Δεύτερή μου επαφή με τον Ντέιβιντ Φόστερ Γουάλας μετά την έτερη συλλογή διηγημάτων του "Oblivion" ("Αμερικανική Λήθη" από τις εκδόσεις Κέδρος), οι "Σύντομες Συνεντεύξεις με Απαίσιους Άντρες", όπως και το προαναφερθέν βιβλίο άλλωστε, σίγουρα δεν μπορούν να χαρακτηριστούν ως τυπική συλλογή διηγημάτων. Περισσότερο μια σειρά από βινιέτες, γλωσσικές και αφηγηματικές ασκήσεις, μορφολογικοί και υφολογικοί πειραματισμοί του συγγραφέα στον μεταμοντερνισμό, όχι όμως με το (ενίοτε, υπέρ του δέοντος) στυλιζάρισμα και προσκόλληση στη μορφή που συναντούμε σε άλλους εκπροσώπους του είδους. Γιατί ο Γουάλας, εκτός από ένας πολύπειρος δεξιοτέχνης, ήταν και ένας συγγραφέας βαθιάς ευαισθησίας, ένας ταλανισμένος "στα δίχτυα της κατάθλιψης" ψυχικά ασθενής, που πάλευε μέσα από τα γραπτά του να ανακαλύψει την, τόσο ζωτική, διέξοδο από τον πόνο, να ικανοποιήσει τη σχεδόν βίαιη ανάγκη για Νόημα, προτού χάσει οριστικά την τραγική μάχη του με την κατάθλιψη. Και σε αυτήν την ενδοσκοπική, υπαρξιακή Οδύσσειά του προς τα μύχια της ίδιας του της ψυχής, παίρνει μαζί τον αναγνώστη, σε ένα σπάνιας αφηγηματικής δεινότητας ταξίδι, κατά τη διάρκεια του οποίου η αιχμηρή σαν στιλέτο πένα του Γουάλας δεν θα αφήσει τίποτα όρθιο: σεξισμός, τοξική αρρενωπότητα, οι σχέσεις εξουσίας και επιβολής μεταξύ των δύο φύλων, η υποκρισία και ρηχότητα του οικογενειακού θεσμού, ακόμα και η ίδια η σολιψιστική, στα όρια της εμμονής, προσήλωση στο Εγώ, που τόσο συχνά αποτελεί ίδιον των ψυχικών ασθενειών, βρίσκονται στο ανηλεές στόχαστρο του Γουάλας και του βιτριολικού, αιρετικού χιούμορ του. Ένα βιβλίο - κραυγή υπαρξιακού τρόμου, μα τόσο σπάνιας αφηγηματικής ομορφιάς, ένα βιβλίο που αγγίζει τα καλύτερα κρυμμένα μέρη των νευρώσεων και του ταλαιπωρημένου, Δυτικού ψυχισμού μας. Διαβάστε το - προτιμότερα το πρωτότυπο κείμενο, καθώς η μετάφραση, όσο προσεγμένη δουλειά και αν έγινε από τον Γιώργο - Ίκαρο Μπαμπασάκη, δεν φτάνει ούτε κοντά στις λεπτότατες αφηγηματικές αποχρώσεις της αριστουργηματικής πένας του Γουάλας.

After completing Brief Interview with Hideous Men, my mind immediately jumped to a journalistic piece that I think cuts to the thematic heart of this work. Freddie deBoer's "David Foster Wallace Won"https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/... addresses the residual yet persistent deluge of cultural hostility that rains down upon the legacy of DFW; the meteorographic instigators here being a particular set of very online female literary types. Of course, it may be more accurate to characterize this phenomenon as ressentiment aimed at DFW the author and vehement disdain expressed for his enthusiasts.* Amusingly, with a cursory scroll of the attendant GoodReads reviews, one can easily find these sentiments (e.g. "douchebags who hit on me say Infinite Jest is cool."). In fact, this hostility has become so fashionable that it has almost acquired a meme-like status, which has had the unintentional consequence of expanding DFW's cultural and literary footprint (along with the very real and authentic preexisting appreciation of his work). "He-who-must-be-retrospectively-cancelled-and-not-read-or-referenced-unironically" has of course become an object of fascination (secret or otherwise) to every reader with a rebellious or even curious streak.

I only raise this intriguing phenomenon (one that is sometimes applied to other male authors like Roth, Mailer, Updike, or Hemingway, though with less vehemence) because it is integral to the actual content of Wallace's Hideous Men. The same objects of feminist ire are the subject of Wallace's scrutiny; this of course includes himself too. But instead of trite denunciations of the pathologies of masculine arrogance, entitlement, and aggression, Wallace disentangles the complexity of psychosexual dynamics with a stern empathy for the inexorable weaknesses of man. In other words, Wallace is both ridiculing and reckoning with some of the hideousness of being a man without actually being repulsed by that hideousness. This is what justifies the stylistic and narrative extremes deployed.

Brief Interview with Hideous Men is what provocative and innovative short fiction should aspire to be. It should be regularly taught in MFA workshops and undergraduate courses on short fiction. I recommend it to anyone interested in sex and gender topics. I do think Wallace is a bit harsh on himself (maybe justifiably). His perspective would be enhanced by a deeper biological and evolutionary understanding of sexual dynamics, but the work itself is definitely compelling.

*DFW enthusiast are stereotype as the male literary type who is a supercilious chauvinists that steadfastly denies misogyny. Freddie's piece fleshes out this stereotype more as quoted below:

David Foster Wallace” has become such a figure. He is most often invoked now in denial and negation: you do not want to be the kind of person who reads David Foster Wallace. DFW fans, the story goes, are 20- and 30-something dudes who haunt coffee shops and grad school parties, haranguing everyone with aggressive opinions about literary merit, and trying to get laid by being perceived as sensitive and thoughtful when they’re probably aggressive sex pests. The DFW fan is disdainful of women’s fiction, though he takes care to let you know how much he loves Flannery O’Connor or other women writers he invokes purely to show he reads women. He’s a self-impressed asshole. He’s the Guy in Your MFA. (Which, for the record, wasn’t as funny as it thought it was, but skewered the correct people in today’s climate - that is, the type of white people that savvy white people would like to imagine they are not like.)

Relevant related reading
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertain...

Tiene relatos excelentes y otros que son mera tentativa posmodernista efectista. En general, me gustó, en especial La persona deprimida (brillante de principio a fin), El suicidio como una especie de regalo (oscuro y muy poderoso) y todas las Entrevistas breves con hombres repulsivos (exceptuando la última: soporífera).

Tengo que agregar que de esta novela es muy improbable salir sin haber aprendido algo nuevo, o al menos sin conocerse mejor a uno mismo. El intelecto de Wallace es palpable en cada párrafo de sus mejores trabajos, en este caso, cuentos.

Me hizo reír a montones, me hizo odiar, entristecer y me abrió los ojos ante algunos conceptos. En este libro Wallace no se guardó nada. Es controversial, toca temas polémicos que me hicieron pensar en cosas incómodas. Considerando al autor, es una obra amena, que recomiendo sin lugar a dudas.

a great introduction to the author, particularly for those readers who quiver in fear at the idea of Infinite Jest and A Supposedly Fun Thing. the language is unsurprisingly brilliant, the ideas at times playful and at other times fairly heavy, and the various portraits fascinating and often repulsive. wonderfully repulsive! men who engage in misandry are often interestingly self-flagellating yet defensive, and wallace is no exception. perhaps the only drawbacks are some forced jokiness and the pervasive sense that wallace is laughing at your expense. and he probably is, somewhere. you're gone but you live forever, david!

Okej neću nikad pročitati Infinite Jest i ovo mi je sasvim dosta DFW-a za sledećih desetak godina

Usually when some undergraduate English major brings up DFW to me at a keg party I tend auto-file them under "douchebag." Because, let's be honest people - Infinite Jest was profoundly not good. But everything that's irritating about Wallace's thoroughly self-aware postmodern writing style is somehow much more stomachable in smaller bites. Brief Interviews has its highs and lows - the quality is extremely variant between the pieces - but when it's on, it is ON. In fact, Brief Interviews holds moments where Wallace is actually transcendant.

If you're looking to buy or borrow this book, take my advice : do not read the whole thing. First, read the interviews. They're the clear highlights, with the last one being, in my opinion, one of the best pieces of short fiction written in the last couple of decades. If you're feeling it at that point, then dive in to the other ones - Octet is a particularly strong, as is Suicide as a Sort of Present. A good percentage of the stories use painfully self aware "tricks" to "challenge" the modern concepts of narration, character, structure, etc -- "tricks" that are now being replicated unendingly in sophomore fiction writing seminars across the world, I'm sure. It's not particularly clever and for the most part detracts from the writing. But in the Interviews, Wallace manages the dialectic narration style more or less beautifully, somehow capturing both the worst and best traits of his characters. These men are hideous; even worse, they are hideously realistic, and I often found my pity or empathy overwelming my initial stomach-churning disgust. These portraits are intimate and familiar; it's like listening in on a conversation of an ex-boyfriend.

The last interview is off-the-charts good, mostly because it manages to be both grotesque and quite funny. This is the DFW that people obsess over - tossing around references, satirizing modern society, soaking dialogue in irony. That story alone is worth the price of the book.

If you end up loving this book - more power to you. DFW has definitely done things to earn his widespread critical acclaim. Just don't name-drop him to pick up girls at parties, because that makes you an asshole.

enjoyed this! i enjoy his nonfiction essay writing to his fiction short stories but both have their merits here. i had listened to an interview that was held shortly after this book was released where DFW talked about his interest in how to portray misogyny as a topic (or something along those lines) and i think the central short stories here (the titular Brief Interviews) achieve those albeit it with the interesting choice of focusing on the (very) misogynist men and their characters rather than the women who experience their gaze. This topic of misogyny is tough when juxtaposed with his history of abuse, which i had read up on while i was reading this. There's a layer of irony here that is reflective of the male characters he writes.
The other short stories here were very interesting as well, in particular i enjoyed the one that mythologized Hollywood and the TV industry (which seemed like a natural fiction extension to his essay E Unibus Pluram). Some of his writing is a bit dense and a bit of a mental workout that is ultimately worth the effort. Now i just have to get around to his actual novels, LOL

loaned this book to two people, maybe three.
first was the forensics coach, who was worried.

then some girl with curious hair

then to a dude i know who kept it for a really long time and when his wife returned it to me, unread, it smelled strongly of perfume. later still, neither of them would talk to me about it at all while that fucking gotye CD was playing too loud in their car.

they drove me home.
time passed.

I understood nothing

Primo vero confronto da parte mia con Foster Wallace.
Esito: né carne né pesce.
In questa raccolta di racconti (alcuni per la verità strutturati in maniera particolare, dall'intervista addirittura al quiz...), si alternano momenti di grande letteratura estremamente divertenti ad altri passaggi difficili da leggere e che non lasciano nulla.
Di sicuro DFW è uno che scrive bene, quindi in generale è un piacere per gli occhi leggerlo.
Per il momento, però, rinviato.

Llegué hasta este libro tras una serie de casualidades de esas que se dan raras veces en la vida. Una pequeña historia vital sorprendente que, perfectamente, podría aparecer como uno de los relatos que lo forman y en la que el colofón final fuera su lectura. Aunque no necesariamente tendríamos que hablar de «historias», o de una «historia», cuando hablamos de David Foster Wallace.

Es tal la magnitud narrativa de este autor que no necesita contar nada para crear un mundo literario alrededor de cualquier hecho o acto cotidiano. El uso del lenguaje, su estilo, el torrente continuo de palabras usadas en frases interminables, la habilidad a la hora de las descripciones provoca que, en ocasiones, el lector deje de serlo para convertirse, casi sin darse cuenta, en un espectador. Hay momentos en los que dejas de estar ante un libro y te trasladas a una gran pantalla en la que puedes observar perfectamente toda la panorámica de una escena. Todos sus personajes, los más mínimos detalles, los colores, el paisaje, incluso puedes llegar a percibir los olores que te describe… Como ocurre en «La muerte no es el final» o «En lo alto para siempre». Esto está al alcance de muy pocos escritores y uno de ellos es este.

El libro es una colección de veintitrés relatos que no sigue ningún hilo conductor. Son relatos desiguales, aunque todos asombrosos. El título hace referencia a cuatro de ellos, en los que, con un formato de entrevista en el que no aparecen preguntas, distintos hombres describen su relación con las mujeres. Son historias más o menos llamativas, tratadas en algunos casos con una fina ironía o con un sentido del humor peculiar, pero con la idea clara, casi obsesiva, de describirnos minuciosamente el pensamiento de cada uno ellos.

Un ejemplo de esa obsesión es (...) PUEDES SEGUIR LEYENDO LA RESEÑA EN NUESTRA WEB: https://elbuscalibros.com/entrevistas...

Racconti che tratteggiano da varie angolature la natura di gran parte dei rapporti interpersonali nella società odierna. Tali rapporti sono basati su una quasi totale incomunicabilità, dovuta ad un approccio narcisistico e alla totale mancanza di empatia: l’unica cosa che ci interessa degli altri è l’impressione che facciamo su di loro, quindi, alla fine, sempre su noi stessi (e sulle immagini che proiettiamo) è concentrata la nostra attenzione. Nel comunicare ciò il racconto “La persona depressa” è eccezionale.
Non ho dato cinque stelle perché lo stile a tratti è davvero faticoso, anche se riconosco che tale “fatica” sia funzionale a comunicare i grovigli mentali descritti.

Ugh. Wow, this is just... bad. By page 230, I had had enough. The thing is, it's as if he decided he had to use every trick up his literary sleeve and instead of relying on the ingenuity and originality of his stories, he mucks it all up by trying too hard to be "unique." There are the brief interviews, which in and of themselves are interesting (saving this reviewer from having to give the author of one of my favorite books of the year one measly star). Then there are several short stories sprinkled in, some of which contained interesting ideas but they just didn't go anywhere. One story that could have been really good, The Depressed Person, ended up irritating the heck out of me because every time he talked about her, he called her "the depressed person." I found it so tedious and awkward. One day when I'm feeling particularly masochistic, I may decide to finish the last few stories, but until then, this book can collect dust on the shelf where it belongs.