Author's note: review and rating both subject to change. I've already bumped it a star; the second will depend on what a rereading of the title story brings.

You know, I hate to say this about my favorite author, but a lot of this book is just kind of... boring. "The Suffering Channel" and "Oblivion" are the two problem children here, taking up about 130 pages of space; they desperately need the human touch Wallace applies to his distinct brand of experimental fiction. I get that they're transitional pieces, and that they show him moving into the style he would use to more enlightening ends during the early drafts of The Pale King. However, since he can't find anything fascinating about the details (which he, oddly enough, manages on some of this collection's better pieces - the unfairly maligned "Mister Squishy" and the three I'm about to bring up nail it), they just end up being slogs so painfully dull that I end up losing the thread of the story. Furthermore, since I don't really connect with the characters in either of these pieces, their more postmodern touches just come off as too clever-clever for my liking.

Luckily, this is still a David Foster Wallace book, which guarantees that it'll have a few truly fantastic moments. The meat of this is found in three stories. First off, the neo-existentialist "Good Old Neon" is a total classic. I don't quite agree with the common line of thought that holds it up as his best story ever (I'd definitely take the second "Devil is a Busy Man," the one about diverting money, over this, and a few other pieces from the [much better, I'll add] Brief Interviews with Hideous Men at least challenge it, for instance "Signifying Nothing" and "Octet"), but the psychological depth of it is astounding, and the metafictional twist he throws in at the end stuns. "The Soul is Not a Smithy" offers a repeat performance when it comes to Wallace getting into characters' heads, being an examination of a boy whose mind wanders away in class even as a substitute teacher holds them hostage. It's hard to go wrong with such a cool concept, but even when you take that out, the story still excels - check out how the boy's circumstances and the movies he concocts in his head. The last of the classics is "Another Pioneer," about a child in a stone age society who can answer any question put to him; it's given to us thirdhand, which is always something I find interesting, and it's a fascinating study of how myths perpetuate themselves. "Mr. Squishy" is pretty good too - not in the same class of the three classics, but the way he contrasts the suspense of the climbing figure with the bored, wandering minds of the corporate meeting is classic Wallace. And I can really tell that he used ideas from both this and "The Soul is Not a Smithy" in the Pale King; the English major in me is going crazy over that.

Still, this is definitely the weakest and most disappointing Wallace book I've read yet. It has three brilliant long-form stories, one pretty good one, and two painfully dull ones. As for the two shorter pieces, they really represent the dichotomy at work here: while "Incarnations of Burned Children" is full of motion, suspense, and terror, "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" simply tries to mash too many elements together for eight pages. It's at least worth getting from the library, but don't make this your first time around with DFW.

DNF
Poddałam się po 30 stronach pierwszego opowiadania. Dałam szansę kolejnemu i wytrzymałam niecałe 20. Zajrzałam do kilku kolejnych i wygląda na to, że to ciągle ta sama melodia.
A więc taki jest ten cały David Foster Wallace.
Dla mnie - całkowicie nieczytalny. Aż rozbolała mnie głowa :(

I racconti di Oblio, molto diversi per stile e per lunghezza (si va dalle quattro pagine di Incarnazioni di bambini bruciati a brevi romanzi di un centinaio di pagine), sembrano avere come denominatore comune la disillusione e la rassegnazione dell’età adulta.
Se ne La scopa del sistema c’è l’onnipotenza giovanile di chi pensa di poter superare tutti problemi e di poter provare infinite sperimentazioni; se in Infinite Jest c’è la consapevolezza di chi di chi ha dovuto lottare e soffrire per giungere a un equilibrio psichico di cui si riconosce la precarietà, in Oblio l'elemento caratterizzante è la disillusione della vita adulta, la consapevolezza che alcuni obiettivi non verranno mai raggiunti e quelli che si riesce a raggiungere si trasformano spesso in noiosa routine perdendo tutta la loro attrattiva.
L’oppressione della quotidianità è resa ancora più gravosa dalla certezza di essere un elemento insignificante di un sistema che non tiene in nessuna considerazione i bisogni e i desideri dei singoli individui. Il rapporto di coppia appare come l’unica ancora di salvezza a chi non riesce a superare la cortina di solitudine all’interno della quale si è rifugiato (Mr. Squishy); per altri, invece, è solo una delle tante relazioni interpersonali in cui si indossa la maschera della desiderabilità sociale per ottenere l’approvazione degli altri (Caro vecchio neon). La cultura, i sistemi sociali ed economici ingabbiano le persone dentro personaggi che recitano la loro parte a uso e consumo di un pubblico fatto di altri personaggi che a loro volta recitano un copione che non si sono scelti; non è possibile essere veramente se stessi anche a causa del tempo e del linguaggio così come li conosciamo. L’autenticità è possibile solo con la morte che ci libera dai vincoli della logica e della sequenzialità ((Caro vecchio neon) e ci rende parte di tutte le cose (Incarnazioni di bambini bruciati). La quotidianità è così gravosa che le persone, pur di dimenticarsene, finiscono per confondere i piani di realtà e a non distinguere più la veglia dal sonno, in un circolo di angoscia in cui precipita anche il lettore che non comprende più cosa è l’uno e cosa è l’altra (Oblio).
L’arte (Il canale del dolore) e la filosofia (Un altro pioniere), nonostante le loro potenzialità, non sfuggono alle regole ferree del marketing e della commercializzazione che mirano alla soddisfazione dei bisogni immediati (bisogni che vengono debitamente creati e manipolati, illudendo le persone che sono libere di scegliere e di trasgredire.)
I racconti non sono semplici nella loro articolazione, alcuni (Mr. Squishy, L’anima non è una fucina, La filosofia e lo specchio della natura) hanno più linee narrative che procedono parallele senza mai incontrarsi pur essendo parte integrante della trama, con una parte del racconto che riporta gli eventi (la conduzione di un focus group per le indagini di marketing; un insegnante che, nel bel mezzo di una lezione di educazione civica, si estranea e comincia a scrivere ripetutamente sulla lavagna Uccidili tutti; il viaggio in autobus di una donna sfigurata dagli interventi di chirurgia plastica) e con un’altra, apparentemente slegata dalla prima (un misterioso personaggio che si arrampica su un grattacielo polarizzando l’attenzione dei passanti e degli impiegati negli uffici sottostanti; la sfrenata fantasia di un alunno che si perde nei suoi pensieri dando vita a una storia angosciante di perdite e morte; la descrizione di alcune specie di ragni che un uomo porta sempre con sé in una valigia) che però contribuisce in maniera determinante al grado di tensione emotiva dell’intera vicenda narrata. Ogni racconto presenta una molteplicità di elementi, una ridondanza di descrizioni e di pensieri che rendono complicata la ricerca di un senso profondo, al punto poi da chiedersi se tale senso ci sia effettivamente o se piuttosto si tratti di razionalizzazioni del lettore che cerca di rendere sensato ciò che non lo è.
È difficile scrivere di D. F. Wallace, un autore controverso sin dal suo primo romanzo e che il suicidio ha trasformato per molti in un’icona da venerare o da disprezzare. A me piace la sua capacità di descrivere gli stati emotivi e quegli intricati percorsi mentali che chiamiamo pensiero; questa sua capacità è anche il suo punto debole: si perde nei rivoli delle emozioni e dei pensieri sino a diventare a volte ripetitivo e inconsistente; i periodi lunghi, le minuziose descrizioni, i dettagli del contesto sono paludi e pantani che spingono a una lettura frettolosa o a un abbandono più o meno definitivo. Un antidoto al desiderio di fuga è una lettura tranquilla, cui si dedica tutto il tempo necessario, senza scadenze e senza alcuna frenesia di capire dove l’autore vuole andare a parare; una lettura che si sospende, e poi si riprende, quando pensieri ed emozioni si trasformano in buchi neri che risucchiano tutto il piacere di trascorrere del tempo con David Foster Wallace e si inizia a pensare che il suicidio era per lui l’unica strada percorribile.

ترجمه ی فوق العاده عجیب و بد كتاب شبیه ترجمه های گوگل ترنسلیت هست. برای مترجم و انتشارات واقعا متاسفم

 از صفحه ی 278:
به خاطر طرز عكس العمل مشهود بعضی از همسفرانمون وقتی سوار میشن و همونطور كه شروع میكنن به راه رفتن توی راهرو به طرف یه صندلی عمل ظاهرا واكنشی انداختن نگاه كوتاهی به صورت هایی رو انجام میدن كه توی ردیف های باریك صندلی ها كه در طول اتوبوس به عقب كشیده شده ن روبروی اون ها هستن و ناگهان صورت بادكرده و بی صدا جیغ كشان مادر رو میبینن كه انگار با وحشت جنون آمیز به اون ها 
خیره شده

از صفحه ی 179:
قابلمه ی برگشته روی سرامیك كف جلوی اجاق گاز و فواره ی آبی شعله و آب چاله ی روی زمین كه هنوز بخار می كرد و بازوهای زیادش باز شده بودن، بچه ی نوپا با قنداق بادكرده و شل و ول اش شق و رق وایساده بود.........و جیغ هارو با دادهای خودش همراهی میكرد،اون قدر تشنج زده كه تقریبا یخ زده بود.

از صفحه ی 131:
یادم نمیاد دقت كرده باشم درست كی بود كه دوتا سگ نمای خارجی به هم پیوستگی نزدیك شون رو قطع كردن و شروع كردن به چرخیدن توی دایره هایی با اندازه ی بگی نگی متفاوت، پوزه كشون به خاك وگل توی زمین چمن.

4.5 Stars

Skończona na siłę rzecz dla masochistów. Zdania po pół strony i praktyczny brak treści...

non ce la faccio. che barba, che ansia, che noia, eppure ho già letto "Incarnazioni di bambini bruciati" che a detta di molti può essere considerato come il migliore. Non so se continuare o no, detesto abbandonare i libri ma d'altro canto la scrittura di Wallace non riesce a conquistarmi. Non calco oltremodo la mano, non tingo ulteriormente di nero, per un mio pudore ad esprimere un parere che potrebbe essere superficiale nei confronti dell'opera di un uomo che dal nero del mondo è stato soffocato. Ma caspita, in questo testo è così evidente la sua intenzione... R.I.P., now, Wallace

)(^*&^%$*^#$$)*($*(%*(_Q_^*#%&^!

Oblivion - consigned to, by some class act who deleted the pdf and the accompanying seven reviews and 103 ratings of Good Old Neon without the simple foresight to MERGE said pdf listing with the final collection (and for those of you who don't think it was sufficient as a standalone check out the Mighty Jumbuck's review of this listing) of join-the-dots-as-stories by DFW.

Read no further if you've read already (with apologies to the appreciated commenters who rest in the dustbin of moronic efficiency):

First, the reality that you haven’t amounted to anything, and that you won’t amount to anything. The simple logic based on analysing the world and your place in it, what you lack that is required to make an impact upon it, that leads to this realisation that you are a vessel not of unfulfilled dreams, but unattainable aspirations arising from a misinformed sense of your own self, your own capabilities. What you want to be, what you would like to imagine yourself to be, what you in millisecond fits of reverie lie to yourself about being, and what you are, equal all that which never moves beyond the mundane, no matter the craving for credit, the addiction to acceptance, the relishing of recognition.

Second, the knowledge that you are a coward, and worse, a hypocrite. That you know of the iniquities that pervade the planet, of the injustices that plague the poor, and you bleat banalities like weed your own lawn before mowing the neighbour’s and poverty is relative and reduce, re-use, and re-cycle and only bite off what can be chewed and caring is sharing to excuse yourself from any action that might alter the privileged status quo of your own existence or re-dress the global imbalance between the haves and the have-nots—much less effort to be an almost-have than a deliberate have-not.

Third, the realisation that neither philosophy nor fear, love nor logic, reason nor reaction provides sufficient impetus to continue the farce of the quotidian, that the search for definitive meaning bears no fruit, that existence is nothing more than the animated collision and collusion of attracted atoms in a particular, momentary array, irrespective of whether by external design or internal happenstance. That the overwhelming sense of staleness, of weariness, of having exhausted the rationale not to break the bonds of those atoms and scatter these in the cosmic wind, is the natural result of that reality, that knowledge, that realisation. What remains is less a choice, more an implacable fact, the freedom to act.

With this, you consider, having seen the suffering created by those who depart and experienced by those who remain, how you can ameliorate grief and even exculpate guilt. You prepare documents, make transfers, ensure a semblance of stability, you create an unfolding fabrication to explain your disappearance which you hope will protect your beloved child, just entering high-school, from the imagined effects the actuality of your death might have. You consider whether to leave a letter for your spouse, or perhaps a video, a momento, an attempt to detail how you always believed that you could thwart the death drive by loving and being in love, by finding, according to that hoary old romantic folly, the one person with whom to spend the rest of your life. That the rest of your life was shorter than the length suggested by the emotional contract you signed was as much a surprise to you as it will be to that person, discovering first via credit card statement the hospital bill for a procedure undertaken in The Netherlands, when you were to have visited a friend in Rome, and the subsequent timed email with a link to a website about reviews of books.

dfw’s attention to detail is stunning. but it’s like reading salman rushdie where u need 150% of ur brain cells to be locked in and tbh sometimes im just a girl who is Tired and Wants To Nap

i think it’d be interesting to analyze “another pioneer” alongside some of ted chiang’s stories, namely “understand” and “story of your life”

faves: incarnations of burned children, good old neon, the soul is not a smithy

For we die every day; oblivion thrives
Not on dry thighbones but on blood-ripe lives,
And our best yesterdays are now foul piles
Of crumpled names, phone numbers and foxed files.
- from Nabokov's Pale Fire

RE-READ:

Read this for the third time recently. It wasn't pleasant. Not to say the stories were affecting; it was just tedious. Part stories, part phonebook. Nuts!

It's asking more of a book than most people would, that it holds up on a third reading. Certainly parts of Mr Squishy, The Soul Is Not A Smithy and Oblivion are still great—but they seem to start so far from where the stories are going (if the story is going anywhere at all), that it's very hard to work out what it's about even when it becomes apparent later on, because earlier scenes have given a different impression. It's so important to set the scene from page one, as at least Good Old Neon and Pretentious Titles of Inflammable Infants achieve (Weakest line in the book in the latter though: "If you've never wept and want to, have a child." Oh boo hoo hoo, 1) Who's never wept? 2) How the fuck would you know, ahaha.)

I often write stories that don't actually start until chapter three. It takes me the longest time to notice because I have such a difficult time divorcing what the story became from what my original vision for it was—I'm gonna say that's what's going on here. In need of further editing for sure.

FIRST REVIEW:

Okay! So here’s some music to listen to while you read this review :)

But it’s not really a review, as always.
I have this picture in my head of what a review would constitute, and it’s not this.
Also, in the interest of improving my own writing, all “I think”s are removed from the below (…I think) but are obvs implied.

Anyways, The Field’s music is repetitious, precise, and quite boring to listen to at first, near repulsively so maybe. But if you trust in it and lend it your ears, you can enter a kind of lucid trance. This principle is one DFW was aware of, the humanity within expanded repetitious blandness. Chekhovian grey language; stories told ”the way one person relates to another the most important things in his life, slowly and yet without a break, in a slightly subdued voice." In Oblivion we find the universal fury of Notes from Underground, the omnipresent tedium of A Boring Story, but thrown under a steamroller, exclamation points removed, freshened up for a modern American audience. “The poet’s job is not to tell you what happened, but what happens: not what did take place, but the kind of thing that always does take place.”

But why sit and read such sad bullshit? That’s what I thought when I first picked this up last summer. And to be fair, I hadn’t been in the white collar working world for very long, but now I am all-too accustomed to days of meetings and people that leave you near mesmerised by how bored the days would make you if you weren’t so mesmerised by how boring they are! Have you ever stared at someone’s stupid face and thought, ‘Of all the many things we could be doing with our time, you chose to use it for this, so relentlessly so that I now feel paralysed’, but it’s kinda funny, too, because, oh my god, how is this happening? How are such levels of boredom possible?

So I left this book last summer confused, then I came back after reading a bit and looked at the puzzle with new eyes, and now I can tell you why we should sit and read such sad bullshit.

The reason horror films are enjoyed by teens is it's the worst thing they can think of: monsters under beds; violent unlikely death. High class literature + cinema+ art shows maturer folk that real horror is a life of pointless tedium, the grind of which will kill you before you meet the grave. It could happen to anyone after any significant degree of pure meaninglessness, which life is all too happy to provide. What will drive you mad is not a life in which so much tedium occurs, as this is near inevitable: what will drive you mad is if nobody talks about it but you know everyone knows it. That’s why books like this exist. Books that make you slap the pages with the back of your hand and say, out loud, alone: ‘Yes! Thank you!’

On top of that, there is this lucid trance idea I mentioned: the sheer volume of details Wallace could find in an “empty” room, how he could use those details to tell you what they revealed about the people associated with it, reveals to the reader the tools they need to cope with people and scenarios apparently devoid of content.

I devour all art related to this whole tedium schtick because I fear it so much and am so increasingly immersed in it in life. Simulated reality is the best we get to make us feel better by telling us "Even if your worst fears are real, you'll see it's not so bad" before, or if, it happens one day (comfort disturbed) or it will shock you awake again (disturb comfortable). It keeps everything in flux. If I understand the principle of the book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (a title of a story within this book), it is similar to when Kundera said that the novelist's job is to show the reader that life is a question (can't find exact quote). It's been a big learning of mine that a writer's job is not necessarily to tell readers something they didn't already know. The hackiest writers will think they need to teach you something as if there was anything about human nature left to teach (is there?) when astute observations will do. The best writers show the reader things they already knew in a new way, as Wallace consistently does by recognising his job as refreshing the power of aphorisms and discouraging cynicism about their cliched nature by doing everything in his power to convince you they're more than bromides. Like a teenager watching the Evil Dead remake (pretty damn good!), we observe the horrors we are presented with through literature as if they are a reality.

DFW is a decidedly American writer, and these stories are as much an indictment of American culture as explorations of universal human truths.

Is Oblivion easy to read? If you push through the wall of repulsion, yes, it is: it becomes its own addiction. But I didn’t manage the first time and had to toss it aside, thinking it without value, as there is a stark difference in Wallace’s writing from this book onwards. There are NO jokes: I’ll stand my ground on that. There are few big words. There are many details and even sparser plots as he pushes closer to a truer representation of life. And I think there is debt to be paid by that other favourite writer of mine whom I mention nearly every review now: Charlie Kaufman, whose masterpiece I won’t write the name of another fucking time evokes a similar first-time repulsion, and contains a therapist whose shoes are so tight they hurt her, just as all of DFW’s therapists make cages or circles with their hands, or have eating disorders or repressed sexualities. Therapists who need to therapise themselves (this is SO true of some therapists I know- jeezo! I wouldn’t trust them to operate heavy machinery any time of day.)

I went to a therapist once but she was super pregnant so I didn’t want to tell her sad stuff in case the baby heard me- how unfair would that be? (True, I likely would have found some other excuse!) It’s exactly the same as me moving to Oslo now, and all the people in work who have lived there before are like “Oslo’s not that great” and I’m all “Dude, would you tell me something nice about this place since I’m committed to going there?” That’s what that therapist’s baby would have said to me RE: life if he/she could even communicate, you know? So disadvantaged. And also, as I so convincingly played the part of well-together chap, therapist gave me clean bill (I’m about as okay as people generally get now btw)

Shame Beckett isn’t alive any more to look at your form and go ‘You’re on earth: there’s no cure for that.’ Maybe I’m being flippant and I’m about to digress some, but that’s always seemed to be a taboo about therapy or anti-depressants or any mental health issue, is that the things mental health problems get you hung up on are typically the helplessness in the face of the unknowable universal questions about whether or not there is any meaning to life, living in the face of knowing you’re going to die and so on, and that was apparent to me that one time I went to a therapist as I get the impression it was for Wallace (it certainly is for his characters) is that notion of ‘Well, how much of my worries do you really expect to alleviate, here? Exactly what of what I worry about can anyone prevent from being true, and how much are you really able to interpret what I’m telling you any more than I can anyway?’ That’s the permanent sour taste in the mouths of many people who seek psychiatric help I imagine, is, well, you stopped me thinking about it, but for how long? Therapists love to therapise, but do they do it well? The psychology-adjacent folk I know throw mental health conditions at the day-to-day people in my anecdotes like a game of Jeopardy: “So my boss is not a very talkative guy-“ “WHAT IS ASPERGER’S FOR 500 LEO” (I’ve never seen Jeopardy also doubt Asperger's counts as a "mental health condition"... somehow I feel you'll get what I'm going for, though!) Like, when I was an ESL teacher, I was like, you guys could do this with a book: you don’t need me. But what students needed in that case was more the routine of a person checking up on them to force them to study, as I imagine therapists can be a breathing space for people, like, yes, you are here because you want something fixed, so let’s spend some time reflecting on it. But I was cheap, though: that’s the difference… I don’t think it’s gonna make you sad to think that there’s some things about life you’re never gonna be okay with; rather, expecting to be okay with them despite any indication you should is what will lead to bigger disappointment, a paradox of acknowledging disappointment in order to feel more satisfied.

The best art (ie. therapy) says the following: look at this; I don't know the answer, but you're not alone. That’s all I need from it. But I need it a lot and in as many forms as are available! Ebert quote: “An honest bookstore would post the following sign above its 'self-help' section: 'For true self-help, please visit our philosophy, literature, history and science sections, find yourself a good book, read it, and think about it.”

Some notes on the stories (well, two of them):

First story: Mr Squishy. Teaches you how to read it and rewards your attention with badass corporate slamming. You leave it feeling like you have the tools to defeat boredom (and the rest of the stories!) Again, first time I tried this, I wasn't ready.

Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Overlapping thoughts as in The Pale King section 2. (TPK was really a bunch more short stories, and the best Oblivion-like story is the novella in the middle, which could well have been part of this set.)

Some conclusions:

Generally: none of these stories will leave you satisfied. It’s the Hamlet-esque yawn-that-won’t-yawn-properly feeling you’ll be left with instead, which you will accept with reluctance because of its verisimilitude. These are stories about facets of the human condition that are inextricable no matter our efforts. The incapturability of all thought, inability to recognise which thoughts are important etc. A life that feels blown open, without Coupland-esque Safety net-ism. You're on your own and there's no guarantee you'll spend your years well. This fear being true of anyone, advertisers are really honing in on it to promise you individualism via capitalism, a fantasy they know you will always nurture because you need it to survive. In all the ways that really matter, it doesn't appear that we're individual in the slightest. How could we possibly be? There have been 100 billion of us: our ideas are not that great. You'll notice as I say this that this isn't the medium at all for it: art is. All the toughest things are best said through art. Otherwise it sounds didactic and reductive and is met with a kind of “yeah, I know” as it isn’t a fully expanded argument, and this is big hard truths we’re talking here: Oblivion, The Pale King, Something Happened, the stories of Chekhov, Oblomov apparently (cheers Tracy!) Wonderboy (whatever that is- I looked up the Norsk copy of Oblivion and it was compared this Norsk novel), Notes from Underground, Wilder's The Apartment…

It is Wallace's opinion that the soul is not a smithy; that there is no Proustian fountain of youth obtainable by having new eyes, as what our eyes see of the exterior is but a pinhole, and those other eyes we desire are but pinholes in our pinhole, and so we lack so much companionship almost by the definition of being human, a Heisenbergian uncertainty principle of love. Mummy can't keep you safe and she never could. And in the face of that, you are so, so brave. And in the face of that, use your fucking pinhole! And in the face of that, fuck it; let's dance. To what? If you followed my instruction, you're listening to it right now! In life we are alone, but today, we dance as one!!

Additional unstitchable thoughts:

DFW loved cinema. Said to Charlie Rose he wouldn’t be happy writing a screenplay because someone could come in and change it. But as the Brief Interviews film showed, Wallace’s power is in the written word (this should be self-evident: man can that guy write!) Enjoy here what I imagine would be a single line of DFW screenplay dialogue from a 5-hour film about a man and his wife having a conversation about how many times he takes his boat out, and how much this disturbs them both, also their toddler’s eyebrows are constantly raised for some reason.

Pop culture is catching up to the importance of the universal incurables eg. through Wallace-fan-and-also-genius Tina Fey, whose latest series Kimmy Schmidt is pointedly dark beneath the glaze of jokes.


My cultural tastes summed up in one pic:
(Pic of Oblivion and a Burger King meal. Pretend it uploaded properly)

Oblivion is a challenging, often confounding read, but it's worth the effort.

Kokia nepaprasta knyga. Koks genialus autorius.

Dažnai skaitant geras, pripažintas knygas mane erzina, kaip jos beprasmiškai komplikuotos, kaip įnoringai susuktos, kiek daug tame autoriaus mėgavimosi savimi, negalvojant apie skaitytoją.

Dauguma tų knygų su savo įnoringumu yra juokas, palyginti su tuo, kaip viską susukti ir komplikuoti geba Wallace'as. Jo apsakymai – hiperrealistiški, persipinantys iš itin gilių ir labai skirtingų pjūvių, kurie iš lėto, labai iš lėto vejasi į vieną daiktą; stabčiojantys prie detalių, užverčiantys sudėtinga kalba ir visišku insaido žodynu bei žiniomis bet kuria tema, kokią pasiima rašyti.

Kaip kažkas jau pastebėjo, Wallace'as tiesiog perkelia tave į svetimą galvą ir nepaklausia, ar komfortabilu ten sėdėti, užremtam svetimo gyvenimo detalių. Nors ne, tau nepatogu ir turi būti nepatogu.

Bet visos tos detalės, visas tas gigantiškas piešinys susieina ir susimezga – kietai, tiksliai, preciziškai. Taip, kad nė minutei nekyla dvejonė, jog kūrinys būtų galėjęs būti parašytas kitaip, nes ne, nebūtų.

Apie pačius apsakymus sunku kažką pasakyti – jie pernelyg daugiasluoksniai, pernelyg pilni visko. Žinau, kad nešiosiuosi mintyse ne vieną dieną, o gal net savaitę - tokios istorijos man patinka užvis labiausiai.