Tag Archives | David Foster Wallace

The Extraordinary Syllabus Of David Foster Wallace

By majestic on November 28, 2011 in News 9

For fans of Foster-Wallace, the archive of his work at the University of Texas is an absolute treat. Katie Roiphe looks at his teaching syllabus when he was faculty member at Pomona College in the years before his death, for Slate:

Lately David Foster Wallace seems to be in the air: Is his style still influencing bloggers? Is Jeffrey Eugenides’ bandana-wearing depressed character in The Marriage Plot based on him? My own reasons for thinking about him are less high-flown. Like lots of other professors, I am just now sitting down to write the syllabus for a class next semester, and the extraordinary syllabuses of David Foster Wallace are in my head.

I am not generally into the reverential hush that seems to surround any mention of David Foster Wallace’s name by most writers of my generation or remotely proximate to it; I am not enchanted by some fundamental childlike innocence people seem to find in him.

… Read the rest

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The Infinite Jest Eschaton Game Video

By majestic on August 23, 2011 in News 0

For all the David Foster Wallace fans out there, a preview of what the Infinite Jest movie may look like comes in the form of a music video by The Decemberists. The book’s movie rights have been acquired by Michael Schur, who directed the video for the band’s “Calamity Song,” incorporating the game “Eschaton” described by Foster Wallace:

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A Novel Starring The IRS? David Foster Wallace’s Posthumous Jest

By majestic on April 16, 2011 in News 8

David Foster Wallace. Photo: Steve Rhodes (CC)

There’s no doubt that The Pale King, the new, posthumous novel by David Foster Wallace about the lives of workers at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, has generated more interest from reviewers than almost anything else of recent vintage. There are reviews in almost every publication that’s ever run a book review.

Foster Wallace’s publishers timed the publication to coincide with the American tax filing date of April 15th, and certainly it’s a good hook for many reviewers. In this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review section there are three separate pieces devoted to the book, but the review that’s attracted the most attention from the media, if not necessarily with readers, is Jonathan Franzen’s for The New Yorker.

For some reason it has royally p*ssed off other lit mags and blogs that The New Yorker decided to make the review available only to people who “like” its Facebook fan page.… Read the rest

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