David Foster Wallace
I mentioned last week that I was going to his reading at the Hammer Museum. It was more than I expected. Even though I had only read from Wallace1, he seemed to be at his best. The moderator said only one thing I agreed with: that his writing is almost instantly recognizable, even in the smallest of chunks. His reading of two short pieces demonstrated her intuitive comment to be true.
There was quite a crowd gathered to see him. Some were students but quite a few, especially those who were brave enough to ask questions afterwards, were enthusiasts like me for whom Wallace had opened a new world in our understanding of what a book could be.
His first piece was cheeky and although there were larger, more subtle themes, he had most of us laughing with pleasure at each turn. I really like hearing writers read their work because they provide a natural voice for how their story flows. If you've ever read his work, you know that he not only footnotes his work obsessively, but he is capable of incredibly long sentences and the most excruciating detail. He also will sometimes revisit something (an thing, a place, a person), over and over again, adding layer upon layer of detail, telling you the story in a new light as each component is revealed.
His second piece was distrubing. Although he warned us ahead of time, it didn't detract from how discomforting the story became. It was strange, I kept finding myself thinking, that the same group of folks (myself included) who had been laughing at each paragraph of his previous piece would now give distressed sighing noises in unison. The truth of good art is that it is gripping.
There was a discussion afterwards which was almost useless as UCLA professor Mona Simpson bumbled through her rabid assumptions of Wallace, often taking time to talk about herself. Most of the questions from the audience were either too abstract or generalizations that Wallace mercilessly dealt with. A few times, however, there was this true flicker of the honesty of a guy who writes fiction and has so many critics and students reading too much into it. And I few times I thought the questioners were onto something that he casually brushed off, but which pressed on some of the finer points of his writing. For example, someone asked about his research methods and how excited he got about learning what he was writing about. Even though he shrugged his way through it, there is something to a guy who just read a story that covers, in exquisite detail, the inner workings of the IRS bureaucracy. He may play it off but make no mistake, he must really dive into his subject matter.
One thing he said, in particular, resonates with me. He was talking about endings in response to a good question about why he had a tendency to "drop off" the reader when his stories were seeming to climax. Most endings have been done, he responded, there are set number of ways for a story to end and after watching a lot of tv one knows all of them. The real story, he seemed to be saying, was in the tell. The detail. How you get there. And it seems that is the substance of his style. I think his writing works for people who perk up at descriptions, grammer, and prose, and fails for those who want television endings.
1If you want something managable by Wallace, I recommend Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.
9:45:12 AM 
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