I wanted to love this book. I wanted to love David Foster Wallace. I bought this book after I had a dream. I dreamt of a strong-jawed man with long hair and later, when I saw the tail end of the movie based on this book, I Googled "David Foster Wallace" and realized he was the man I had dreamed about. So because I am sort of daft, I felt this was a sign.

It wasn't and I feel sort of odd that I didn't love this book from a literary icon.

It had its moments. "The Depressed Person" for me was the best story in this collection. I think it was the best story for me because, as a completely depressed person who feels a particularly deep horror about testing people with the depths of my loathing self-involvement, it resonated a bit closely. Despite the fact that this story has a long, droning quality, it suited the sort of long, droning quality of persistent, intractable depression.

"Octet" was too meta, too... something. It seemed too self-conscious, forcing me to engage with the writer when I just wanted to engage with the story. I felt like a meta-brick was thrown at my face as I read it.

The first few stories with the hideous men flowed well. But then we got to the later interviews with hideous men and the droned on, piling on when brevity would have made the point even better. I got lost at times, wondering if the men were really hideous, if they were, in some sense, just lost because the narrative was lost, meandering.

Take this sentence, for example: "The fact that the Inward Bound never consider that it's the probity and thrift of the re-- to occur to them that they themselves have themselves become the distillate of everything about the culture they deride and define themselves as opposing, the narcissism, the materialism and complacency and unexamined conformity -- nor the irony that they blithe teleology of this quote impending New Age is exactly the same cultural permission-slip that Manifest Destiny was, or the Reich or the dialectic of the proletariat or the Cultural Revolution -- all the same."

I fancy that I have enough intelligence that if I have to read a sentence more than three times then there is something going on that is deliberately distracting from clear meaning, that perhaps a clear meaning is not what is needed here and while I understand this style of writing in a manner that defies basic understanding appeals to people who find meaning in a disjointed narrative, I am not one of those people.

It feels bad to want to love a book and not be able to do it.

Ακολουθεί μια καθόλου ψύχραιμη κριτικη:

Το να διαβάσει κανείς βιβλία του David foster Wallace, δεν είναι και ο, τι πιο εύκολο για πολλούς λόγους. Η γραφή του πολλές φορές είναι σαν απλώς να καταγραφεί απευθείας στο χαρτί ο, τι ακριβώς έχει στο μυαλό του, χωρίς δεύτερες σκέψεις και οργάνωση. Όμως όταν έχεις ήδη διαβάσει το μεγαλύτερο μέρος του συνολικού έργου του, όπως συμβαίνει με μένα και απλά λατρεύεις το μυαλό του και τον τρόπο σκέψης του, όπως επίσης συμβαίνει με μένα, τότε απλά απολαμβάνεις τα όσα είχε να πει. Δε ξέρω λοιπόν τι ευθύνεται, το ότι έχω διαβάσει πολύ Wallace, το ότι μου ταιριάζει τόσο ο τρόπος σ��έψης και γραφής του, το ότι ανυπομονούσα τόσο γιαυτό το βιβλίο.. Όπως και να χει, το βιβλίο αυτό το ΛΆΤΡΕΨΑ!! σίγουρα μπαίνει στα αγαπημένα μου όχι μόνο του συγγραφέα, αλλά γενικά. Είναι ένα βιβλίο που αποτελείται από μικρές ή μεγαλύτερες ιστορίες που όλες τους έχουν ως πυρηνα τους άνδρες και μάλιστα τους "Απαίσιους" όπως χαρακτηρίζονται από τον συγγραφέα. Όλοι τους με μικρά ή πολύ μεγάλα ελλατωματα με σκέψεις και πράξεις που δύσκολα ένας άνδρας τις παραδέχεται και πολύ περισσότερο τις καταγραφεί.. Πραγματικά λάτρεψα το ευρυμα των συνεντεύξεων που αποτελεί το μεγαλύτερο κομμάτι του βιβλίου και έδωσε και τον τίτλο, αλλά για μένα οι πιο "σημαντικές" ιστορίες ήταν κάτι ολιγοσέλιδα διαμάντια διασκορπισμενα σε όλο το βιβλίο που μου έφεραν από δεος έως και δάκρυα στα μάτια με την τελειότητα τους(βλ. "πάντα πάνω", "δίχως νόημα", "στο νεκροκρεβατο του.." και το μεγαλειώδες φινάλε "ακόμη ένα παράδειγμα για το πόσο διατρητα είναι ορισμένα συνορα(xxiv). Ξέρω πως ίσως ακούγομαι υπερβολική ή ότι διαβάζοντας κάποιος το βιβλίο αυτό ή άλλο του συγγραφέα να μη συμφωνήσει καθόλου με τα όσα λέω, όμως αυτή είναι η μαγεία της ανάγνωσης, όταν βρίσκεις κομμάτια των σκέψεων σου και της ψυχής σου αποτυπωμένα στο χαρτί από κάποιον που δε σε γνωρίζει, ούτε τον γνωρίζεις. Για μένα αυτή η μαγεία βρίσκεται στις σελίδες αυτού του βιβλίου.
Υ. Γ. Υπήρχαν μια ή δυο ιστορίες που δε μου άρεσαν τόσο, αλλά σε καμία περίπτωση δε μπορω να μειώσω τη βαθμολογία του βιβλίου κάτω από 5 αστέρια, καθώς οι υπόλοιπες δε μου άρεσαν απλά, αλλά με ενθουσίασαν.

When David Foster Wallace gives his best, as in this collection of short stories, I make it through the book filled with admiration for his writing style and his inventiveness but also deeply touched from an intimate and emotional point of view. Wallace knows how to be painfully ruthless in portraying the selfish human misery, without ever lapsing into the melodramatic. The Depressed Person is perhaps one of his best stories, precisely because of its ability to oscillate between merciless humor and bleak reflections on the disease that has tormented all his life and ultimately led him to suicide.
It is a stylistically and thematically multifaceted collection, with a few weak stories, but I would certainly recommend it as a relatively easy way to familiarize yourself with this author. I mean, familiarize yourself with the question: so now what, must I laugh or cry?

‘And I was- this is just how I was afraid you'd take it. I knew it, that you'd think this means you were right to be afraid all the time and never feel secure or trust me. I knew it'd be "See, you're leaving after all when you promised you wouldn't." I knew it but I'm trying to explain anyway, okay? And I know you probably won't understand this either, but- wait- just try to listen and maybe absorb this, okay? Ready? Me leaving is not the confirmation of all your fears about me. It is not. It's because of them. Okay? Can you see that? It's your fear I can't take. It's your distrust and fear I've been trying to fight. And I can't anymore. I'm out of gas on it. If I loved you even a little less maybe I could take it. But this is killing me, this constant feeling that I'm always scaring you and never making you feel secure. Can you see that?'

Uma loucura (como tudo que esse homem escreve) mas gostei bastante :)

Volgari, molesti, devastati. Misogini, psicopatici, perversi. Comunque uomini. Uomini prede del loro stesso disagio, vittime sempre meno consapevoli del peso di un vuoto pregresso. Molto spesso le donne verso le quali gli uomini rivolgono la propria insofferenza pagano il debito di un genitore assente, distaccato, o, peggio, troppo presente. Molto spesso c'entra La Madre. Lo schifo è come una malattia, e l'unico modo per liberarsene sembra quello di contagiare più persone possibili. Contaminare ogni cosa, così che il disgusto di sé venga mitigato dall'odore nauseabondo che emanano gli altri.

http://www.scratchbook.net/2015/04/br...

It's official: my heart is broken for David Foster Wallace. Anyone who thinks they don't like him is, I'm sorry, an ass. This shit is just not up for debate.

Read a few passages from this, it was more than enough!

İĞRENÇ ADAMLARLA KISA GÖRÜŞMELER

Felsefe ve edebiyat öğrenimi gören David Forster Wallece, 2008 yılında ömrü boyunca direndiği depresyona yenilmiş ve Kaliforniya’daki evinde kendini asarak 46 yaşında intihar etmiştir. İğrenç Adamlarla Kısa Görüşmeler kitabını okurken ilk yüz sayfaya kadar oldukça etkilendiğimi söyleyebilirim. Yazar bir iki sayfalık öykülerde edebiyatın zirvesine ulaşarak anı ve olayları müthiş aktarmış. Bir tuvalet anlatısı var ki herhalde daha iyi anlatılamazdı. Yine benzer şekilde babasının satışa çıkardığı aletlerin derdi nasıl da böyle ustalıkla anlatılmış. Bir de müstehcen kısımlar var tabii. Onlar da çok sert ve etkileyici.
Fakat kitabın son iki yüz elli sayfası falan çok çok ağırlaştı. Okurken yordu diyebilirim. Karmaşık konular, psikolojinin sık sık devreye girmesi, cinsellik, dipnotlar vs. Anlatılan bazı hikayeler gerçekten de iğrenç… Yazarın en meşhur romanı olan Infinite Jest (1008 sayfalık) Can Kantarcı tarafından çevriliyormuş, merakla bekliyoruz. Ayrıca çeviri demişken İğrenç Adamlarla Kısa Görüşmeler kitabının çevirmeni Sabri Gürses’i de zikretmeden geçmeyelim. Her zamanki gibi çok başarılı ve temiz bir çeviriye imza atmış.

I just finished reading Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. This book is some kind of a literary masterpiece yeah. I just didn’t enjoy reading it that much.
I understand what this book is supposed to be, and it’s very eye-opening to note what he is doing/trying to do/succeeding to do in any one of these stories, but it is simply not enjoyable to read. It is rather like– as a child does in one of the earlier stories in this book, the only story I enjoyed– finding yourself forced to leap off of a high-dive. Post-leap, there are several different ways to consider yourself as having grown somehow, but during the dive it is not at all entertaining. You may find yourself feeling harassed, terrified, bored, or any other of a number of unpleasant emotions, and when you are finished you will cry GOD I AM GLAD THAT IS OVER and you will go on living some kind of expanded life and cease to think much about said high-dive UNLESS you are one of those people who find themselves compelled constantly to do unpleasant things and therefore suddenly find yourself compelled, through this unpleasant childhood experience most other people are busy forgetting, to become a world-class high-dive leaper.
The big thing is this: yes, it is clever to be all sorts of postmodern, and yes, those who can pull it off well are all geniuses and deserve much praise– and DFW can pull it off well, frequently– but this is still not the kind of thing that books were invented for. They’re not enjoyable as short stories. I don’t care if they are a ‘delight’ and a ‘harassment of the short story form’. I am not going to want to read short stories if the writer of the short stories wrote them in order to harass me. In the same way, though I would credit laudable creativity to an artist whose form of sculpture involved filling a room with knives, I would not particularly enjoy being in that room, and would instead feel a degree of tension of be a little bit upset.
The only one of these stories I actually enjoyed was ‘Forever Overhead,’ a brilliant piece about a boy on a high-dive. I think it is stunning. Other sections– the first of the ‘Hideous Men’ sections, for instance, or ‘Church Not Made With Hands’, a story about a young family in a tragic situation– are wonderful also, but are, in the case of the first, not as easy to enjoy, or, in the case of the second, so buried into the abrasive unpleasantness of the rest of this excellently-written book that by the time the reader gets to it he or she is simply too mentally exhausted to even recognize that this story is well-done and pleasant instead of abrasive. Putting the book down does not help– remembering prior sections can so trouble or bore that reading onward simply becomes as unpleasant as they were, regardless of whether or not the bit you are actually reading is itself unpleasant. The writing gets to be its least-bearable when he starts to write totally ironically about how stupid it is to always be totally ironic. I don’t know if it’s possible to sarcastically criticise sarcasm without sounding like a jerk, even if you ARE DFW.
The fact is this: when DFW wants to make you experience, as in ‘The Depressed Person,’ what it is like to enter the mind of a severely depressed person, he does it in such a way and with such accuracy and force that there is practically no room for the reader to reflect. That’s how genuine it gets. It is the same, though less so, with the bit about an honored playwright’s father who, on his death bed, insists on going on and on a bout how much he hates his talented son. DFW simply presents these relentless neverending trauma-filled paragraphs one after another as if he is pounding the reader’s head with a bloody brick, and the reader must shout ‘God, this is spectacular, DFW! Now please get the brick out of my eye!’ The question we should all be asking is NOT ‘Is this good?‘ The question should be, ‘Am I having a good time reading this?‘ It is a totally inescapable fact that wholly unpleasant things are rarely saved for posterity. Even upsetting or pathologically-focused books, like Crime and Punishment, are saved because there is something accessible or somehow pleasant about the reading experience that makes at least some of us refrain from hurling it out of a window. There is barely any such redeeming factor here.
So. DFW is some kind of literary god. But it is now perfectly self-evident to me why more writers are not running around trying to be as horrifically postmodern as he was. It is soul-crushingly unhappy to be so postmodern. I do not mean to be crass, but these stories make it clear that DFW understands human agony and disgrace and depression. And he killed himself. So, I say this: it is okay not to like this book. Read it and perhaps admire it, but it is okay to dislike it. The reason you dislike it so much is that you have understood what DFW was trying to do. And the thing he was trying to do was not to write an accessible, edifying book, but to conduct ‘a harassment of the short story form,’ which is the opposite of what short stories are for. One does not go around trying to become a successful baker by baking breads which are a harassment of the mouth. There is a reason for this.

I finished the book in December. After reading it, I got the audio version of the book that I wanted to listen to as well, but I was putting it off. The thought was, that it might be morbid, to hear DFW read the stories himself.
Desire won and I ended up listening to both audio versions of the book, one with some selected stories that only DFW reads and another one with more stories included and different actors reading it.
I think the audio enhanced my experience of these stories. What happened is that I found many laughing out loud moments that I missed when I read the book and on the contrast, I found sad moments became unbearable and the hideous men became horrifyingly alive.
It makes sense, because the interviews are written in pristine conversational style. I think they perform better in spoken word, they would make excellent theater pieces.
There is also something very touching in listening to the author read the words with his own intonation. I strongly suggest listening to the book after reading it, it is a strong experience. Also, in going through the stories twice or in some cases three times, I could really appreciate the writing, the little things in it, what it is that makes DFW so great. In the end, I decided to ignore the couple of stories that I didn't initially like and upgrade the rating from 4 to 5 stars.
I'm grateful that I have DFW's voice in my head saying: “There’s been time this whole time. You can’t kill time with your heart. Everything takes time.”

The only thing bringing this down to four stars is the fact that I was distracted and depressed while reading...(still) distraught by my visualizing thoughts—of an infinitely intelligent writer taking his own life. How terribly unfortunate. I just can't help but wonder what Wallace would write about today.
Book's good; it's even great at some points. But I'm bummed...and I wish I could ask this guy why he yearned to die. Yet it's an impossible task, since he committed suicide. Perhaps I'll catch up with him in an afterlife—to talk about tennis. Or Venice.