_Oblivion_ by David Foster Wallace
Aug. 31st, 2007 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raxI bought _Oblivion_ because I was trying to pick up the clerk at a bookstore. (No, actually. It almost worked too.) It sat on the shelf for two and a half years. I read it over the last couple of weeks. Some thoughts:
Primarily it reminded me of _How We Are Hungry_ by Dave Eggers except more successful. Both feel like books of short fiction written as much to show the banalities of modern life as to show writers new ways to portray said banalities; more of Eggers's experiments, in my opinion, fall flat, while Wallace bolsters his run-on sentences with something that fills me with eager expectation. His use of acronyms and seemingly meaningless jargon echoes all sorts of actual legitimate technical writing I've read but manages to tell a story at the same time; five points for that.
A couple of the individual stories are particularly good. "Oblivion" especially cuts deep into people's relationships and how they trust themselves and what happens when that trust breaks down; granted it does this through a very silly lens, but if you step back and think about it, maybe it's not so silly after all. Except it is. But what's silly is life, not the story.
My personal favorites are "The Suffering Channel," which I think does an excellent job of making the entire world look utterly and deservedly ridiculous, and "Mister Squishy," which despite being completely unrealistic is completely and utterly realistic. You may find that they fall flat if you expect resolution, but, well, it's Wallace. I encourage you all to check it out if you are into long short stories that don't tie up their loose ends but will give you ideas for your own writing. I have a copy you can borrow.
Primarily it reminded me of _How We Are Hungry_ by Dave Eggers except more successful. Both feel like books of short fiction written as much to show the banalities of modern life as to show writers new ways to portray said banalities; more of Eggers's experiments, in my opinion, fall flat, while Wallace bolsters his run-on sentences with something that fills me with eager expectation. His use of acronyms and seemingly meaningless jargon echoes all sorts of actual legitimate technical writing I've read but manages to tell a story at the same time; five points for that.
A couple of the individual stories are particularly good. "Oblivion" especially cuts deep into people's relationships and how they trust themselves and what happens when that trust breaks down; granted it does this through a very silly lens, but if you step back and think about it, maybe it's not so silly after all. Except it is. But what's silly is life, not the story.
My personal favorites are "The Suffering Channel," which I think does an excellent job of making the entire world look utterly and deservedly ridiculous, and "Mister Squishy," which despite being completely unrealistic is completely and utterly realistic. You may find that they fall flat if you expect resolution, but, well, it's Wallace. I encourage you all to check it out if you are into long short stories that don't tie up their loose ends but will give you ideas for your own writing. I have a copy you can borrow.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-01 08:13 am (UTC)elsewise, i'll add it to my list of books to look for at the library/bookshop.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-02 02:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-02 04:50 am (UTC)address: do you have the Terrace St. address? if so, that's the right one.