| |
David Foster Wallace
By John Manning, Cataloging Bibliographer
Last month the literary world was shocked by the suicide of David Foster Wallace, professor at Pomona College in Claremont California and writer of two novels, many essays, and several short story collections. He had been suffering from clinical depression for some time and had reportedly stopped taking medication because he didn't like the side effects.
Born February 21, 1962 in Ithaca, New York, he was exposed early to literature (and to what it would not be unfair to call grammatical fanaticism) by his mother Sally Foster Wallace, who was a professor of English. In his essay "Authority and American Usage", which started as a review of A Dictionary of Modern American Usage originally published in Harper's, he recounts family trips where there was a particularly resounding chorus of "Blunderdog" (sung to the tune of the theme song from the cartoon Underdog) where the words featured various grammatical foibles that the rest of the world makes. At the time he was completely aware of how snooty this kind of grammatical elitism may seem to the rest of us, but the results of this foundation in the English language are evident in his writings. Certainly his mother taught him how to turn a phrase! He was also influenced by his father's work as a professor of philosophy - he worked towards a PhD in philosophy at Harvard, but left without finishing.
Compared by many critics to postmodern writers such as William Gaddis, Thomas Pynchon and Don Delillo, his reputation will now likely rest on his second novel, Infinite Jest. A dense work of multiple plot lines, pop cultural references and wordplay which many reviewers hailed at the time as a work of genius, some deemed impenetrable and others discounted as unreadable, one edition ran to 1079 pages, including 97 pages of notes. Infinite Jest is similar to Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow in one aspect - it requires a reader's guide to wend one's way through the maze of cultural references. One might say that this need for a reader's guide could be one of the hallmarks of postmodernism, and indeed literary critics consider Infinite Jest to be the essence of postmodern style. Wallace's short stories, despite their flouting of conventional sentence structure, stand outside his longer works for their speed and impact.
His nonfiction, as celebrated as his fictional works, is written in a dense and detailed style with multiple footnotes and addenda that are deftly woven into the prose, and which are integral to enjoying or even to understanding the overall piece. These essays are anything but quick reads. If one truly wants to pay homage to David Foster Wallace, one should write a book-length essay about him with footnotes that take up about half of each page. To mention but one related example, when commissioned to write a travelogue for Gourmet about Maine's annual lobster festival, he came up with "Consider the Lobster", one of his typical lengthy essays which could not possibly be printed in full in a magazine. It speaks volumes about him as a person that he could not write a simple essay for tourists because he didn't even like being a tourist. What interested him more about the lobster festival were the ethical implications of boiling lobsters alive, but in true philosopher fashion he considered this conundrum from all angles, criticizing the animal-rights activists right along with the tourists.
With his death, the publication of Infinite Jest may well be seen by future literary critics as a point at which a page of American literary history was turned. Now that the quintessential postmodern work has been written and no more of the same will be forthcoming from the master himself, all other turns at this genre will be a descent from Wallace's postmodern peak.
Below please find a list of books by or about David Foster Wallace. For your convenience, this list is also available in a MS Excel spreadsheet. click here.
BRIEF INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN.
• AUTHOR: WALLACE, DAVID FOSTER
• PUBLISHER: LITTLE, BROWN
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• LC CLASS: PS3573.A425635B65 1999
• $24.00 CLOTH (273 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9780316925419
• B&T YBP
BROOM OF THE SYSTEM.
• AUTHOR: WALLACE, DAVID FOSTER.
• PUBLISHER: VIKING-PENGUIN, INC.
• CONTENT LEVEL:
• LC CLASS: PS3573
• $18.95 CLOTH (467 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9780670812301
• B&T YBP
CONSIDER THE LOBSTER: AND OTHER ESSAYS.
• AUTHOR: WALLACE, DAVID FOSTER
• PUBLISHER: LITTLE, BROWN
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• LC CLASS: PS3573.A425635C66 2005
• $25.95 CLOTH (343 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9780316156110
• B&T YBP
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE'S INFINITE JEST: A READER'S GUIDE.
• AUTHOR: BURN, STEPHEN
• PUBLISHER: CONTINUUM
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• LC CLASS: PS3573.A42563515433 2003
• $11.95 PAPER (96 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9780826414779
• B&T YBP
ELEGANT COMPLEXITY: A STUDY OF DAVID FOSTER WALLACE'S INFINITE JEST.
• AUTHOR: CARLISLE, GREG
• PUBLISHER: SIDESHOW MEDIA GROUP
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• LC CLASS: PS3573.A425635
• $24.95 PAPER (524 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9780976146537
• B&T YBP
EVERYTHING AND MORE: A COMPACT HISTORY OF [INFINITY].
• AUTHOR: WALLACE, DAVID FOSTER
• PUBLISHER: W.W. NORTON
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• LC CLASS: QA9.W335 2003
• $23.95 CLOTH (319 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9780393003383
• B&T YBP
GIRL WITH CURIOUS HAIR.
• AUTHOR: WALLACE, DAVID FOSTER.
• PUBLISHER: W.W. NORTON
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• LC CLASS: PS3573
• $17.95 CLOTH (373 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9780393027570
• B&T YBP
INFINITE JEST: A NOVEL.
• AUTHOR: WALLACE, DAVID FOSTER
• PUBLISHER: LITTLE, BROWN
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• LC CLASS: PS3573.A425635I54 1995
• $35.00 CLOTH (1079 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9780316920049
• B&T YBP
OBLIVION: STORIES.
• AUTHOR: WALLACE, DAVID FOSTER
• PUBLISHER: LITTLE, BROWN
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• LC CLASS: PS3573.A425635 2004
• $25.95 CLOTH (329 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9780316919814
• B&T YBP
SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING I'LL NEVER DO AGAIN: ESSAYS AND ARGUMENTS.
• AUTHOR: WALLACE, DAVID FOSTER
• PUBLISHER: LITTLE, BROWN
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• LC CLASS: PS3573.A425635S86 1997
• $23.95 CLOTH (353 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9780316919890
• B&T YBP
UNDERSTANDING DAVID FOSTER WALLACE.
• AUTHOR: BOSWELL, MARSHALL, 1965-
• PUBLISHER: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• LC CLASS: PS3573.A425635Z53 2003
• $34.95 CLOTH (232 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9781570035173
• B&T YBP
|
