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Oblivion: Stories
 
 
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Oblivion: Stories (Paperback)

by David Foster Wallace (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Abacus; New edition edition (28 April 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0349116490
  • ISBN-13: 978-0349116495
  • Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 13.4 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 8,073 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #2 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > W > Wallace, David Foster

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Product Description

Review
'A visionary, a craftsman, a comedian ... He's so modern he's in a different time-space continuum from the rest of us. Goddamn him' Zadie Smith 'The heir apparent to Thomas Pynchon' Douglas Kennedy, The Times 'David Foster Wallace comes with a high

Stephen Amidon, Sunday Times
'With the exception of Don DeLillo, no writer better depicts the crushing effect of the information age on the soul'

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5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best, 19 Dec 2007
By J. R. Collinson "Jellis" (lincs, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Unless you work in market research, and as long as you like fiction, you'll be blown away by this. one of those treats that makes you realise we live in a literary sweet shop where you don't have enough time to read all the cutting edge, addictively thrilling fiction there is out there.
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15 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond any other living writer., 13 May 2005
David Foster Wallace has been likened (not especially favourably) of late to Zadie Smith, Thomas Pynchon and even Salman Rushdie, as an exponent of, and member of, a new literary type: the Hyper Realist. This apparent 'new breed' of author is identified by the myriad transgressions and surreal sub-plots, mini-essays and wild tangents that permeate their work, breaking up the traditional narrative flow and making the reader work especially hard for their novel.

What DFW actually does is create such utterly recognisable worlds, with overwhelming clarity and confusing details, as only reality seriously provides, that unless you are very careful you will be sucked into these stories and find your head spinning as you extract yourself and wonder whether it was just a book. His mastery of prose, his swift and accurate turns of phrase and lightning fast chopping and changing from one narrative thread to another is just amazing. Truly he has no real contempories.

In 'Oblivion: Stories' DFW has created a series of short stories, tales and vignettes to enthral and amaze. To read an author at the height of literary power, to be enraptured with stories of the everyday, but told with a use of language that would make any other writer question their own talents, then buy this book.

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Good collection of stories, 25 Sep 2008
By Fredward Beasley (West of Ireland) - See all my reviews
[4 stars, but I can't change it now]
Oblivion is a short story collection by the recently-deceased author David Foster Wallace comprising 8 stories and 329 pages. These stories are difficult of description and, not infrequently, of comprehension.
The difficulty lies in Wallace's attraction to excessive verbosity, complex sentence structures, extensive use of parentheses and parentheses within parentheses and difficult logical and philosophical ideas.
Arguably, Wallace can seem to be indulging in intellectual games or verbal showboating. This hinders the narrative at times. Perhaps he is simply too intelligent to be a wholly successful exponent of narrative fiction, or too conscious of his intelligence, at least.
Nevertheless, I found this book generally very enjoyable. The humour and tone is reminiscent of Flann o'Brien and there are also echoes of Thomas Pynchon. The story Good Old Neon is an extremely interesting and substantial exploration of the problems of excessive consciousness of one's self, one's actions and one's impressions on others. In this story, Wallace's characteristic irony is discarded for a more serious tone. Though Wallace is a master of the ironic tone, there are times when it becomes too much.
Overall, I enjoyed this book for the undeniable intelligence and wit displayed therein. I feel it would appeal to fans of the aforementioned Flann o'Brien or Thomas Pynchon. I would not recommend this book to persons of low intelligence.
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