Rating: 
Summary: A little self important
Review: Wallace is a good writer. The problem is in his attempt to mate Nicholson Baker and Thomas Pynchon he can fall victim to going for style over substance.You have to read him,though,because when he does find his groove he can be great.My biggest gripe is he feels it necessary to tell us EVERY SINGLE thought that crosses his obviously gifted mind.Hey David:Good editing can be a virtue,and sometimes less can be more.Infinite Jest would have been a great 600 page novel
Rating: 
Summary: Laugh hard and think harder
Review: First of all, you should be warned that this book is really
bad for your work habits. I have developed this quite
annoying tendency to sit down for quick half-hour read and
only end that read when my back is sore 'cause I've been in
the same position for three hours having lost track of time.
It's that absorbing.
The essays are a bit about everything, and all incredibly
funny. But you could get that lots of places. What you
won't get other places is humor laced with insightful (sometimes painfully so) criticism about how we live. D.F.W. included. Part of the genius of the book is a low-
level hard bit of thinking about irony, and the way irony
works now-a-days. And an incredibly compelling case that
it is time to retire irony with the black leather motorcycle jacket, and for the same reason. What was once a sign of dissent, and an way to push us to look more deeply at ourselves, and look at the possibly empty moral core there, has instead turned into an highly self-satisfying way to
keep up us at a distance from any complicated morality, from any hard looks at the way we live and live together. But, like I said, you will be laughing out loud pretty much every other page even as you do some serious introspecting.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth the effort.
Review: Reading Wallace is a little like listening to Prince: You know you're in the presence of something special, even if some of it hits you in a wierd way. (Incidentally, the above reference to Prince excludes any music that has gained popular acceptance. To complete this analogy, Wallace would have to write a few episodes of FRASIER.) Anyway, when he's on, Wallace's language flies beautifully, helping the reader understand the "big" words and follow the complex grammatical architecture by exercising total control of the emotional content and imagery of his prose. When he's on, the reader moves along swiftly and the vocabulary and grammar issues actually become part of the progress made by reading the book. When he's on, you actually feel as though you've accomplished something by finishing the book, AND you've enjoyed it completely. The tricky thing is that "when he's on" seems to dance around depending on the reader. In "A Supposedly Fun Thing," personal essays detailing the author's thoughts on his life's events are side-by-side with tense, direct discussions of sociological issues many of us are not ready or willing to face. I recommend this book with the following conditions. First, even if you find yourself struggling with pieces of it, due to your discomfort with either the language or content, press on: you'll be a better person for it. Second, remove all distractions while reading. Wallace's writing is hard, hard work for the reader, and requires a certain amount of focus, which is not at all a bad thing. The parts that hit you just right will make you double over with laughter. And the parts that don't? Well, at least you'll be a better person for the effort
Rating: 
Summary: DFW shows his true colors
Review: I find I can't look away from David Foster Wallace's writing, even though from this book onward, his work keeps playing out the same way.If you want to understand Wallace, you can't do better than this book of essays. It's all here, from the sharp insight to the overcaffeinated but entertaining riffs on minutiae and big themes alike, to the terrific sense of order in his arguments, ebbing and flowing, delightfully departing from the pyramid structure/straw man tricks we've all seen eight billion times before. And, vexingly, there's that Other Thing about DFW to be found all over these clever essays: a curious lack of feeling about the outer world and his inner life. It's kept him from making the leap throughout his career, and it's never been exposed more plainly than here. You can see it in stark relief in his glimpses into sport. His essay on his own tennis playing doesn't carry the emotional freight he was gunning for, and it's no accident that the other tennis essay in this book, on the struggles of an obscure professional, is easily more evocative. Focusing on someone else, DFW is free to do what he does best (analyze) and escape from what he does the worst (feel). You can see DFW's signature numbness undestandably coloring his looks at cruises and state fairs--activities that clearly aren't his bag. More interestingly, you can sense DFW's engine revving beneath the surface of the narrative in his homage to David Lynch. The admiration for Lynch ties back to DFW's own authorial frustrations. He can't arrange objects literally, magically, or expressionistically to conjure the responses that Lynch can; DFW doesn't have the feel for it and knows it. DFW's nonfiction wit has never translated to fiction; his imagination needs real-world facts and factoids in order to spark--weirdly and sadly, Wallace can't get going with a blank page. The dark comic bounciness of Chuck Palahniuk that should have been DFW's never happened, because Chuck knew how to navigate dark territory with voice, speed and jokes in Choke and Fight Club, whereas DFW couldn't escape his own voice, couldn't construct or pace his story when deprived of facts, and found himself trapped with himself in the creepy flatness of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Lastly, you can see DFW's problem laid bare in the book's best essay. It's on television, and it's worth multiple reads, not only because it's the best and clearest love-hate encapsulation of TV that you'll likely ever come across, but also because DFW, in a miracle of accidental self-revelation, performs an autopsy on his own fiction. It's a virtuoso look at television's retrofitting of irony and metafiction, making them vehicles to move product and (above all else) sell television consumption itself. And DFW deftly argues that TV's dazzling use of irony has a withering effect on contemporary fiction. The essay concludes darkly with DFW admitting he can't see a way out for fiction, because practically every object, every plot line, every characterization imaginable already carries with it the oppressive weight of eerily undermining pop cultural subtexts. It's a compelling argument, especially from DFW's point of view. Except for two things. One, fiction is like any art form with a lot of purveyors--most of what's produced in any given time isn't very good. Quality is the exception, not the rule. I'll bet that DFW is clever enough, if forced to play devil's advocate, to produce a pretty compelling essay arguing that, generally speaking, fiction from ANY era is (was) dead on arrival. Second, well, there has been fiction that's broken through the fortress of irony since this essay. Writers depicting non-televisual, non-mainstream worlds have genuinely resonated, from Lumpiri to Leroy. The "hysterical realism" of White Teeth infused irony with playful humor, history, and real feeling, and leapfrogged DFW's quagmire. In Underworld, Don DeLillo--a hero of Wallace's--tried to burn through tired academic word games (a DFW fave) and pop cultural irony to find feeling, and for the most part, he succeeded. Even the low pop phenomenon of Harry Potter seems to won over the most impatient, media-saturated, medicated generation in history. DFW, on the other hand, despite all his obvious talents, hasn't. And this book lays out why he never will. All of which makes for a fun read. Buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Three Great Essays (Others are just a bonus)
Review: Almost like a bad habit, I keep returning to David Foster Wallace's works, searching for anything new he has written. Known primarily for his work "Infinite Jest," Wallace has proven himself one of today's great cultural journalists. I am so taken with "A Supposedly Fun Thing . . ." that I have purchased and, subsequently given away, two copies of this book to friends, hoping that they share my enthusiasm for Wallace's trenchant observations.
Before I had ever really heard of Wallace or his work, I read "Shipping Out," the original version of "A Supposedly Fun Thing . . ." (the title essay) in Harper's Magazine. I immediatelythought it was one of the funniest essays I had ever read and prompted me to seek out everything else he had written.
Although "Infinite Jest," "Girl With Curious Hair," and "Oblivion" are entertaining and extremely well written, I still believe that Wallace's strengths are truly revealed in his journalistic enterprises, most of them collected in "A Supposedly Fun Thing . . ." Along with the title essay, Wallace's essay on the Illinois State Fair, as well as one on David Lynch stand out from the rest of the collection. Both reveal a fascination and self-conciousness (almost uncomfortable) about each subject, laced with heavy doses of humorous observation.
These three essays provide enough justification for buying this book, even though Wallace's other essays are also well-written and observant. They are just not quite up to the standard set by the others and drift into precious "navel-gazing" too often. Readers of this volume should definitely check out "Tense Present: Democracy, English and the Wars over Usage,"
previously published in Harper's, as well as his infamous "Consider the Lobster" in Gourmet Magazine to see him at the peak of his talents.
People who already enjoy David Foster Wallace will no doubt enjoy this book as well, but I belive that it speaks volumes that the people to whom I've given "A Supposedly Fun Thing . . ." have passed it on to someone else.
Rating:
Summary: A richly-crafted look at contemporary America
Review: More accessible and immediately satisfying than Wallace's fiction, this book is a good entre for those who want to get their toes wet without making the 1100 page commitment demanded by Infinite Jest.
DFW's essay's on tennis star Michael Joyce and the title essay about a week-long Carribean cruise achieve the rare combination of hilarity and seriousness.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious, sometimes poignant
Review: This author has a fascinating outlook on the world. Some of the essays are better than others, but the best (e.g., Supposedly Fun Thing....) are just excellent. It took awhile to get the hang of his footnotes -- and his footnotes to the footnotes -- but it really works!
Gets 5 stars from me, and I don't give out 5 very often.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: One of the most insightful collections of essays I've read in years, Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing explores contemporary life with fresh and vibrant language. Too many try to compare these non-fiction essays with his magnum opus, Infinite Jest; there's a directness, a desire to not beat around the bush, present in A Supposedly Fun Thing. I.J. is a massive metaphor for the issues and concerns discussed in A Supposedly Fun Thing and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (another fine Wallace book). I'd love to read Wallace's take on the post-Sept. 11th America and the Bush Administration. If you're reading this, Dave, consider this a suggestion for more exceptional essays. Thanks for the great book.
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