Oreo or madeleine?

Q: How is David Foster Wallace like Proust?

A: He isn't.

Although not everyone agrees with me on this.  Here's our old pal Eggers on DFW and Proust in his infamous flip-floppity introduction to Infinite Jest:

...Wallace is a different sort of madman, one in full control of his tools, one who instead of teetering on the edge of this precipace or that, under the influence of drugs or alcohol, seems to be heading ever-inward, into the depths of memory and the relentless conjuring of a certain time and place in a way that evokes — it seems so wrong to type this name but then again, so right! — Marcel Proust.

Forget "so right!" His first impulse was correct.

And now some guy on the greatness of Proust:

Some people like to climb Mount Everest. I'm sure this is slightly difficult, but apparently the maniacs who climb Mount Everest get something out of it. So it is with the maniacs who enjoy reading In Search of Lost Time.

But I don't want to give the impression that the book is inherently deadly or forbidding. Proust's voice is a good-humored, good-natured voice, a wise voice. If David Foster Wallace, another author infamous for his verbosity, is (to me!) like a smart guy who sits next to you on the plane to Europe who at first seems really witty and brilliant but after an hour or two you just wish he would put a lid on it for a while and let you read your Richard Stark thriller, Proust is the guy who might shyly start to talk to you, asking questions about yourself and your family and job, what books and movies and music you like, and then he'll start talking about anything at all and he's so brilliant that you don't want him to stop talking, even though he'll keep saying, "Oh, but I should shut up, I’m boring you, you talk for a bit!"

Why does DFW keeps getting hauled into Proust comparisons, other than mere laziness?

Both men once wrote very long novels.  We're dealing with taste and interpretation here, true, but what else would cause one to lump these two gentlemen together?

"Verbose" seems to be a shared trait, but I don't see it.

Proust doesn't merit the charge of verbosity. He may have set down a million words or more, but he needed them.  It's style & aesthetic; profligate's not in it.  To be at once brilliantly lyrical and cerebral and wide-ranging, you need long sentences and lots of them.  Proust must have thought so, at least, and I, for one, cannot argue.

DFW could be (and has been) accused of being verbose, but here again we're addressing an aesthetic choice.  One may not appreciate it, but Wallace pointedly employs his breathless, talky, jargon-laden prose for ironic and/or humorous effect.  This can be distancing , but that's an intended effect of Wallace's aesthetic choice; i.e., to initially take the reader off her guard with a comic and clinical or "intellectual" voice--see the Hal Incandenza's first-person narration in the opening section of Infinite Jest--thereby calling her attention what's happening behind or underneath. (That this aesthetic is not very similar to Proust's seems to be obvious.)

But before I range too far afield....

Eggers' comparison is inapt (or inept).  The latter fellow finds Proust and DFW similar, with Proust being far superior (and less annoying as a narrator, especially in posited reification scenarios).

I suppose I'm nitpicking here, but I don't see anything essential connecting them, other than "long novel." Certainly there are better touchstones for Proust out there than DFW, and vice versa.

Comments

[blake butler]

i agree. i couldn't stand eggers intro. don't understand the need for glossing over. too many people neglect wallace's sense of humor. for my money he is unmatched literarily as far as jokes that most people miss. except perhaps nicholson baker, or even beckett. word.

[mr. obvious]

Proust Nabokov
Wallace Dostoievski

[R Ellis]

You're right -- it's just because Infinite Jest is loooong. That's all. Other than that there's no resemblance between DFW and MP. And I like DW just fine, but his is a different project.

New law: publishers are not allowed to attach D. Egg's name to a book in hopes that some of the money will rub off.

[C.MartinSamson]

I second R Ellis' "New law"!!
Also Proust and DFW, a comparison that just isn't that helpful.

[Kameron]

I'm not so sure that it's a crappy comparison.

It's really hard for me to get into long books, anything over 500 pages makes me a little queasy, but I somehow got through both In Search of Lost Time and Infinite Jest and I now say without hesitation that they are my two favorite books.

They both seem to be able to get at something with their big ol sentences/books. And maybe I just like the project of trying to fit in every single theme/desire/motive etc. in a single work.

[Andrew]

I just want to mention that in the excerpt, Eggers doesn't seem to be making a broad or comprehensive comparison between Proust and DFW.

Look at Eggers' sentence again:

"...(Wallace) seems to be heading ever-inward, into the depths of memory and the relentless conjuring of a certain time and place in a way that evokes — it seems so wrong to type this name but then again, so right! — Marcel Proust."

I think it's certainly possible to agree that this particular aspect of Wallace's work is evocative of Proust, without making a tome to tome comparison.

At the very least, Eggers seems aware of exactly what we're discussing - that though he is reminded of Proust, the association doesn't seem quite right.

And, though I want to agree with the proposed "New Law" (really, I do), some naive part of me still believes that it's not all about money.

Here's the thing. If the impossible-to-preclude name "Dave Eggers" gets more people to read Wallace, and the book kicks them in the face, does something for them, and connects them to something new and good and real, then I'm grateful, and I'm all for it.

Lastly, the DFW/Dostoevski comment is right on the money, in my opinion. Incredibly apt.

--

[Kevin]

I know I'm late to the conversation here, so this will probably go unread, but I think this argument is rather petty. It's clear from the introduction that he is not actually comparing Wallace to Proust; he's comparing one (very general) element of their writing, how both books head "ever-inward, into the depths of memory..." The kind of selective logic it takes to turn that into "DFW = Proust" is that of the right-wing radio pundit who says "bring our troops home" = "I love Bin Ladin." I mean, come on, flex those critical thinking skills. I have not read Infinite Jest (yet?), but I thought it was a fine introduction in that it encouraged me to take a crack at it. I almost always skip introductions, as they usually assume that the reader has *already* read the book, and most take on an academic pretentiousness that makes the reader feel that he or she should appreciate the book rather than enjoy it. But here is an introduction that has made me want to read the book, and I think that qualifies it as successful. Besides, reading literati bashing Eggers is a little (a lot) like going into an independent music store and listening to the hipsters behind the counter bitterly bash any band who has signed to a major label, and having to deal with their snobbish judgment of my purchase, as if liking Modest Mouse (on their major label!) is akin to liking Vanilla Ice. Yes, Eggers can get annoying, but he has written a fine introduction.