My first brush with novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace was in the 150th anniversary issue of the Atlantic Monthly released last year. His short piece -- the rule was 300 words maximum -- effectively conveyed the problem facing the United States as it ages. That is, can it continue to protect the safety of its citizens in the days of relentless, resourceful and faceless terrorism?
All the formal tics are present including the endearing (or infuriating) use of footnotes for asides. Even so, he managed to condense a nuanced set of ethical questions for our fair nation into a tight word count. (Very much unlike Tom Wolfe, whose bloated piece was three times the size of the next largest yet nonsensical in its self-aggrandizing pomposity.)
With that said, I can't really give a more detailed breakdown of Wallace's work. His career in letters has been so vast and varied it's impossible to begin at just one point. He's written novels, including the gargantuan Infinite Jest. He's a frequent contributor to magazines as a fiction writer and as a journalist, including humorous coverage of the 1998 Adult Video News Awards for Premiere Magazine.
The aforementioned piece -- titled "Big Red Son" -- opens his collection Consider the Lobster. It's both robust and precious -- he refers to himself and a group of porn journalists as "yr. corresps." He also manages to provide a point-of-view perspective of the affair while maintaining some critical distance. Wallace isn't afraid to write what any person attending the AVN awards for the first time would be thinking: "Are we going to have sex?" He answers truthfully.
No.
And with one negation he's managed to humanize an industry that does not a priori dehumanize as feminists would like to claim, although it indeed does so by merit of the demands it makes on its workers' ethics, self-image and physiology.
Other thoughts as I read:
"Certainly the End of Something or Other, One Would Sort of Have to Think": A sharp critique of John Updike and, by proxy, his great white, male generation of writers. No throwaway bit of criticism here.
"Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness from Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed": The text of a speech by Wallace. He attempts to reveal the humor students are missing in Kafka's writing. Unfortunately, I think most of the general populace fails to recognize the humor in Kafka. Wallace doesn't make a clean case.
"Authority and American Usage": Wallace sinks his teeth into the decisions -- and thus intellectual movements and politics -- involved in how the American language is used. Not finished with reading this essay (it's on the long side), but it's fascinating and a great overview of many different threads, including a brief stroll through Chomsky's universal grammar.
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