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Review
This collection of ten tales provides ample proof of his virtuosity for the uninitiated... This is not a writer for the squeamish... but his satirical mastery of speech patterns and his eye for the grotesque can astonish. (DAILY TELEGRAPH )
Puncturing the veneer of power lies at the crux of this collection, and attention to detail illuminates the banal. Wallace's control of different voices is superb, given the individual style of each tale. (THE TIMES )
It is his prose that really sets him apart; sometimes eerily banal, at others so densely observed you're scared to blink, and making ordinary situations seem strangely disconnnected from reality. Cleverness and verbosity are additional key ingredients, and the effect is often brilliant. (SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY )
Puncturing the veneer of power lies at the crux of this collection, and attention to detail illuminates the banal. Wallace's control of different voices is superb, given the individual style of each tale. (THE TIMES )
It is his prose that really sets him apart; sometimes eerily banal, at others so densely observed you're scared to blink, and making ordinary situations seem strangely disconnnected from reality. Cleverness and verbosity are additional key ingredients, and the effect is often brilliant. (SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY )
Product Description
In these stories, the author renders the bizarre normal and the absurd hilarious, from the eerily real , almost holographic evocations of historical figures, to overtelevised game-show hosts and late-night comedians. In the title story, punk nihilism meets Young Republicanism.
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IT'S 1976. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
IT'S 1976. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
All the stories in this collection were good, though of course some were more intricate or more fully wrought than others. "Kooky" might be a little minimizing. "Luckily the Account Representative Knew CPR" [I hope I got the title right -- I don't have the book here in front of me.] is easily one of the best stories I have ever read, period. As in OF ALL TIME. This collection hinted at the genius that would eventually write the incredible "Infinite Jest." Can't wait for more from DFWallace.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Though the book does has occasional dead spots, the overall inventiveness and the ridiculously assured variety of voices DFW throws at the reader makes it a very worthwhile read, and usually a very fun one as well. It takes fiction places it hasn't often been dragged before.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
There will be many people who just don't get what David Foster Wallace is about, and I often think I am one of them. Depending what I am reading (Interviews With Hideous Men, Consider the Lobster, A supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and Infinite Jest, yes I do totally get it; The Broom of the System, and this one, Girl With Curious Hair, which includes a novella called Westward The Course of Empire Takes Its Way, well - I am undecided that I even want to get it).
DFW is sometimes very hard work and even more difficult when the stories, as here, are hardwired into American culture. One, My Appearance, is all about a middling-famous actor going on a David Letterman show. Not having ever seen a Letterman show, I am only vaguely aware that the actor, having an ear-piece inserted in her ear so that her husband and his friend can help her make a good impression on the audience, is funny. Nevertheless, it seemed to me the lamest exercise in flabby satire. Sorry, but there is an enormous ocean between the BBC and American TV.
Another offering, Here and There, was a dialogue between a man and his girlfriend in which the man got to explain his ennui and nihilism and the girl got to talk about make-up and love. Though my heart wasn't in it, I found it restlessly, urgently, readable. The rest of the collection was equally patchy but did include a superb sub-Faulknerian pastiche and the marvellous Lyndon, about Lyndon B Johnson, Lady Bird and love. This hits all the right buttons and is surprisingly sympathetic.
Readers have to work hard with DFW, and the pay-off is sometimes bafflement, but often the shattering genius of the man gets through - and even in the least loveable of offerings, the light shines down on us heedless, struggling mortals.
DFW is sometimes very hard work and even more difficult when the stories, as here, are hardwired into American culture. One, My Appearance, is all about a middling-famous actor going on a David Letterman show. Not having ever seen a Letterman show, I am only vaguely aware that the actor, having an ear-piece inserted in her ear so that her husband and his friend can help her make a good impression on the audience, is funny. Nevertheless, it seemed to me the lamest exercise in flabby satire. Sorry, but there is an enormous ocean between the BBC and American TV.
Another offering, Here and There, was a dialogue between a man and his girlfriend in which the man got to explain his ennui and nihilism and the girl got to talk about make-up and love. Though my heart wasn't in it, I found it restlessly, urgently, readable. The rest of the collection was equally patchy but did include a superb sub-Faulknerian pastiche and the marvellous Lyndon, about Lyndon B Johnson, Lady Bird and love. This hits all the right buttons and is surprisingly sympathetic.
Readers have to work hard with DFW, and the pay-off is sometimes bafflement, but often the shattering genius of the man gets through - and even in the least loveable of offerings, the light shines down on us heedless, struggling mortals.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
David Force to Walls is...
If you were to write a review of a piece of DFW's work then you'd try to emulate him in some way, the obvious one being an expatiatory sentence which uses metafiction, recondite... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Mr. RUDI O'NEIL
Wacky kooky
David Foster Wallace is the kookiest guy ever.
He is so good! This book blew my socks off!
A collection of meta-fictive short stories that packs such a comic punch... Read more
He is so good! This book blew my socks off!
A collection of meta-fictive short stories that packs such a comic punch... Read more
Published on 3 Jun 1997
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