A Hideous Interview with Myself

(The following leans heavily on dispatches here & here.)

Q. Is David Foster Wallace washed up?

A. I doubt it.  It’s just taking a dismayingly long time for him to follow up Infinite Jest with another novel.  Further, DFW’s (rare) public statements on the subject—notably in a joint appearance/conversation with Rick Moody—suggest that it’s not worth holding yer breath for a third novel to appear.

Q. Novel, schmovel.  You’ve gotten the short stories of Oblivion and the Consider the Lobster essays out of Mister Wallace in the last couple years.  And this is not to mention his delightful recent essay on Roger Federer, available for free at the New York Times.  J.D. Salinger, he is not.  What’s your beef, pal?

A. We’ve already talked about what your pal here thinks of Oblivion.  Suffice to say that I take the opposite view of our friend at The Existence Machine, who sez that (at their best) the stories of Oblivion are “full of an enormous empathy for people and their problems,” whereas DFW’s essays are “generally amusing works-for-hire and little more.”

As for the delightful Federer essay, there’s certainly something there to like…especially if you like David Foster Wallace.  It’s a collection of classic DFWisms, all the way down to the footnotes and the dense thicket of explication he lavishes on the seemingly otherworldly mechanics of Federer’s tennis game.  However, this essay—aside from being at least the fourth tennis-centric essay of DFW’s career—reads (to me) like a condensed, less funny version of “Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry…” from A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.  This is a less-than-encouraging bout of repetition.

Q. Nonetheless, are you not on record as an admirer of Mister Wallace’s CtL essay, “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart”?

A. Very much so.  As I’ve said, I liked how DFW took what was basically a pan of Austin’s autobiography and turned it into a brief meditation on the essential otherness of world-class athletes.  To use a sports metaphor, DFW made like Barry Sanders, throwing a nifty juke move and turning a potential loss into positive gain.

Q. Positive gain?

A. Let it go.

Q. So do you require Mister Wallace to move ever forward, like the proverbial shark, lest he die?

A. …

To be brief, no.  Look, I think DFW’s short fiction is quite hit-or-miss, and I often find myself disappointed by it.  He seems to succumb to his worst impulses in short stories, leading to tedious shaggy dog stuff (“Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way”), sterile, math-y, exposed-clockworks material (“Adult Word (II)”), and sojourns into voice/jargon that obfuscate rather than elucidate (“Mister Squishy”).

And the repetitions in his essays don’t really bother me, either. As a point of comparison, I have a great respect for Murakami and Steve Erickson, who both re-use material and also manage (like Ezra Pound sez) to make it new.  Also, I dig the voice of the implied narrator in DFW’s essays—it’s a charming companion, so I’ll no doubt enjoy all future DFW essays until doomsday, when an aged and ink-stained Wallace is hand-cranking them out on an old mimeograph machine in the flickering candlelight of our dystopian nightmare.

Q. So you’re comfortable with DFW never releasing another novel?

A. No, that would suck.  But remember, the man once said this (circa 1993):

“The postmodern founders' patricidal work was great, but patricide produces orphans, and no amount of revelry can make up for the fact that writers my age have been literary orphans throughout our formative years. We're kind of wishing some parents would come back. And of course we're uneasy about the fact that we wish they'd come back--I mean, what's wrong with us? Are we total pussies? Is there something about authority and limits we actually need? And then the uneasiest feeling of all, as we start gradually to realize that parents in fact aren't ever coming back--which means "we're" going to have to be the parents.”

Aside from being an accidental rebuke to those of us who are waiting so slavishly for the next DFW novel, this would seem to indicate a person whose project—de-orphanication?—is far from over, no matter which form it takes.

But this gloom & doom is awfully premature, don’t you think? He’s in his early 40’s, correct?  Plenty of time left for a couple novels, one would hope.

And even if there’s no novel coming soon or ever, DFW’s previous work is ripe for reassessment.  I mean, have I really gotten to the bottom of Infinite Jest, after reading it just once?  Also, there’s Oblivion, which I have a sneaking suspicion is better than I found it on first blush, even if some of it might be beyond rehabilitation. 

And take a piece like “Up, Simba!”, which, if I’m reading it right, more or less concludes by calling John “Straight Talk” McCain out as a complete phony.  (In the nicest, sneakiest way, of course—it’s clear that DFW is somewhat in awe of “War Hero” McCain, as well as taken by the slightest glimmer of hope that we have here a politician not completely full of bullshit.)  But in light of McCain’s recent pandering (to Jerry Falwell and Bob Jones U., of all institutions), how can you say this not a developing situation?  If McCain continues to shuck and jive all the way to the 2008 GOP nomination, doesn’t this make DFW look pretty prescient?  Vital?  Necessary?

Q. I ask the questions here.

Comments

[anom]

It’s also just a little silly to say any writer can be ‘washed up’ by his mid-forties (especially when the claim is largely based on the insanely flimsy guess that DFW doesn’t have another novel (1) gestating.) Most writers don’t even get their first book out until their forties.

1) What year is it anyway? Are novels still the yardstick of a writer’s worth? Why don’t we just have them pull down thier pants?

[Rake]

1. You realize that I agree with you, yes?

2. As a selfish person who thinks IJ is far and away the best thing Wallace has ever done, I settle for entertaining essays but hanker (selfishly) for another novel.

3. Ah, a footnote. Well played.

4. Please do not suggest writers pull down their pants as a measure of worth, even in jest. Because Steve Almond will do it. And he won't stop, even when you ask him nicely.

[anom]

1)Yep, agreeing.
4)I don't know about Almond pulling his pants down. He doesn't have a novel yet. Maybe there's something to that?

[Richard]

Thanks for the notice. I should say that I'm aware I was overly dismissive of Wallace's essays in my post. I enjoy them quite a bit, also like his voice, etc. Since I'd already read most of those collected in Consider the Lobster, I haven't bought that book yet. For one, I look forward to reading the Tracy Austin piece.

Incidentally, while I find plenty to like in much of his short fiction, I agree that some of the stories don't seem to repay the effort required to read them, but even those I see as part of the whole, as perhaps interesting failures, which for all we know might be necessary to his future work (necessary to be rid of for the future work to be possible? I'm not being as clear as I'd like here....)

[Justin Dobbs]

I don't think that Wallace! has lost any steam in the Federer article. If anything, he has gained some steam. He is now more concise, more controlled. His sentences have evolved in subtle ways to include the lurid glare of sewer lines connecting a vast, fantastic city.

[Joel]

Does anyone know if that Michael Joyce who coaches Sharapova and who got caught "signaling" to her in the US Open finals is the Michael Joyce from the DFW essay?

[Rake]

Ah, good catch. Someone should look into this.

[Joel]

Because I brought it up, I take full responsibility for the answer. According to an SI.com entry from last yar (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/jon_wertheim/04/18/mailbag.0418/3.html), Joyce quit in '03 and is currently Sharapova's traveling coach. Aside from hitting balls to warm her up before the match, I'm not sure what the position entails.

[Matt]

Michael Joyce is also the name of a hyperfiction author, poet and professor.