cruise ship one and that damn interminable State Fair one) can be taken as emblematic of that classic New-Yorkerly East-Coast phenomenon, the educated, ultra-ironic sojourn among the non-wised-up, scoffworthy philistines. Despite all of Wallace's best efforts to the contrary, his prose in this book smacks of condescension, mainly because of his relentless tendency throughout his Harper's-sponsored journalistic journeys to see himself as apart from the goings-on, even while he lays the requisite personal-essay all-encompassing final meaning on his readers. These meanings, because the embracing attitudes of human togetherness that inform them are to be found nowhere else in the essays, come off as unconvincing and lame. Wallace, the reader begins to sense, is probably the worst person to send on a journalistic assignment; he's far too self-conscious to allow himself to be immersed in his subject. Rather, he opts to remain apart and strangely aloof, constantly imposing on himself this role of Observing Journalist. (It's important to note that this role is self-imposed, an outgrowth of Wallace's own feelings of incongruity and not-belonging. This is one of self-consciousness' most ravaging aspects; it causes one to constantly second-guess one's relationships to other people, and in doing so prevents real contact between individuals. No true human contact is possible without a certain amount of presumption, and these presumptions are precisely what self-consciousness, over time, whittles away at.) An essay demands an active narrator, a narrator who's an active participant not only in his subject's interpretation but also in its defining activities. It's almost poignant, this vision of a bandanna'd Wallace on his cruise ship, eyes peering from behind thick glasses, hand scribbling hasty impressions in a notebook crammed with red-inked scrawl, still and apart, his separateness almost a visible aura around him. DFW isn't consciously elitist, nor is he heartless. But his project, which carries with it a prevailing sense of alienation (and it's not lost on me that this is a conscious agenda on Wallace's part, it's his angle, his "thing") invites unintentional elitism and paints his exceptional prose a blue-collar shade of lily white. Interestingly enough, this subtle condescension is nowhere to be found in "Signifying Rappers," his book (co-authored with Mark Costello) about the serious interpretation of serious rap. This is probably because most of "Rappers" deals with the abstract, the factors behind the rhymes which can only be fully described in polysyllables. If more actual rappers had answered Wallace's phone calls, one can imagine the humorous, eloquent, and ultimately quite aloof impressions that would've resulted. (By the way, in case any of you doubt that it's possible for an over-educated East-Coast literary type to delve into a different culture without standing self-consciously apart from that culture, check out Ted Conover's "Trucking Through the AIDS Belt," which was published in The Best American Essays 1992.)

Rating:
Summary: read this
Review: I'm one of the people who loves Wallace's fiction, but I understand how some people, with different standards and expectations, might not enjoy it. I do NOT understand, however, how anyone could not find "A Supposedly Fun Thing &c." enjoyable. Wallace is brilliant and a great writer - there's no debate there - and as soon as we're out of the realm of fiction, where there are such widely divergent ideas of what is good writing, Wallace is impeccable. Hilarious, brilliant, inspiring. If you want a taste of one of contemporary America's greatest writers but are intimidated (or bored) by "postmodernist" fiction, I'd go so far as to say that you don't have the right to pass this book up. (Obviously there's some hyperbole, here... I acknowledge that some people might not like the book, but that just means they don't know what's going on.)

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Summary: I Read! I Laughed! I Cried! Sigh!
Review: I work as a librarian in a (you guessed it!) public library and ordered this book for our shelves here in a midwestern town. I read many of the essays in original form and was so amused by them I wanted to spread the mirth with our patrons. So far, everyone I've recommended it to has really enjoyed it. You've gotta read the a)cruise ship essay in entirety and b)what he says about Balthazar Getty in the Lynch essay!

Rating:
Summary: Sheepish Bragging About Having Read It
Review: The best essays you'll ever read about tennis, David Lynch, the Illinois State Faire or any author's account of a tornado that nearly killed him while he and his friend played tennis. Funniest line: " ...(Jimmy Connors') game was all the stranger because the racquet he generated all his firepower from the baseline with was a Wilson T2000, a weird steel thing that's one of the single shittiest tennis racquets ever made and is regarded by most serious players as useful only for home defense or prying large rocks out of your backyard or something. Memorable descriptions: the kid on the cruise with a mentally healthy woman's perspective on how to deal with greasy carnies looking up her dress. Provocative opinions: Wallace's clearly stated loathing of Balthazar Getty's behavior on the movie set, Michael Chang's mother's reputation and Andre Agassi in general. This book compelled me to boast about having read it, which is exactly what I've done in this review, even though it demonstrates a severe character flaw

Rating:
Summary: No wonder GenX claims him.
Review: Wallace, let us say, is jump-text personified, the perfect mouthpiece for a whole generation of graceless, immodest, hyper-ironic, and hyper-knowledgeable youth. In an age where readers really do want to see everything including the kitchen sink thrown into their books, where buyers care not so much about structure and coherence as they do about the amount of "good stuff" packed between covers--how much smarts they're getting for their Costco dollar--Wallace shines through brilliantly. I don't doubt the permanence of his reputation, either, as I believe we'll be seeing much more of the same from his surely imminent proteges.

Rating:
Summary: Indulgent Virtuosity?
Review: Let me come clean, I read most of these essays at publication, and I know they've been changed some for this book, so I really haven't read this book. But still. I have questions. Why all the footnotes? They strike me as gimmicky. Do any other readers find a "look ma, no hands" quality to the prose, how it befriends then puts off? Is the point of superintelligence the showing off of superintelligence? These, my questions for other readers

Rating:
Summary: challenging and engaging (mostly), with bursts of humor.
Review: I got this book as a present for my dad, then decided I'd better read it also to make sure I chose well. After reading the coverleaf I jumped to the fattest, most hyped essay in the book (which the editors wisely left till the end). It was rough sledding at first, putting up with footnotes which sometimes exceeded an entire page, and also sometimes branched to other footnotes. Asides within asides. There was also much psychological angst brought forth which made me think this author was not only painfully self-revealing, but also quite neurotic. But then the connections and thought processes brought out ideas which most people would probably never make (or have), such as explaining why most people going on this 7 day carribean cruise make excuses for why they're going rather than that they just want to. Or the death/decay theme that he strings along throughout the piece. Humor is spotty, as it seems strained at times, but in other places knocks your socks off, as it did mine during the skeet shooting scene. My summary of the 7NC chapter is one that will only make sense to fans of Northern Exposure-but the piece is simply Joel Fleishman on a cruise. .. Earlier essays were sampled next, and the first was very good, the second (where I'm now in the book) is excellent. It analyzes the TV culture in a most extraordinary manner, and probably is the only such piece I've ever seen where the author unabashedly states that he likes watching TV himself. .. I hope the middle of the book is more like the beginning than the end, but so far think it's worth the work. (If the middle is like the final essay, I may come back and change my review!)