Brief Interviews With Hideous Men : Stories

Rating:
Summary: If it truly was 'Brief' it might have been good
Review: A "brief" history of my relationship with David Foster Wallace's oeuvre is necessary, before I discuss the book in question:

I devoured "The Broom of the System", finding its characters, situations, and storytelling unique and enthralling. Although I was upset by it's ending (or lack thereof), I assumed it would be a good warm-up for "Infinite Jest". Wrong! So far, I've made two passes at that behemoth tome. The second time I even made it to page 200 before stopping in frustration. So when approaching "Brief Interviews", I was hoping for more "Broom" than "Jest". Wrong!

In reading "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" one notices the extent that Wallace fancies himself the ultimate postmodern author. If you were to describe to me the style he uses here, I'd have to say: "Wow, what a neat idea! Challenge and frustrate the reader with unreadable prose, paragraphs that go on for pages and pages without a break, and endless footnotes that go on in infinite detail about the same mundane topic discussed in the body of the text! Genius!"

That's all well and good in theory, but it's a bitch to read. In this book Wallace uses his vast vocabulary in such a way that you'd think it would disappear if not exercised constantly. He even goes so far as to make up new words to try out. In one piece here he twice uses the word 'weeest', not because it is a more precise adjective than 'wee' (as in "...hours of the morning") but because its three-consecutive E's make it look exotic. It's style winning out over substance. And those paragraphs! They're endless. Try holding your breath for five minutes, and you'll know what it's like wading through a DFW paragraph. I asphyxiated on more than one occasion. Especially when those marathon paragraphs were made up of but a single sentence. As for the footnotes, sometimes they added substance to the piece, but more often than not they were merely distracting. One piece in particular actually had more text in the footnotes than in the main body. I was flipping back and forth like a madman trying to figure out what I was supposed to read next.

But the biggest peeve I had was his insistence on leaving the reader hanging. There are no payoffs here. The pieces don't end; they just stop. Sometimes I thought they could have gone on interminably, but instead Wallace decided to quit at some random point. After wading through twenty or so pages of philosophical ramblings and long-winded discussions, a punchline would have helped make me look forward to the next piece. As it is, I didn't.

I must say, though, that I wish I had Wallace's talent. That's not to say that I would use it the same way he does but it would be nice to have it there when I needed it. He seems to be constantly involved in a game of showing it off. His style is self indulgent to the nth degree. "Let's see how cool I can be," he seems to be saying. "Let's see how far post-modernism can stretch." The odd thing is that Wallace is willing to admit to this fault in an interesting way. Witness the first line in the last sub-chapter of the piece titled 'Octet': "You are, unfortunately, a fiction writer." He puts this (ironic) hindrance on the reader's shoulder. But as the piece moves along, it becomes apparent that he's constructing a meta-fictional rebuke of the sub-chapters that appeared before this one. He rips their intentions and their techniques to shreds. Ad infinitum. It's a great bit of self-referential (dare I say) theatre; the post-modern writer attacking his own post-modernism, in a hyper-post-modern way. It's enough to make the reader's head spin. Mine did.

There are a couple of other pieces here that really hooked me. "Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko" is Wallace at his most fun. Using contemporary cultural objects as a new language, punning mercilessly (e.g. a line describing University of Southern California cheerleaders as "attendants at the Saturday temple of the padded gods Ra & Sisboomba" had me chuckling but good), and coining modern day epigrams such as "The Medium would handle the Message's PR", he tells a convoluted tale about modern narcissism. Although the joke runs out of steam halfway through, it's still quite a strong piece. The opening piece, "A Radically Condensed History of Post-Industrial Life" clearly shows Wallace can be a genius when he focuses his gifts. And the title pieces, a quartet interspersed throughout the book, embodies all the problems I've detailed above. But they are still quite powerful in their depiction of modern man's ugliness (or rather 'hideousness').

I admit that there were some pieces here that I couldn't finish, either out of frustration or ignorance. That's probably more my fault than Dave's. Still, he could have helped me out a bit. But he never did. So even though I admired his talents, I didn't like his book.

Rating:
Summary: "F. Learn to write and then see me."
Review: David Foster Wallace is a pretentious jerk who lacks the skill or attention span to write a gripping work of more than two pages. He (i.e. David Foster Wallace) also has the annoying habit of being extraordinarily unclear and then attempting to clarify to what his (i.e. Wallace's) reference was by placing it (i.e. his (i.e. DFW's) reference) in parenthesis after writing it (i.e. a pronoun refering to his (i.e. DFW's) reference). TAKE A GRAMMAR CLASS! When Wallace manages to stray from this annoying, reader-alienating habit for more than two sentences, his works can be somewhat funny and even clever, as long as he keeps the length under three pages. Anything longer and the poor fool forgets what he was writing about, his point is lost, and he begins to do whatever the written equivalent of "talking to hear himself speak" is. <i>Brief Interviews with Hideous Men</i> has a very clever cover graphic and the first story, "A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life," at less than a dozen lines on the page, is clever, accurate, poignant. I could pick a dozen great adjectives to describe it. At least Foster's publishers were smart enough to realize his inability to keep an audience's attention. Knowing a reader's tendency to read the first page or two of a book before forking over hard-earned-dollars, those publishers strategically placed what is probably Wallace's best work (and certainly the best work in this collection) on the first page. I mourn for the pages upon which Wallace's writing is printed.

Rating:
Summary: Right up there with Infinite Jest!
Review: David Foster Wallace is clearly an accomplished and, at times, brilliant writer. If it were only a matter of judging his playfulness, innovation, and enthusiasm-sheer energy-it would be hard to imagine him scoring higher. For example, one of his conceits, Datum Centurio, features a hard copy version of a future (2096) dictionary which defines "date." The innovative "story" mimicks the complete typographical layout of a real dictionary and notes to the effect that with "compatible hardware" (e.g., a neural plug) we could get the entire "pentasensory" (i.e., virtual reality) illustrative support. The dictionary definition traces the ancestral origins of date to earlier in the century (i.e., our time) when the term was used as a "euphymym" for "genital interface" between prostitutes and johns. In the interim, we are led to gather from the virtual dictionary entry, the term hard date has developed for virtual reality-assisted sex, with soft date being reserved for state-approved procreative acts. Never mind that aesthetically wise Nabokov said he "detests typographical tricks" (of which this entire story, in a sense, is a great example). John Fante wrote that "failure is more beautiful than success"; Nietzsche said "power makes stupid"-David Foster Wallace is that triple delight-a huge critical and commercial success who is young to boot. But Datum Centurio is, like much of Wallace's work here, on the border of being too clever to be clever. While he is possessed of Herculean artistic resources, he has come down (or rather up!) with what might (without pulling any punches) be called Updikeitis-1) "the lamentable tendency among wordsmiths of the highest order to have anything important to say." Wallace enjoys technical virtuosity of the highest order. Indeed, it is so high that, in the best of the anthology's stories, "Death is Not the End" and, especially, "Forever Overhead," we forget that we are reading about a) a pot-bellied poet basking in his success by a swimming pool and b) a self-conscious thirteen-year-old boy virgin, again at a pool, braving a dive off the high board. In this rather brilliant, latter story, there is a "SN CK BAR" and you (the story is told in the second person) on the ladder watch "the [older girls'] bottoms...in soft thin cloth, tight nylon stretch. The good bottoms move up the ladder like pendulums in liquid, a gentle uncrackable code. The girls' legs make you think of deer. Look bored." That is great writing, and it contrasts greatly with the irritating logorrhea of "The Depressed Person" (an immersion experience into the run-on sentence world and new-age therapies of a depressed person) and "Octet" (presented as a postmodern Pop Quiz, replete with metastasizing Derridean footnotes and revealing self-reflexive references to Johnny Carson's tendency to laugh at the badness of his own jokes). Technical virtuosity does not alone a great story make, especially when it is spread ad infinitum over the stale wonder bread of a hopeless subject. It is clear Wallace is concerned with the problem of writing honest prose in an age of capitalist appropriations, as well as with social alienation and the need to be liked and recognized-an obvious primary motivating force of many writers, and perhaps all celebrities. But again these are themes are relatively minor compared to Wallace's talent, and thus should be ditched, as well as his overindulgence of his tendency for mannerist prose. Writers must live, too-and, in this volume anyway, Foster Wallace's productions seem largely stillborn, the strange fruit of academic incubation, mutated into disturbing, if fascinating shapes, by intrauterine exposure to (I'm guessing!) methamphetamine sulfate. "Signifying Nothing" (like his novel "Infinite Jest," another title derived from Shakespeare, who Wallace nonetheless says in an interview he likes only parts of) is a story about a son who confronts his father in a truck with his memory of his father wagging his limp penis in his face, which the father denies. Please. The title story, which runs as a refrain interspersed in four sections throughout the book, is as annoyingly sexist as its ultimately trite subject matter (what guys blather on about girls) and is hampered by the saminess (despite the author's attempts to capture vernacular variety) of the too-mannered, too cryptically intellectual male voices. The effect is of viewing Brett Eaton Ellis's subject matter (depraved L.A. humanity) through a geographically wider, intellectual, and postmodern parodic lens. Who cares? Why hold a mirror up to nature, no matter how gilded and exquisite the mirror, if the reflection is of an unmitigated [material]? One [sic] reads Bukowski because there is a great soul there, not because we get a nice impressionist description of how tanning lotion stings when used as a lubricant. I do think Wallace is a great talent, and I look forward to his forthcoming work on Cantor and infinity, which seems like a worthy match for his interests and ability.

Rating:
Summary: The Future of Fiction
Review: I can only echo jonvoellestad's excellent review below. This is truly a book for our times, and Wallace is the one contemporary writer who seems to hit the mark with everything he does. He is able to track and elucidate moments in life which we all have but which we've never seen in fiction before.

There are many great stories and vignettes here but the highlight is the outstanding penultimate story (simply called Brief Interviews #20) in which a man narrates his experience of a girl telling the story of how she was raped by a psychotic sex killer. The trick is that Wallace manages to write highly self-consciously, humorously and movingly all at the same time, no easy feat. He takes the best parts of the realist, modernist and postmodernist traditions and combines them into something new and hilariously funny.

In doing so he transcends genre to produce something new and very exciting. The future of fiction is here.

Rating:
Summary: Smug and Vile
Review: I have to preface this review by saying that I normally do not have a visceral reaction to novels and stories I do not like. As a matter of fact, I have wasted a good chunk of my life reading things that were no good and or not worth reading. That being said, I actually threw this book across the room. I have never read such a self-congratulatory piece in all my life. The smug conceit of the author actually oozes out of every page. The book made me go and reread some Dostoevsky, just so I could feel better about the world and literature.

Rating:
Summary: Get the Audiobook
Review: I really can't explain why, but several different sources agree. On paper this is a pompous and annoying book. The Audiobook, on the other hand (which is read by the author) is engaging, funny, and cool. If you are drawn to David Foster Wallace and have never really gotten into this book, try it on tape. It may well be a whole different experience.

Rating:
Summary: A work of twisted genius
Review: In this collection of short stories, David Foster Wallace displays a deep understanding of the dark side of the male psyche. He also has fun with words and structure and tries out some unusual story ideas, but at the core of the book are the "interviews with hideous men" that provide the title.
My personal favourites were Adult World (I) and (II), a two part exploration of a relationship, and The Devil is a Busy Man. Foster Wallace is *so* good at getting into the (lack of) communication prevalent in all forms of relationships and at exploring what is not being said or even acknowledged.
The collection is patchy - although tastes will differ, for my money The Depressed Person is just plain boring and some other stories drag and/or don't quite work. But when you're exploring this far over the edge sometimes the risks aren't gonna pay off.
This book should be compulsory reading for all women and for all men who wish to better understand themselves and their gender.

Rating:
Summary: A work of twisted genius
Review: In this collection of short stories, David Foster Wallace displays a deep understanding of the dark side of the male psyche. He also has fun with words and structure and tries out some unusual story ideas, but at the core of the book are the "interviews with hideous men" that provide the title.
My personal favourites were Adult World (I) and (II), a two part exploration of a relationship, and The Devil is a Busy Man. Foster Wallace is *so* good at getting into the (lack of) communication prevalent in all forms of relationships and at exploring what is not being said or even acknowledged.
The collection is patchy - although tastes will differ, for my money The Depressed Person is just plain boring and some other stories drag and/or don't quite work. But when you're exploring this far over the edge sometimes the risks aren't gonna pay off.
This book should be compulsory reading for all women and for all men who wish to better understand themselves and their gender.

Rating:
Summary: Ick. Not for me.
Review: Supposed to be great. Critics loved it. So original. I thought it was boring and annoying. A collection of short stories about unlikable people, a lot of gibberish that was intentionally unintelligible. Which is fine for a while, but an entire book is too much. I really disliked it. I applaud any attempt to do something completely different, so I give it two stars instead of one, but jabbing knitting needles into my eye sockets would be different too, and I wouldn't like that much either.

Rating:
Summary: yup, another unsatisfied fan
Review: Yup, another unsatisfied fan. I feel the need to preface any statement about the new book with my take on his previous work. It seems standard enough at this point. I absolutely loved Girl With Curious Hair, a book whose inventiveness is to this day the freshest thing I've ever found in the 98-cent bargain bin. I really liked a lot of Infinite Jest and just about all of A Supposedly Fun Thing. Broom in the System confounds me -- I can't understand why anyone published it, except for the fact that he went on to write such great stuff; so clearly people saw talent in Broom where I just saw a student's brave but not-ready-for-public-consumption work.

Though Wallace disowns it, I really like the rap book he did -- it covers very similar territory to Hideous Me: it's about the paralysis of self-consciousness, as others have phrased it here.

Which brings us to the new book. A number of the stories I found excellent -- especially the piece about the thirteen year old -- but the endless, despondent, soul-damaged monologues got to be too much after a while. Too much repetition, too much monotone.

I'm all for anti-heroes; I loved Cockpit, for example, but at least there Kosinski imbued his protagonist with something more than a litany of dissatisfactions. This book is like an id -- or a series of ids -- hooked up to a microphone; people are more complex than their complaints. By the end of the title piece, I actually found myself scanning rather than reading, which was a disorienting experience for me, because I'm so used to hanging on DFW's words, and watching brilliant transitions unfold. I found Neal Stephenson's extended tangents in his new one, Cryptonomicon, far more satisfying (if sloppy, too) than most of Hideous Men.