Brevi interviste di uomini schifosi, D.Wallace
W. non vuole essere uno scrittore che tratta il suo lettore da deficiente, con la scusa che la modernità tale lo ha reso.
Non vuole lisciarlo per il pelo offrendogli un brano commerciale, una trama avvincente che lo catturi completamente e gli faccia dimenticare di essere seduto in poltrona; né fare narrativa "di qualità" per descriverci personaggi senz’anima e senza amore, come se stesso peraltro, e che ripete semplicemente all’infinito il concetto. Il nostro non lo fa.
Piuttosto, lui si chiede come mai qualche essere umano “schifoso o meno” possa continuare ancora, in questo mondo, a provare la capacità gioia e carità per cose che non hanno un prezzo.
È questo l’obiettivo del vero scrittore: far crescere queste capacità alla maniera, dico, di Tolstoj, autore che lui cita molto.
La sua scrittura ti mette davanti il povero corpo umano scorticato, senza pelle,carne viva: c’è pietà in Wallace. La sento mentre rido a crepapelle delle grottesche avventure senza speranza, di quel ritratto iperrealistico della condizione umana moderna.
La mancanza d'amore, la corsa al debellamento del dolore fisico e psichico, mero sintomo, è causa di tutto questo squallore umano.
Jack Gladney, in Rumore Bianco di De Lillo, non riesce a trovare la radice del proprio dolore e si rifugia nel tempio del consumismo, proprio per sfuggire alla paura della fine. I personaggi di Wallace ricalcano quelli di De Lillo. Ma questi ha gettato la spugna senza rimpianti, con il pessimismo della ragione. Wallace invece non riesce a liberarsi dalla disperazione della perdita dell'empatia umana e non a caso finisce com’è finito, con il suicidio, per l'impossibilità di accettare lo stato delle cose.

Contrariamente alla scrittura ottocentesca di Tolstoj, al grande romanzo "realistica" che rende familiare ciò che è strano, lui rende di nuovo strano ciò che è ormai ci diventato familiare. "Nella persona depressa"., terrificante è l'indifferenza – indifferenza che ora è auspicata come “sano amore di sé”- della depressa verso l'unica amica "telefonica" che le è rimasta: povera donna terminale, che può ascoltarla tra un conato e l'altro mentre quella, guarda caso, le chiede di risponderle sinceramente se sia anaffettiva o no.
L’arma dell’ironia nelle sue mani non si limita a svelare le sgradevoli realtà dell’ammorbante letteratura contemporanea, in cui l’ironia è diventata fine a se stessa ( vedi l’ultimo Roth o il tanto decantato Cosmopolis di De Lillo); piuttosto lui osa parlare dei modi in cui si possa tentare di aggiustare quello che non va. È come se desse voce solo alla parte di lui che ama le cose che scrive, che ama il testo a cui sta lavorando. Che ama quel padre, per quanto schifoso sia, che in punto di morte non si dà pace di avere passato tutta la vita a odiare il figlio senza osare dirlo. Se il corpo non lo avesse abbandonato in quell’istante, forse avrebbe potuto redimersi. Ne prova pietà. W. prende il principio dell'amore, molto sul serio e attraverso i suoi personaggi schifosi ci mostra dove siamo arrivati oltre il quale c’è il baratro.
W. non si sottrae all'imperativo categorico morale come perno della Zoe umana, indipendentemente della sua più o meno perfetta biòs.
W. Non si limita a mostrare. Non si lava le mani di fronte al degrado umano. Cerca una soluzione. Dà al lettore l'opportunità di interloquire con lui, in una specie di "tu con te stesso" socratiano. Per fare questo è consapevole che gli strumenti tolstojani non sono più sufficienti. E allora usa un linguaggio preciso, certosino, che non solo "realizza" la realtà ma ne fa cogliere quella realtà di cui non sospettiamo l'esistenza: la realtà del vuoto a cui non dobbiamo rassegnarci e a cui lui non si è rassegnato.

My first encounter with DFW, and I can see why he is lauded and remembered for his avant-garde prose. He is a master of description and tone.
My mood right now didn't match well with that of the book (there were indeed some hideous men in the interviews), hence my middle-road rating. I think DFW's essays may be a better match for me now... so I'll likely turn to those at some point soon.

Volgens 'de Standaard' zijn meest toegankelijke boek maar dat wil ik zeker niet beamen. Fantastische stukken worden afgewisseld met stukken die heel wat volharding vergen om door te lezen en zal toch mensen doen afhaken. Wat jammer is want Wallace is een geniaal auteur.

To call these meanderings and sub-meanderings of a brilliant mind short stories, will be akin to putting a leash on DFW's creativity with the aid of conventional terminologies and thereby undervaluing the sheer inventiveness on display in this compelling collection.
In course of my limited venturings into DFW's literary landscapes I have arrived at one crucial inference. That to read DFW is to transgress the very act of simply reading through and discover a newer way to commune with his chain of thoughts, to work your grey matter just a tad bit harder to truly grasp what he has intended for you to understand. And that's an exercise I am all too happy to engage in especially if it sharpens my senses and compels me to achieve a state of oneness with the narrative without sparing a second thought to any of my other parallel reads.
Reading him is like being given the unique opportunity to listen in on one of the greatest minds that ever existed speaking from some imaginary podium and letting that same mind direct my own to follow pathways that it didn't even know existed. It's like making yourself a part of the virtual reality he has recreated through his words and believing in the truth of it without trying to compartmentalize his writing.

Hideous men (and, occasionally, women) and the alarmingly convoluted inner workings of their still hideous minds string this collection together. Some of the 'short stories' are mere snapshots of eponymous interviews of seemingly disturbed individuals, ranging from hippie youths who have devised Machiavellian plans to seduce and subsequently ditch women with psychopathic precision to adolescents with elaborate masturbation fantasies creepy enough to make you involuntarily shudder, while some are little snippets which merely detail the secret inner lives of certain individuals which always remain carefully concealed behind an ingeniously orchestrated charade. Add some metafictional commentary inserted sporadically as footnotes of considerable length, in several of which the author even challenges the potential reader to weird pop quizzes, and you have a hazy idea of what this collection has to offer. But even so, I probably haven't even grazed the tip of the iceberg of DFW's gift for redefining narrative structures.

Given that I am accustomed to more or less linear narratives, consisting of immaculately crafted sentences which put more emphasis on superficiality of actions and emotions, it is a bit of a surprise to find myself being drawn to a writer who sought to expose the raw core of every pretension. Sometimes while reading I was even tempted to flip a coin to decide whether he was being ironic or simply acknowledging some disturbing reality in a matter-of-fact tone.
n  

"He ruled from that crib, ruled from the first. Ruled her, reduced and remade her. Even as an infant the power he wielded! I learned the bottomless greed of him. Of my son. Of arrogance past imagining. The regal greed and thoughtless disorder and mindless cruelty - the literal thoughtlessness of him."

n
The man's perspicacity is so palpable in everything he writes and his sincere attempts at perfect reconstruction of thought processes and the true motivations at work behind every human gesture so obvious, that I can't help but be charmed. The 5 stars are probably a dead giveaway of my veritable moony-eyedness.

Belying expectations the footnotes did not annoy. The infinite digressions merely served to intensify my fascination with the way DFW's mind worked.
But can it be said that DFW left behind a body of work which can be given the label of 'proper literature'? The answer to the question depends on the way you choose to constrict your definition of 'proper literature' or whether you choose to constrict it at all.

The man was a genius and his suicide only translates into a profound loss for all the good which remains in the world of publishing. And I doff my hat in honor of the creative freedom he refused to sacrifice while writing.

Sono più schifosi gli uomini che fanno outing nevrotico/psicotico scavando dentro di sè e giustificando i propri comportamenti o chi, invece, è impermeabile e refrattario, tutto ciò non gli appartiene e nemmeno lo sfiora?
Wallace non discrimina, semplicemente racconta quanto siamo "schifosi" o potremmo essere "schifosi"; complice il contesto.
Uno degli "stili" usati ricorda la ripetitività dei soggetti in campo, ossessiva come per le opere di Andy Wharol, più simile all'immagine della sedia elettrica che non alla lattina della Campbell. Altro: periodi lunghissimi senza punteggiatura dove la struttura narrativa è sorretta da una logica impeccabile.
Capolavoro.

Credo che questa raccolta sia il Wallace piú ostico incontrato fino ad oggi, con uno stile di scrittura estremamente diverso da racconto a racconto ed una terminologia spesso molto complessa (ma DFW ci ha abituati a questo, google sempre a portata di mano).
Le interviste sono stupende, alcune semplicemente geniali, mentre tra i racconti si spazia da perle come Per sempre lassù e La persona depressa ad altri in cui davvero non c'ho capito niente come Chiesa fatta senza le mani e Tri-Stan (questo forse l'ho anche capito, ma è stata davvero dura leggerlo...).
C'è da dire pure che, nonostante questi non li abbia compresi, li ho letti comunque con rapimento.

Disse che la depressione risultava così centrale e inevitabile per la sua identità e per la persona che era che il non essere capace di esternare la sensazione interiore della depressione e nemmeno di descrivere davvero la sensazione che le dava, per lei era per esempio come sentire un bisogno disperato, feroce di descrivere il sole nel cielo e avere la capacità o il permesso solo di indicare a mó di descrizione le ombre sul terreno.

Dico solo che diventiamo così stereotipati e condiscendenti sui diritti e l'assoluta correttezza e la protezione delle persone che non ci fermiamo a ricordare che nessuno è soltanto vittima e niente soltanto negativo e soltanto scorretto... quasi niente lo è.

Durante l'intera conversazione aveva un'espressione divertita che rendeva difficile non ricambiare il sorriso, e il bisogno involontario di sorridere è una delle più belle sensazioni a nostra disposizione, no?

Such a clever and effective way to present a collection. These short stories (interviews) are dark, intimate, grotesque, and perhaps most disturbingly, realistic. DFW evokes a level of human depravity that makes you question yourself and those around you. Utterly uncomfortable yet breathtaking. One of my top reads of the year!

Content warning: rape

David Foster Wallace is an author who is praised as one of the most talented of his generation in America and his most successful books like Infinite Jest and This is Water earned him a loyal audience among the literary fiction's most ardent devotees. His studies in philosophy influenced his body of work and for many critics, David Foster Wallace is considered to be one of the most prominent representatives of postmodernism, something that the author himself openly denied in an interview he gave to Charlie Rose in 1997 where he distinctively stated that postmodernism has "to a large extent run its course". Foster Wallace's work certainly shares some basic characteristics with the postmodern literary approach as the text is self-conscious, though it is obvious that he is longing to transcend the metafiction label and move on to something beyond that. His themes are, in their majority, associated with the omnipotence of media in contemporary societies and its cataclysmic consequences for interpersonal communication and individual growth.

To read my full review, visit https://tapthelinemag.com/post/brief-...

Terminata la lettura di "Brevi interviste con uomini schifosi" ti senti un po' come quando ti risvegli da uno di quei sogni in cui cerchi di correre ma i Grandi Adduttori, i Sartori e i Vasti Laterali non rispondono, allora ti controlli e ti accorgi di essere un topo della specie "Mus musculus" che corre nel labirinto neurale di David Foster Wallace mentre dietro di te fanno esplodere i ponti sinaptici finché non arriva lo chef Ferran Adrià che ti solleva per la coda, ti immerge nell'azoto liquido e fa di te tapas da centoquarantanove euro al pezzo.

Sfrondato degli esperimenti più involuti e verbosi sarebbe da 4 stelle piene piene.

For years, I have been too intimidated to pick up anything by DFW. His reputation was too legendary. I'd heard horror stories about "Infinite Jest" and the sheer size of it was daunting. (That's what she said, but I digress) I finally found this on audio book, it seemed to be pretty short, so I figured I'd give it a whirl.

(Hideous) Man am I glad I did! DFW walked the thin line between smart and satirical and pretentious oh so well. This book touches on some horrible truths about how men view women, sex, rape, and relationships but in an easy to digest and satisfying way. I wish DFW could have lived to do a similar send up of the ladies. Great stuff.

***3/4

This is my first real experience with David Foster Wallace. After reading Infinite Jen's reviews (which I've come to really enjoy for their unique, witty, and absurd prose) and seeing her unabashed gushing for the guy, I figured I'd give him a shot. I was initially turned on to This is Water, which since first hearing it about two weeks ago, I've listened to almost every day since, as well as a number of random interviews with DFW. And I have to say, he had something so special. Something that keeps me coming back to listen to him over and over. He was so close to the human experience, so detailed in his descriptions, he was able to articulate critiques of postmodern society so well that I find myself wondering how he peeled my unexpressed thoughts out of the crevices of my mind and put them to paper. That is when you know that a writer is truly gifted, when the writer disappears, and you are left thinking the words that are written.

This collection had several moments like that for me. There are at least 2 or 3 of these stories that I would easily give 5 stars, that I was absolutely amazed by. But there were also a number of stories that I felt didn't have that special quality that I have come to recognize as DFW. Although, admittedly, I still know very little of his writing. I have yet to read Infinite Jest, but I am looking forward to Infinite Jest more than ever after reading this collection of stories. If Infinite Jest touches even a little bit of the soul that I've seen expressed by this dude, it's the book for me.

I especially liked the dialogue about feminism, and the story about the granola cruncher.

“...today’s postfeminist era is also today’s postmodern era, in which supposedly everybody now knows everything about what’s really going on underneath all the semiotic codes and cultural conventions, and everybody supposedly knows what paradigms everybody is operating out of, and so we’re all as individuals held to be far more responsible for our sexuality, since everything we do is now unprecedentedly conscious and informed.”

David Foster Wallace may be my favorite author, but I have to admit he had his shortcomings: uneven short fiction. He never wrote a collection of short stories that has affected me on the same level as Infinite Jest or Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, although this one is his strongest to date. His main problem was that a few of his stories seem more exercises in cleverness than anything else: here, we have the infamous "Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko," an ill-advised attempt to give the Tristan and Isolde story a corporate twist; on top of that, a few of the short pieces don't really go anywhere as far as I'm concerned. I'm thinking specifically of "Death is Not the End" and "Think."

Still, this is a book that goes there, over and over again, and isn't afraid to get ugly. DFW makes his contempt for his misogynist protagonists clear as day by referring to them as "hideous men" in the title, and oh boy are they gross people. True to his word, Wallace invites us into the minds of the spiteful, the bitter, the manipulative, the vengeful, the greedy, the petty, the control freaks of the world. Some try to change their situation, as in my favorite, the thought-provoking "Devil is a Busy Man" (the one about the money, that is), others find a change forced on them, whether in the haunting "Brief Interviews 6" or hilarious "Signifying Nothing," but most of them wallow in their condition.

It's not just the unsparing awfulness of his characters that makes this such a striking collection, though, but the relentless experimentation with form. "Octet" is particularly memorable, told in the form of questions on an ethics test; "Datum Centuro" is a quasi-dystopian piece in the form of dictionary entries; "On His Deathbed, Holding Your Hand, the Acclaimed New Young Off-Broadway Playwright's Father Begs a Boon" gives us a gut-punch monologue, the second part of "Adult World" offers an outline of a story, and "The Depressed Person" is a harrowing and in my opinion 100 percent accurate portrayal of the experience of all-consuming depression. These on top of the "Brief Interviews," which really do take the form of interviews.

When you take it all together, this is the ultimate example of Wallace as the postmodern moralist. He uses all of these tricky forms and techniques, but the central message, as usual, seems to be in favor of decency, sincerity, and communication between people. But where Infinite Jest argues the positives of taking on this mindset, this reveals the negatives of not taking it on, while at the same point using the form of fiction as a sandbox. It's not the most accessible of Wallace's fiction by any means, but if you're a fan, scoop this up.