March 8th, 2010 / 8:44 pm
Author News
Ryan Call
Author News
Archive of David Foster Wallace @ UTAustin
Looks like UT-Austin has acquired David Foster Wallace’s archive. From the press release:
Highlights include handwritten notes and drafts of his critically acclaimed “Infinite Jest,” the earliest appearance of his signature “David Foster Wallace” on “Viking Poem,” written when he was six or seven years old, a copy of his dictionary with words circled throughout and his heavily annotated books by Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy, John Updike and more than 40 other authors.
You can look at some of the notes he made inside the books in his library here. And here are some notes he made in his dictionaries. The archive will be available to researchers next fall.
(Thanks, jh, for the tip)
Tags: david foster wallace
I didn’t think anyone else wrote this small. or this ceaselessly in books.
I didn’t think anyone else wrote this small. or this ceaselessly in books.
I love what he did to McCarthy’s face.
I love what he did to McCarthy’s face.
This seems worth a trip to Texas.
This seems worth a trip to Texas.
[…] HTMLGiant and The […]
A bit early? A bit vulture?
A bit early? A bit vulture?
has anybody else found a non-insignificant amount of typos and factual errors w/r/t IT in Infinite Jest?
/currently halfway through it
has anybody else found a non-insignificant amount of typos and factual errors w/r/t IT in Infinite Jest?
/currently halfway through it
haha, i loved that too
Lil Wayne speaks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVNvRJsjYHw#t=7m20s
haha, i loved that too
Lil Wayne speaks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVNvRJsjYHw#t=7m20s
These are relics, yeah? DFW is some kind of saint? Are ‘geniuses’ the secular saints? We think there is something profound to discover in the minutiae of the life of a Great Man? The words he circled in his dictionary? The brand of tablets he wrote on?
These are relics, yeah? DFW is some kind of saint? Are ‘geniuses’ the secular saints? We think there is something profound to discover in the minutiae of the life of a Great Man? The words he circled in his dictionary? The brand of tablets he wrote on?
It’s common practice to preserve/distribute the marginalia of important writers, isn’t it?
It’s common practice to preserve/distribute the marginalia of important writers, isn’t it?
I once spent a day in the archives at the Ohio State library, parsing the papers of Raymond Carver, back when they still let you do that. It was not yet entirely catalogued, and there were treasures in those manila folders, not least the letters other writers wrote Carver. I opened a letter from Richard Ford, and out popped a Polaroid of him and Barry Hannah, and the letter told the story of the high time they had together. (I can’t quote from the letter or say what it said, because before you read the stuff, you had to sign a document saying you’d not quote from anything, and then you had to sign a second document saying you’d not quote from or talk about anything in Richard Ford’s letters.) So I can’t here perform the requisite gossip, but let’s say it was eye-opening to see the distance between the public and private correspondence. It helped me learn what function logrolling occupies (or at least then occupied) in American letters, and it helped me understand how many famous writers were struggling with the same problems that plagued the work I was doing.
I don’t mean to say that the published novel or story isn’t the thing. It’s the thing, the central thing, the object that brings the pleasure, and deserves most of our attention. But the ancillary stuff — letters, biographies, marginalia, etc. — gives the reader access to process in a way that brings its own pleasures (some of which are the ordinary pleasures of gossip, but some of which are pleasures of a higher order), and which access, for the writer, can be useful and generative.
I think it’s easy enough to mock this kind of thing, but I also think that the purchase of writers’ papers is a boon for scholars, strivers, and even very, very interested readers, and I’m glad big libraries like Texas and Ohio State pony up the time and money to make it happen.
I once spent a day in the archives at the Ohio State library, parsing the papers of Raymond Carver, back when they still let you do that. It was not yet entirely catalogued, and there were treasures in those manila folders, not least the letters other writers wrote Carver. I opened a letter from Richard Ford, and out popped a Polaroid of him and Barry Hannah, and the letter told the story of the high time they had together. (I can’t quote from the letter or say what it said, because before you read the stuff, you had to sign a document saying you’d not quote from anything, and then you had to sign a second document saying you’d not quote from or talk about anything in Richard Ford’s letters.) So I can’t here perform the requisite gossip, but let’s say it was eye-opening to see the distance between the public and private correspondence. It helped me learn what function logrolling occupies (or at least then occupied) in American letters, and it helped me understand how many famous writers were struggling with the same problems that plagued the work I was doing.
I don’t mean to say that the published novel or story isn’t the thing. It’s the thing, the central thing, the object that brings the pleasure, and deserves most of our attention. But the ancillary stuff — letters, biographies, marginalia, etc. — gives the reader access to process in a way that brings its own pleasures (some of which are the ordinary pleasures of gossip, but some of which are pleasures of a higher order), and which access, for the writer, can be useful and generative.
I think it’s easy enough to mock this kind of thing, but I also think that the purchase of writers’ papers is a boon for scholars, strivers, and even very, very interested readers, and I’m glad big libraries like Texas and Ohio State pony up the time and money to make it happen.
kyle, thanks for this comment. nicely said.
kyle, thanks for this comment. nicely said.
i like this
i like this
Love this. If this were on Facebook, I would like it.
Love this. If this were on Facebook, I would like it.
ryan and i will be roadtripping to austin in the fall when this stuff is released. i will be watching mission: impossible unceasingly to prepare for it.
ryan and i will be roadtripping to austin in the fall when this stuff is released. i will be watching mission: impossible unceasingly to prepare for it.
Did you miss the part about “handwritten notes and drafts of his critically acclaimed Infinite Jest”? Not that his shopping lists aren’t worth saving.
Did you miss the part about “handwritten notes and drafts of his critically acclaimed Infinite Jest”? Not that his shopping lists aren’t worth saving.
Sweet.
I run a reading series here in the ATX–if anyone wants to tie in some reading with their road trip, drop be a line a couple months prior.
Sweet.
I run a reading series here in the ATX–if anyone wants to tie in some reading with their road trip, drop be a line a couple months prior.
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