David Foster Wallace approached nearly everything with surprising turns, from novels to journalism to vacations. His life was an information hunt, collecting the hows and whys. He aimed to write about what it feels like to live, rather than offering an escape from it. Readers were drawn into the intricate style of his work, appreciating its comedy, brilliance, and humaneness.
Only once did David Foster Wallace give a public talk on his views on life, during a commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon College. The speech is reprinted for the first time in book form in THIS IS WATER. How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? The speech captures Wallace's electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others. After his death, it became a treasured piece of writing reprinted in The Wall Street Journal and the London Times, commented on endlessly in blogs, and emailed from friend to friend. Writing with his one-of-a-kind blend of causal humor, exacting intellect, and practical philosophy, David Foster Wallace probes the challenges of daily living and offers advice that renews us with every reading.
Set against the backdrop of the Black Death in 1348, ten young Florentines escape to the countryside, where they engage in storytelling as a means of coping with their circumstances. The narrative unfolds through one hundred novelle that tackle diverse themes, including domestic struggles and the political dynamics between Christians and Arabs. David Wallace provides insights into the text's connection to Boccaccio's proto-capitalist Florence, while also addressing gender issues and the influence of the Decameron on later literature, notably Chaucer and the novel.
"Wallace's explorations of morality, self-consciousness, addiction, sports, love, and the many other subjects that occupied him are represented here in both fiction and nonfiction. Collected for the first time are Wallace's first published story, "The View from Planet Trillaphon as Seen In Relation to the Bad Thing" and a selection of his work as a writing instructor, including reading lists, grammar guides, and general guidelines for his students. A dozen writers and critics, including Hari Kunzru, Anne Fadiman, and Nam Le, add afterwords to favorite pieces."--Publisher's description.
Somewhere in the not-so-distant future the residents of Ennet House, a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the nearby Enfield Tennis Academy are ensnared in the search for the master copy of INFINITE JEST, a movie said to be so dangerously entertaining its viewers become entranced and expire in a state of catatonic bliss . . . 'Wallace's exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight, and he has deep things to say about the hollowness of contemporary American pleasure . . . sentences and whole pages are marvels of cosmic concentration . . . Wallace is a superb comedian of culture' James Wood, GUARDIAN
A collection of insightful and uproariously funny non-fiction by the bestselling author of INFINITE JEST - one of the most acclaimed and adventurous writers of our time. A SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING... brings together Wallace's musings on a wide range of topics, from his early days as a nationally ranked tennis player to his trip on a commercial cruiseliner. In each of these essays, Wallace's observations are as keen as they are funny. Filled with hilarious details and invigorating analyses, these essays brilliantly expose the fault line in American culture - and once again reveal David Foster Wallace's extraordinary talent and gargantuan intellect.
In David Lipsky's view, David Foster Wallace was the best young writer in America. Wallace's pieces for Harper's magazine in the 90s were, according to Lipsky, like hearing for the first time the brain voice of everybody I knew: Here was how we all talked, experienced, thought. It was like smelling the damp in the air, seeing the first flash from a storm a mile away. You knew something gigantic was coming.§§Then Rolling Stone sent Lipsky to join Wallace on the last leg of his book tour for Infinite Jest, the novel that made him internationally famous. They lose to each other at chess. They get iced-in at an airport. They dash to Chicago to catch a make-up flight. They endure a terrible reader's escort in Minneapolis. Wallace does a reading, a signing, an NPR appearance. Wallace gives in and imbibes titanic amounts of hotel television (what he calls an orgy of spectation). They fly back to Illinois, drive home, walk Wallace's dogs. Amid these everyday events, Wallace tells Lipsky remarkable things everything he can about his life, how he feels, what he thinks, what terrifies and fascinates and confounds him in the writing voice Lipsky had come to love. Lipsky took notes, stopped envying him, and came to feel about him that grateful, awake feeling the same way he felt about Infinite Jest. Then Lipsky heads to the airport, and Wallace goes to a dance at a Baptist church.
Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a sick sense of humour? What is John Updike's deal anyway? And who won the Adult Video News' Female Performer of the Year Award the same year Gwyneth Paltrow won her Oscar? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in his new book of hilarious non-fiction. For this collection, David Foster Wallace immerses himself in the three-ring circus that is the presidential race in order to document one of the most vicious campaigns in recent history. Later he strolls from booth to booth at a lobster festival in Maine and risks life and limb to get to the bottom of the lobster question. Then he wheedles his way into an L.A. radio studio, armed with tubs of chicken, to get the behind-the-scenes view of a conservative talkshow featuring a host with an unnatural penchant for clothing that only looks good on the radio. In what is sure to be a much-talked-about exploration of distinctly modern subjects, one of the sharpest minds of our time delves into some of life's most delicious topics.
Exploring intriguing questions about pain perception in lobsters, the humor in Kafka's work, and the complexities of John Updike's writing, this book delves into the intersections of literature and unexpected topics. It also examines the fascinating dynamics between adult film stars and their fans during in-person encounters, offering insights into celebrity culture and human interaction. Through a blend of humor and critical analysis, it invites readers to reflect on these diverse subjects.
The "dazzling, exhilarating" (San Francisco Chronicle) debut novel from one of this century's most groundbreaking writers Published when David Foster Wallace was just twenty-four years old, The Broom of the System stunned critics and marked the emergence of an extraordinary new talent. At the center of this outlandishly funny, fiercely intelligent novel is the bewitching heroine, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman. The year is 1990 and the place is a slightly altered Cleveland, Ohio. Lenore’s great-grandmother has disappeared with twenty-five other inmates of the Shaker Heights Nursing Home. Her beau, and boss, Rick Vigorous, is insanely jealous, and her cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler, has suddenly started spouting a mixture of psycho-babble, Auden, and the King James Bible. Ingenious and entertaining, this debut from one of the most innovative writers of his generation brilliantly explores the paradoxes of language, storytelling, and reality.
This book has nothing to do with physics, but its title will make you look
super smart if you're reading it on a train or plane. String Theory is a
collection of five of Wallace's best essays on tennis, a sport I gave up in my
Microsoft days and am once again pursuing with a passion. You don't have to
play or even watch tennis to love this book. The late author wielded a pen as
skillfully as Roger Federer wields a tennis racket. Here, as in his other
brilliant works, Wallace found mind-blowing ways of bending language like a
metal spoon. -Bill Gates, My Favorite Books of 2016 David Foster Wallace's
Federer essay turned me into an avid tennis fan. - Lin-Manuel Miranda , The
New York Times Book Review A wonderful and inspiring collection for fans of
either tennis or eye-popping prose. - Austin American-Statesman String Theory
expertly articulates why tennis fans love the sport so, capturing both the
human drudgery behind its mastery and, for those who make it to the world-
class level, its otherworldliness...[It] stands as a monument to Wallace's
talent-and his dedication to the game. -Doug Perry, The Oregonian /The Spin of
the Ball This collection is a tennis classic that deserves shelf space next to
John McPhee's Levels of the Game and Brad Gilbert's Winning Ugly...Between its
grass-green covers, five of Wallace's erudite and engaging tennis essays are
collected and, together with a pitch-perfect introduction by John Jeremiah
Sullivan, the result is nothing short of delightful, like a ball streaking off
a racquet's sweet spot for a winner...David Foster Wallace is a great talent,
writing on a subject he knows and loves. And that make this little book, quite
simply, an ace. -Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News David Foster Wallace's essays on
tennis are a treasure, some of the best writing ever on the sport, and they
are all here in the Library of America's this deluxe hardcover collector's
edition. - NY Sports Day Ruminative, digressive, lyrical, funny, sad,
sometimes borderline lunatic, these posthumously collected journalistic pieces
have all the hallmarks of Wallace's novels. - The Washington Post Wallace's
essays on tennis, collected here in a remarkable volume, are a mixture of
courtside reportage and armchair rumination. How, he asks, are those who play
tennis at the highest level able to do what they do? What is their genius?
When we watch, what are we missing? The tennis-obsessive will find Wallace's
considerations almost bewilderingly insightful. - The Telegraph (UK) Wallace's
grasp of tennis was truly prodigious. The analytical powers that must have
ended up hindering him as a player made him a peerless observer of the sport.
He has often been described as the best tennis writer of all time, and these
essays don't disabuse that notion. - The Guardian (UK) What makes this
collection so valuable for serious tennis fans is the chance to see 'the most
beautiful sport there is' through Wallace's eyes. In a nation that often
derides tennis as effete because it lacks physical contact, Wallace sees it as
manly; 'It is to artillery and airstrikes what football is to infantry and
attrition.' Deep down I always knew tennis was a war game. To get wrapped up
in this collection is to get pulled deep into the mind of Wallace and, once
there, of course, his inescapable subject. 'Midwest junior tennis was also my
initiation into true adult sadness,' he wrote. In his early teens Wallace
became one of the better tournament players in the Midwest by combining his
understanding of geometry with a Zen attitude about the horribly annoying
regional winds and a defensive style that focused on not missing shots, thus
making other kids go mad. -Toure, Town & Country
