Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2004 3:38 pm Posts: 20059 Gender: Male
Delight in our Youth wrote:
I love him, his commencement speach to Kenyon College changed my life, but I found I just didn't have the attention span or comprehension skills to read his fiction...
I liked that post. Anyway, I didn't have much trouble with "A Supposedly Fun Thing" (I read it in its Harper's form, but I assume the differences aren't that great). Although one thing he did that bothered me was to: use seemingly unnecessary colons. I'm not sure I have the attention span or desire to read IJ (well, in the abstract I do, but given limited time and energy and lots of reading I'd like to do it's tougher to imagine myself doing). But I think I'm going to read more of his essays. I really liked the one I've done (as well as the KC speech).
_________________ stop light plays its part, so I would say you've got a part
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 6:41 am Posts: 5867 Location: Providence, RI Gender: Male
I'm writing a paper that involves Infinite Jest right now (literally this second; I have a stack of papers next to me that need cutting and polish and more paragraphs), and I can't wait for the semester to be over so I can read this again. Even just reading a few passages to excise quotes make me antsy.
_________________ "I wish that I believed in fate / I wish I didn't sleep so late"
"The real truth about it is: no one gets it right / The real truth about it is: we’re all supposed to try"
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2004 3:38 pm Posts: 20059 Gender: Male
Simple Torture wrote:
I'm writing a paper that involves Infinite Jest right now (literally this second; I have a stack of papers next to me that need cutting and polish and more paragraphs), and I can't wait for the semester to be over so I can read this again. Even just reading a few passages to excise quotes make me antsy.
little wing awaits your reply
_________________ stop light plays its part, so I would say you've got a part
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2004 3:38 pm Posts: 20059 Gender: Male
I can't overstate how much I've been coming back to Shipping Out/A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again in my head (and in discussions on a lot social/political/economic topics). The idea of perpetual "homeostasis of terrible dissatisfaction" especially (along with this from Through the Looking Glass: "Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else -- if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing." - "A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"). There's a lot of good stuff in that piece.
Hopefully I can dig into some of the rest of his work later in the week.
_________________ stop light plays its part, so I would say you've got a part
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:52 pm Posts: 2647 Location: Where gila monsters meet you at the airport
dkfan9 wrote:
I can't overstate how much I've been coming back to Shipping Out/A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again in my head (and in discussions on a lot social/political/economic topics). The idea of perpetual "homeostasis of terrible dissatisfaction" especially (along with this from Through the Looking Glass: "Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else -- if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing." - "A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"). There's a lot of good stuff in that piece.
Hopefully I can dig into some of the rest of his work later in the week.
Re: A Supposedly Fun Thing ... Tina Fey's memoir has a rant about a terrible cruise experience of her own and she gives a little shout out to the DFW essay.
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