Lástima de sus finales..

"¿Sabéis? ¿Nunca tuvisteis cuando erais pequeñas ese rollo en el que pensabais en vuestra mierda como en vuestro bebé y a veces queríais abrazarla y hablar con ella y casi llorabais y os sentíais culpables por tirar de la cadena, y a veces pensabais en vuestra mierda dentro de una especie de carrito de bebé con un gorrito y un biberón, y a veces os quedabais mirando en el cuarto de baño y os despedíais de ella con la mano, adiooós, mientras se iba, y luego sentíais un vacío?"

Sunku vertint, nes labai gera, bet labai ne mano.

At this point, having reading Infinite Jest, and now Oblivion stories this year, I have to say that DFW is certainly my favorite writer. His writing is just so incredibly fun, fresh, bizarre, insightful and engaging. It almost never matters what he is writing about – he could describe the most banal thing in the world and he would make it both interesting and full of meaning. The word genius is likely one we have to use with DFW – though that does not mean that I don’t think that he is perfect, and I don’t revere him as a person. I’m just acknowledging that as a mind, his intellectual capacity is ferocious. You just know that everything he writes is intentional, multi-dimensional, and connected.
The stories in this volume are challenging at times – I find it amazing that even though I don’t ‘understand’ half of the intended meanings of his work, I still enjoy them immensely. The last and longest novella size story here, ‘The suffering channel’, is essentially a story about human feces. And it is amazing. My favourite of the lot though, and I seem to be in good company, is ‘Good old Neon’ - which is haunting and beautiful in its exploration of life and death, of authenticity.
I know that DFW gets a bad rap by many, especially women. And, apparently, his fans are widely criticized too. I’m not going to be a zealot about him or his work – I enjoy it and you may not – but undoubtably there is lots to learn from his writing, and way more said in his words than I’ll ever come close to knowing.

I was absolutely blown away by DFW's penultimate effort--if you consider The Pale King part of the oeuvre. Most of these short and not-so-short stories revolve around a narrator's distancing soliloquy, his attempt to reach out, and a desperate attempt at empathy. Also crucial to all these stories is the concept of Oblivion, defined by Nietzsche as "an active inhibiting capacity" which enables anticipating and planning ahead. All of these tortured (and tortuous) characters lack Oblivion, and can't properly shut out the outside world when necessary. Combined with DFW's staple maximalism, these stories slowly draw you into a web of hyper-realism and disquiet that haunts you long after the story is finished. This is like reading Cioran on LSD. If you're willing to give in the effort--be warned, this is a tedious read--it will be well rewarded.

In uno dei saggi contenuti in "Considera l'aragosta", DFW argomenta in modo critico (e autocritico) a proposito della tandenza di certa letteratura contemporanea ad aderire ad alcuni schemi ormai "alla moda", quindi diventati ripetitivi e prevedibili e alla lunga anche insopportabili, indicandoli brillantemente come "cinica menata postmoderna".
Mi pare che DFW, per lo meno in riferimento a tutto quello che finora ho letto di suo - cioè quasi tutto -, si sia sempre salvato grazie al suo desiderio di condivisione e grazie alle qualità morali e moraliste (è un grande moralista) contenute nei suoi scritti: per non farla tanto lunga, ovvero per dirla in una parola, per la sua "umanità". Cioè per il suo essere umano (e quindi anche romantico, patetico, pietoso, portato alla commozione e al sentimentalismo), per la disponibilità ad ammettere i propri limiti pur indulgendo ed anzi reiterando e abbondando in certi cliché.
Ebbene, a metà della lettura dei racconti contenuti in questa raccolta, mi pare che qui, per la prima volta, DFW ricada nella sua stessa definizione di cinica menata postmoderna. Oltre al freddo gioco intellettuale e alla voglia di stupire, qui davvero non ho scorto da nessuna parte quelle qualità che me lo hanno sempre fatto tanto amare.
Ho qui patito l'assenza di quel tocco magico alla DFW che lo rende speciale, ma del resto può capitare a tutti ogni tanto di perdersi.

Εξαιρετικό μυαλό και πολύ βασανισμένη ψυχή ο David Foster Wallace Ίσως γι’ αυτό έβγαλε και τόσο δυνατές ιστορίες Αγαπημένες μου του βιβλίου το παλιό καλό νέον και η λήθη Από την άλλη ο κος Αφρατούλης και η τελευταία το κανάλι της δυστυχίας δεν μου άρεσαν καθόλου. Παρόλα αυτά αποδέχομαι την ευφυία του συγγραφέα κυρίως στην τελευταία Δεν ξέρω αν ήταν επιλογή του συγγραφέα ή του εκδότη να μπει ο κύριος αφρατούλης πρώτος αλλά δεν μπορώ να μην αναρωτιέμαι πόσοι αναγνώστες τα παράτησαν πριν φτάσουν στην σελ 50

Tracce di informazioni annidate

Ancora non ho letto “Ogni storia d’amore è una storia di fantasmi” la biografia a cura di D.T.Max, ma immagino che quando Wallace pubblicò “Oblìo” (2004) fosse all’apice della carriera, disponendo di un potere editoriale sufficiente ad imporre l’ordine degli otto racconti da lui scelto, senza censure o interventi esterni.

Se ciò è vero, mi sono chiesto perché l’autore decise di introdurre il libro con Mister Squishy, una delle opere “wallaciane” più complicate, faticose e respingenti che io abbia letto e che per di più occupa un buon quinto della raccolta (un’ottantina di pagine, o così presumo dato che l’ho letto in e-book). Credo che l’impatto con questa storia, che poi una “storia” non è, svolgendosi quasi interamente intorno al tavolo di un Focus Group per il lancio pubblicitario di un dolciume (donde un profluvio di termini tecnici e di acronimi tratti dal gergo pubblicitario e del marketing che sembrano soffocare qualunque intento narrativo…) sia alla base del rifiuto che Oblìo (vedansi i commenti) ha ottenuto da una parte dei lettori in misura ben superiore a “La ragazza dai capelli strani” e “Brevi interviste con uomini schifosi”, impegnative come tutto Wallace ma non così ostentatamente.

In realtà all’interno di Mr. Squishy ci sono in sottotraccia parecchi spunti di interesse, benché quasi sospesi, come la strana figura che si arrampica all’esterno del grattacielo e che immaginiamo (invano) vada prima o poi ad interferire col gruppo in riunione all’interno del medesimo edificio; oppure l’ipotetica fantasia di sabotaggio (o è realtà?) del prodotto da parte del coordinatore del gruppo.

Ma a posteriori credo che l’elemento più significativo di questo pseudo-racconto sia l’introduzione del concetto di “informazioni annidate”, termine mutuato dal marketing ad indicare una raccolta (ed elaborazione) di dati statistici, analisi di mercato e risultati di test che travalica l’obiettivo manifesto del Focus Group per scavare in direzioni non dichiarate, funzionali ad esplorare il subconscio del consumatore. Wallace sembra applicare questo stesso criterio sia all’oggetto del racconto “annidando” sottotrame, suggestioni, digressioni, riflessioni che sottendono il tema apparentemente principale, sia allo stile, inanellando subordinate, note, frasi tra virgolette o trattini, prolungando un gioco talora ininterrotto per pagine e pagine con effetti disorientanti sulla concentrazione del lettore e, non di rado, sulla comprensione del significato di un insieme ramificato in mille rivoli.

Ma questa tecnica si può ritrovare in molti altri lavori di W., benché qui la complessità stilistica e strutturale sia spinta all’estremo: la fruibilità della narrazione non costituisce una priorità per un autore già di per sé propenso alla sperimentazione ed alla polverizzazione del linguaggio. Certo è che l’impatto per il lettore (che pur dovendo recepire una raccolta in quanto tale e cioè nel suo insieme, è sempre un po’ condizionato dall’approccio col racconto iniziale) sarebbe risultato diverso se la scelta del racconto iniziale fosse caduta su “L’anima non è una fucina”, “Il canale del dolore” o il racconto che fornisce il titolo alla raccolta.
Dei quali ci sarebbe almeno altrettanto da dire ma ho concluso lo spazio…

Almost all of the stories are very good. “Good Old Neon” and “The Soul is Not a Smithy” are masterpieces, the former in particular being one of the most moving things I’ve ever read. I think this just nails such a fundamental part of being a human:

“The truth is you already know what it's like. You already know the difference between the size and speed of everything that flashes through you and the tiny inadequate bit of it all you can ever let anyone know. As though inside you is this enormous room full of what seems like everything in the whole universe at one time or another and yet the only parts that get out have to somehow squeeze out through one of those tiny keyholes you see under the knob in older doors. As if we are all trying to see each other through these tiny keyholes.”

Oblivion

Mister Squishy - 10
The Soul is Not a Smithy - 8
Incantations of Burned Children - 4
Another Pioneer - 9
Good Old Neon - 8.5 because the story immediately following it made me have less goodwill for it tbh
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature - 2
Oblivion - 10
The Suffering Channel - 9


fuck the baby with burn wounds story and the clumsy spider metaphors plastic surgery story. fuck - but much less so - the shoehorned in just-read-one-course-textbook formal logic metaphors in Good Old Neon, BLESS the camus irreverence to the entire affair and BLESS the ending. BLESS the mythopoeic game of oneupman telephone in Another Pioneer.

BLESS the hyperlinked relational system of things just happening in Mister Squishy which i think is the best thing he wrote that isn't called The Pale King (although i do find a lot of the "existing literature" [read: internet theories] pn the subject 2intellectual4u tbh, imho it's a relatively straightforward case of unreliable narrator who excessively emphasizes his own passivity and thus cannot have done anything. if you pay attention to the text & its pacing and what exactly gets emphasized [in this regard i think the 'What you're after is being filtered out.' line is a diversion that Again gets overemphasized in analyses of the story] and shave it with occam's razor a relatively straightforward case of revenge-via-bioterrorism emerges, which i think is evidenced by schmidt's repeated deferral to the blood sugar effects of the snack cakes - this is not just data, this is a smokescreen for the poison. i ultimately think this self-proclaimed passive pawn stuck in the corporate framing onion is actually playing against what his overlords of redundancy want him to be playing at and the first person 'I' is yet another diversion)

Mister Squishy should have been at least 3 times longer it would have been his best novel don't @ me

BLESS the titular story. CURSE the fact that i am the exact type of person to find the crime against punctuation ".)," funny. CURSE the fact that i am the exact type of person to find the several minor intentional conjugation errors funny. CURSE the fact that i am the exact type of person to find the gag where he overdoes pronoun and conjugation square bracket corrections in a quote where there really needn't be any and then follows it up with several relatively mundane and correct corrections funny. FUCK the fact that everyone who reads this guy is an idiot who takes everything excessively literally and BLESS the fact that this guy decided to try his hand at transferent doubling lolita that makes fun of "adorkability" and "charming awkwardness" in men by casting our stumbly fancy boy as a child rapist. based, wise and agreeably misandrist.

he manages to pull together the guy who shits out sculptures story also. impressive pacing and restraint of diction and enough actual philosophical stomping ground & just the right choices of beat-by-beat event-level observations to justify the actual ludicrous and juvenile premise.

This collection, David Foster Wallace's last fully-realized book of fiction before his death, is largely good and compelling. It's remarkable, though, in its bleakness and claustrophobic prose style. Really, there is no hope within these pages. It is pure, dark, depressive interiority and naught beyond. In fact, at the danger of reading too much of the author in his own work, it's hard to not read "Good Old Neon" as Wallace's coming to terms with himself and almost kind of writing a suicide note to the world. It's tragic in its telling, like every single story here, but it has a special darkness where the reader and start to relate with the fictional Dave Wallace (of the story), and his obsession with behaving and contorting in order to be liked by those around him. The character in the story is perhaps a bit more psychopathic in his solipsism, but alas, there's a profound and unsettling mirror being reflected in the text.

The first half of the book is quite strong, honestly, with "Good Old Neon," and "The Soul is Not a Smithy" as clear standouts, with the completely haunting "Incarnations of Burned Children" standing out as probably one with images that will never leave me. However, "Another Pioneer" and "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" are pretty forgettable tales that failed to resonate with me.

The biggest part of the problem with the book for me is how idiosyncratic and claustrophic and obsessive the prose is in every single story. In fact, the voice of each story is virtually the same, with pages-long paragraphs full of nuances piled on nuances piled on nuances to the point that it felt over-wrought and too worked over to carry some of the emotional weightiness of what's going on in the stories. Overall, the book is well executed, but it wears the reader out, pushing them into submission with walls of text that inundate without really adding so much gravitas to the tale at hand.

I don’t think collections serve Foster Wallace well: it seems to me his stories would read better as stand-alones on some thoroughly modern internet webshite, with accompanying artwork or explanatory hyperlinks, rather than modishly festering on some fading acid paper alongside all the other fuddy-duddies. (PS Abacus, your paper is cheap and lousy). Case in point is ‘Mister Squishy,’ which seems to cry out for its own accompanying glossary, appended addenda and so on, but sits uneasily on the page in all its hypermodern dazzle. Nevertheless, the gang’s all here, from the disquieting hometown horror of ‘The Soul is Not a Smithy’ to the absolutely staggeringly wonderful exploration of a mind locked in a recursive self-critical philosophy, ‘Good Old Neon,’ to the blithering incomprehension of ‘Another Pioneer’ which I did not understand AT ALL.

‘The Suffering Channel’ is a brilliant novella about a pretentious style mag based in the World Trade Centre a few months before impact, and explores the peddling of suffering and faecal matter under the guise of an acceptable counterculture. Like the other pieces in this collection, it mimics the language and tone of its world with beyond pedantic perfection, without losing the detached overlord tone that keeps Wallace’s style distinctive. It is telling that the sentence that made me quiver the most was the unexpectedly direct insertion, on a one-word line of dialogue, of the simple statement: “She had ten weeks to live.” Oh God, I think my bones done froze themselves. How does he DO that?

The other pieces here are excellent, including the dramatic rush of ‘Incarnations of Burned Children’ which is a story it seems about narrative perspective, the short and endearingly odd ‘Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature,’ and the title piece is a bamboozling voice experiment using a form of dreamlike language where the narrator is perpetually indecisive about word choice, and where words and their meanings are continually being challenged by infernal quote marks. The end result almost seems like a slightly canny self-parody or coyly embedded meta-comment, but who knows? It’s a difficult story to get through (along with the opening piece) but perseverance will be rewarded.

This collection will frustrate you and tantalise you in equal measure, but don’t worry: you’ll feel it in your nerve endings.