ellauri082.html on line 101: The biography by Tyrannosaurus Max paints a less than flattering portrait of Wallace. That’s not to say it’s a vicious takedown—it’s probably about as even-handed as a biography about the author is going to be, and I can imagine books about him in the future being a lot less level-headed in either direction. Basically, DFW was an extremely troubled individual and probably not a very awesome person qua person. He was often misanthropic, violent, cruel (especially to women), and self-absorbed. But what’s great about the biography is how it allows these rather hideous characteristics to disgust as well as inform; knowing the uglier aspects of DFW’s personality is extremely enlightening with regard to his work. It seems to me that the writer was extremely aware of his immense character flaws and sought in his work (his novels and his non-fiction particularly) to overcome them, and in his work he was able to occupy a wholly different realm than he was in his actual life. Well actually not at all that different. The books project a rather nasty person too.
ellauri082.html on line 103: More than anything the biography is a testament to something even DFW himself would have said: do not build monuments to individuals. His genius is in his work, and in his case his work was both in writing and in acting; the DFW one sees and hears in interviews is DFW as spinner of fiction, not DFW as himself. One need not pretend David Foster Wallace was a god of sincerity and morality and self-awareness; his work clearly shows he was not.
ellauri082.html on line 105: Despite his flaws, DFW’s death is still a great tragedy, not because people are without their god of post-post-post-postmodernism, but because his redemptive and humanistic work is now decidedly finite. Well here sure was a humanist as far as technology is concerned. His work could have beeen made infinite by adding to the end: Poles are stupid, please turn over.
ellauri082.html on line 116: DFW: There is an ending as far as I’m concerned. Certain kind of parallel lines are supposed to start converging in such a way that an “end” can be projected by the reader somewhere beyond the right frame. If no such convergence or projection occurred to you, then the book’s failed for you.
ellauri082.html on line 159: Accusations that DFW is “talking down to” or “intentionally alienating” with his vocabulary I can understand somewhat–I don’t believe he was actually intending to make people feel stupid, but he’s clearly excessive and self-indulgent on occasion.
ellauri083.html on line 464: Sopii hyvin. Wlla on kuvauxia joka lähtöön. Useimmat koskee DFWtä. Nakerran samalla kun luen. Moni kohta tiilessä on erinomaisen hyvin ja hauskasti kirjoitettu, vaikka olen enimmäxeen eri linjoilla. Mutten kunnioita. Se sana ei kuulu sanavarastoon.
xxx/ellauri075.html on line 469: “Reading D.T. Max’s bio I continue to find David Foster Wallace the most tedious, overrated, tortured, pretentious writer of my generation,” Ellis tweeted. “David Foster Wallace was so needy, so conservative, so in need of fans – that I find the halo of sentimentality surrounding him embarrassing.” In several more tweets, he continued, “DFW is the best example of a contemporary male writer lusting for a kind of awful greatness that he simply wasn’t able to achieve. A fraud.”
xxx/ellauri086.html on line 83: ONAN, as almost everybody knows, was killed by God for the heinous crime of "spilling his seed upon the ground". This, throughout history, has associated him with masturbation, beginning with the writings of Clement of Alexandria. And I agree, that when DFW mentions O.N.A.N., that connotation is implied. But that's not why God was mad at Onan. If you go read the whole sordid story in Genesis 38: when God killed Onan's brother, for reasons which are a bit obscure, leaving his widow childless, it was the custom that Onan was required to marry her and father a child upon her. This child would legally be his brother's. This was known as Levirate marriage. Onan didn't want any children who weren't legally his, so Onan "went in" to his brother's wife but pulled out early and "spilled his seed on the ground". So Onan's real sin was refusing to Consumate his Levirate Marriage. Now, once God whacked Onan, his widow had to wait for his remaining brother to grow up. But she got tired of waiting and put on a veil(!!!!) and tricked Onan's father into having sex with her. So a painting of the "Consummation of the Levirates" might be Onan's father banging his sons' wife....
xxx/ellauri312.html on line 205: Teoria on seuraava: Infinite Jest on Wallacen yritys ilmentää ja dramatisoida vallankumouksellista fiktiota, jota hän vaati esseessään "E Unibus Pluram: Television and US Fiction". (Vittu et toi Sikiökin oli sivistymätön: "Unibus"? "pluram"? HAHAHA. Jätkä ei osaa latinasta edes alkeita. Koitin lukea DFW_TV.pdf">Sikiön ao. prujua mutta se oli loputtoman pitkästyttävä.) Tyyli on sellainen, jossa uusi vilpittömyys kumoaa ironisen ironisuuden, joka on 1900-luvun loppua kohden kovertanut nykyisen fiktion. Wallace yritti kirjoittaa vastalääkettä kyynisyydelle, joka oli valloittanut ja surullittanut niin paljon amerikkalaista kulttuuria hänen elinaikanaan. Hän yritti luoda viihdettä, joka saisi meidät puhumaan isänmaallista potaskaa uudelleen. On jo aika unohtaa Vietnamin turpiinotto, sitäpaizi rättipäistä saa helpommin mureketta, kun niillä ei ole niitä viidakoita missä kykkiä. Lisäksi lukuisia kirjailijoita on kuvattu New Sincerity -liikkeen myötävaikuttajiksi, mukaan lukien Jonathan Franzen, Zadie Smith, Dave Eggers (n.h.), Stephen Graham Jones (n.h.), ja Michael Chabon (n.h.). Ei kun suuri narratiivi takas kunniaan!
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