April 30th, 2009 / 12:27 pm
Author Spotlight & Presses
DFW Praise Compendium
At the height of my obsession with David Foster Wallace, garnered after reading ‘Infinite Jest’ over several weeks in 2001, an act which literally changed my life, I began going after any and every piece of writing not only of his, but that he had recommended, blurbed, mentioned in interviews, taught, etc. Many of these books also had a profound influence on my brain, including Gass’s ‘Omensetter’s Luck,’ McCarthy’s ‘Blood Meridian’ and ‘Suttree,’ Donald Barthelme, and countless others.
During this period I began constructing a list of these texts as I found them. The list, which I remember as being several pages long, is now likely floating somewhere in one of my many expired computers. I was able, though, to find at least what makes up part of the list in an old email folder, and as such it appears below.
I know this is not an exhaustive list at this point, and if I find a later draft of it I will repost: in the meantime, however, if you have any other knowledge of blurbs or etc. (and any that might have occurred later in his life, after I stopped making the list, will obviously be absent) please comment them. Where I could, I tried to include the actual blurbs and/or comments, and in other places just included the names of authors mentioned in passing or other ways.
(It likely should be noted that many of these refs came from the amazing and wonderful interview conducted with Wallace by Larry McCaffery for the Review of Contemporary Fiction, which if you have not yet, you should read.)
Also included is a Reading List from a class Wallace taught on postmodern fiction (I believe), which is a pretty fantastic collection of texts.
Incomplete list is after the break:
*******************
– Books Blurbed by DFW –
Desperate Characters – Paula Fox
* “A towering landmark of postwar Realism….A sustained work of prose so lucid and fine it seems less written than carved.”
The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
Jack – A.M. Homes
* “A moving novel, and a very refreshing one. Jack is such an engaging, attractive human being, it’s a pleasure to believe in him.”
Thirst – Ken Kalfus
Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
* “A work of genius . . . an erudite, breathtakingly cerebral novel whose prose is crystal and whose voice rivets and whose conclusion defies you not to cry.”
* “’W’s M’ is a dramatic rendering of what it would be like to live in the sort of universe described by logical atomism. A monologue, formally very odd, mostly one-sentence ¶s. Tied with “Omensetter’s Luck” for the all-time best U.S. book about human loneliness. These wouldn’t constitute ringing endorsements if they didn’t happen all to be simultaneously true — i.e., that a novel this abstract and erudite and avant-garde that could also be so moving makes “Wittgenstein’s Mistress” pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country.”
How to Breathe Underwater: Stories – Julie Orringer
Tourmaline – Joanna Scott
* “the absolute cream of her generation”
The Acid House – Irvine Welsh
Dogwalker – Arthur Bradford
Big If – Mark Costello
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – Dave Eggers
The Middle Mind – Curtis White
* “Cogent, acute, beautiful, merciless, and true.”
??
Susanna Moore
William T. Vollmann
– Books Recommended by DFW in Conversation –
Halls of Fame: Essay – John D’agata
The Lost Scrapbook – Evan Dara
Omensetter’s Luck – William H. Gass
* “Gass’ first novel, and his least avant-gardeish, and his best. Basically a religious book. Very sad. Contains the immortal line “The body of Our Saviour shat but Our Saviour shat not.” Bleak but gorgeous, like light through ice.”
Angels – Denis Johnson
* “This was Johnson’s first fiction after the horripilative lyric poetry of “Incognito Lounge.” Even cult fans of “Jesus’ Son” often haven’t heard of “Angels.” It’s sort of “Jesus’ Son’s” counterpoint, a novel-length odyssey of mopes and scrotes and their brutal redemptions. A totally American book, it’s also got great prose, truly great, some of the ’80s’ best; e.g. lines like ‘All around them men drank alone, staring out of their faces.’”
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
Steps – Jerry Kosinski
* “This won some big prize or other when it first came out, but today nobody seems to remember it. “Steps” gets called a novel but it is really a collection of unbelievably creepy little allegorical tableaux done in a terse elegant voice that’s like nothing else anywhere ever. Only Kafka’s fragments get anywhere close to where Kosinski goes in this book, which is better than everything else he ever did combined.”
Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
* “Don’t even ask.”
Suttree – Cormac McCarthy
There’s a Trick With a Knife I’m Learning to Do – Michael Ondaatje
The Shawl – Cynthia Ozick
Donald Barthelme (esp. The Balloon)
A.S. Byatt
Robert Coover
J. Cortazar
Don Delillo
Mary Karr
Phillip Larkin
Manuel Puig
George Saunders
William T. Vollmann
DFW’s Syllabus Texts
Speedboat – Renata Adler
Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
Nightwood – Djuna Barnes
In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
Play It as It Lays – Joan Didion
Desperate Characters – Paula Fox
The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
The Moviegoer – Walker Percy
The Man Who Loved Children – Christina Stead
Tags: blurb, david foster wallace, DFW, reading list
blake, save the hard drives of expired laptops/desktops. data retrieval is not difficult. the rest of the computer you can toss.
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 1:05 pmBlake Butler—
i like to look at them and think
reply
Thanks for this!
reply
This.
reply
i haven’t read any of the books on his syllabus and i will now try to.
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 1:12 pmBlake Butler—
you should. i have read them all except the stead and lessing. they are all incredible, except i kind of hate the moviegoer. but lots of people love it.
speedboat, in watermelon sugar, and play it as it lays are the cream of the crop of that list for me
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 1:21 pmpr—
But how cool of him to love Lessing? That said, I’d read The Fifth Child over The Golden Notebook.
Plus, let’s not forget how much he loved tennis.
Tennis watching should be on the syllabus. I’ve got seven hours of taped tennis from Rome on right now.
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 1:26 pmBlake Butler—
the fifth child is indeed amazing
April 30th, 2009 / 2:35 pmKevin O'Neill—
ok thanks, three is a more manageable and achievable goal!
reply
very nice. all of these are going on a list of my own.
when it comes to Vollmann, i can’t say enough about The Rainbow Stories. i’m reading it right now, insanely well thought structuring, meta gonzo brilliance.
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 1:27 pmBlake Butler—
Vollmann is a magic man. ‘The Rifles’ is still my favorite, but yes, the Rainbow Stories is power packed.
reply
Awesome! I’ve been waiting for this post.
reply
I’m surprised by Jack being mentioned though. I did not think much of that book. Holmes has better work.
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 1:47 pmBlake Butler—
agreed. he likely just blurbed it as that is the one he was asked to, and they were friends
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 1:48 pmLincoln—
Yeah I didn’t realize at first that some of these were blurbs.
reply
There’s a Trick With a Knife I’m Learning to Do is fucking out of print. Dammit! I need to read that.
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 2:23 pmanthony l—
Yeah. That sounds good. Love Ondaatje.
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 2:26 pmBlake Butler—
yeah, i’ve been trying to find a cheap one for a long time. they vary pretty widely in price
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 2:41 pmsasha—
guys the best parts of that book are reprinted in ‘the cinnamon peeler’ which also has elimination dance, which is amazing. the cinnamon peeler is not going out of print anytime soon.
April 30th, 2009 / 2:44 pmBlake Butler—
oh nice. thanks sasha
Thanks for posting this BB
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 2:25 pmBlake Butler—
fo sho mane
reply
Susanna Moore
William T. Vollmann
At first I read that and scratched my head because I’d never heard of a William T. Vollmann book called Susanna Moore. Then I went to Google and straightened it all out. I’m consistently Internet stupid. Other kinds of stupid too.
I’ve been a big fan of Vollmann for a long time. Long time. I wish I had a copy of the unabridged Rising Up and Rising Down.
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 2:59 pmBlake Butler—
RU RD unabridged is indeed a mindfuck. i’ve never even considered selling mine on ebay, despite the huge prices they bring. the case studies that form the last two volumes of the set are some of the greatest things i’ve ever read. what a freak.
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 3:17 pmdavidpeak—
dammit. you have one of those? will you take pictures of its innards and post them? i’m dying to see it.
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 3:19 pmBlake Butler—
yeah, i think i preordered it the first day it was available.
sure, i’ll post some pics. remind me if i don’t please?
April 30th, 2009 / 3:36 pmBrad Green—
Oh, that would be fantastic!
April 30th, 2009 / 4:02 pmMatthew Simmons—
Re: the book exchange thing above
WANT
Complete hardcover Rising Up and Rising Down
HAVE TO TRADE
ummm….mass market copy of Vonnegut’s Sirens of Titan? Whaddaya say, Blake!
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 4:10 pmBlake Butler—
its in the mail. it cost me $89 to ship via media. i also have a limp now
April 30th, 2009 / 4:15 pmMatthew Simmons—
Cool. No give backs.
Great post, BB.
reply
April 30th, 2009 / 4:10 pmBlake Butler—
glad you dug brandon
reply
Wallace’s Vollmann blurb (I don’t have the text in front of me) appears on the back of the original hc edition of _The Rainbow Stories_, along with blurbs from Jonathan Franzen and Peter Straub.
reply
Hey, just curious, where did you find the reading list from a class Wallace taught on postmodern fiction? And at what university was this? Illinois, Pomona, or what?
reply
DFW:
OK. Historically the stuff that’s sort of rung my cherries: Socrates’ funeral oration, the poetry of John Donne, the poetry of Richard Crashaw, every once in a while Shakespeare, although not all that often, Keats’ shorter stuff, Schopenhauer, Descartes’ [David Foster Wallace's Bookbag] “Meditations on First Philosophy” and “Discourse on Method,” Kant’s “Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic,” although the translations are all terrible, William James’ “Varieties of Religious Experience,” Wittgenstein’s “Tractatus,” Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” Hemingway — particularly the ital stuff in “In Our Time,” where you just go oomph!, Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, A.S. Byatt, Cynthia Ozick — the stories, especially one called “Levitations,” about 25 percent of the time Pynchon. Donald Barthelme, especially a story called “The Balloon,” which is the first story I ever read that made me want to be a writer, Tobias Wolff, Raymond Carver’s best stuff — the really famous stuff. Steinbeck when he’s not beating his drum, 35 percent of Stephen Crane, “Moby-Dick,” “The Great Gatsby.”
And, my God, there’s poetry. Probably Phillip Larkin more than anyone else, Louise Glück, Auden.
What about colleagues?
There’s the whole “great white male” deal. I think there are about five of us under 40 who are white and over 6 feet and wear glasses. There’s Richard Powers who lives only about 45 minutes away from me and who I’ve met all of once. William Vollman, Jonathan Franzen, Donald Antrim, Jeffrey Eugenides, Rick Moody. The person I’m highest on right now is George Saunders, whose book “Civilwarland in Bad Decline” just came out, and is well worth a great deal of attention. A.M. Homes: her longer stuff I don’t think is perfect, but every few pages there’s something that just doubles you over. Kathryn Harrison, Mary Karr, who’s best known for “The Liar’s Club” but is also a poet and I think the best female poet under 50. A woman named Cris Mazza. Rikki Ducornet, Carole Maso. Carole Maso’s “Ava” is just — a friend of mine read it and said it gave him an erection of the heart.
reply
you’re welcome
reply
[...] A compendium of David Foster Wallace’s influences over at HTML giant, where I’m spending more and more time. Blake recommends Renata Adler, “Speedboat”, Richard Brautigan, “In Watermelon Sugar”, and Joan Didion, “Play It As It Is” as starting points. [...]
re: Blood Meridian, “Don’t even ask.”
yes!
reply
May 4th, 2009 / 11:25 pmJonny Ross—
wait, i mean, exactly
reply
He’s namedropped Pauline Kael as one of his favorite writers on more than one occasion, can’t remember the where/when. If I remember correctly, the gist of his praise was that she was really underappreciated not as a critic but as an amazing writer.
reply
He also blurbed for “The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World” by Lewis Hyde.
DFW’s quote: “No one who is invested in any kind of art can read ‘The Gift’ and remain unchanged.”
reply
[...] Michael Ondaatje. Men mer om sistemann siden, nå runder vi heller av med en link til listen (og giganten) og spør litt sånn ut i det blå om det er sant at vi blir det vi leser, blir vi [...]
You left out the books from this syllabus:
http://comp.uark.edu/~ccarera/DFW_Syllabus.pdf
The books are:
J.M. Coetzee (apparently pronounced something like COAT-see-UH) Waiting for the Barbarians
Thomas Harris, Silence of the Lambs
Matthea Harvey, Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of Human Form
Tony Hoagland, What Narcissism Means to Me
reply
[...] always been knitted to knowing endings as I only read it because I have been working my way through this list instead of the doing the other summer tribute, and In Watermelon Sugar came in the same book as [...]
Also worth nothing, on “The Best of PG Wodehouse” from the Modern Library:
“Pricelessly funny and mean.”
reply