Power Quote
Power Quote: DFW
Felt better putting this up a couple of days after the anniversary:
This is the great nightmare when you are doing something long and hard—you’re terrified that it will be perceived as gratuitously long and hard, as some “avant garde for its own sake” exercise. And having done some of that stuff, I think, early in my career, I was really scared about it. The trick of this—I’ve got this whole rant about it—I think a lot of avant garde fiction and serious literary fiction that bitches and moans about readers defection, in blaming it all on TV, a lot of the avant garde has forgotten that part of its job is to seduce the reader into being willing to do the hard work.
—David Foster Wallace talking about Infinite Jest on Bookworm.
Congratulations to anyone who enjoyed an Infinite Summer.
(Can I express my quiet dismay over the idea that a fine tribute to a great writer is moving on and, sans name and domain change, becoming a book club? I have nothing against book clubs. I have nothing against Dracula. I guess I don’t really understand, though, why a thing can’t have a single focus, carry out a task until completion, and then just end.)
‘Can I express my quiet dismay over the idea that a fine tribute to a great writer is moving on and, sans name and domain change, becoming a book club?’
Rhetorical, I know, but: Yes. I’m very bummed to see the group move to other books. Let a good thing be good, and be a thing.
‘Can I express my quiet dismay over the idea that a fine tribute to a great writer is moving on and, sans name and domain change, becoming a book club?’
Rhetorical, I know, but: Yes. I’m very bummed to see the group move to other books. Let a good thing be good, and be a thing.
i second the parenthetical sentiment. too often things are dragged out and morph into bizarro versions of themselves, carrying on a name for the sake of carrying on a name, without regard for the distinction that made the original so good in the first place.
i second the parenthetical sentiment. too often things are dragged out and morph into bizarro versions of themselves, carrying on a name for the sake of carrying on a name, without regard for the distinction that made the original so good in the first place.
In dialogue with the DFW quote, from William Deresiewicz’s workup of the new Garcia-Marquez biography:
“In any case, comparisons with Joyce and Woolf and Faulkner miss the most important thing about his achievement: that in rivaling Modernism, he ended by annulling its aesthetic standards. García Márquez showed us that delight is just as valid a measure of literary value as difficulty, that psychology can be revealed as effectively through action as introspection, that transparent structures can be as sophisticated as ones that flaunt their complications. For half a century, Ulysses was the mountain that all writers worked in the shadow of. Instead of going to the mountain, García Márquez brought the mountain to himself. Now he’s the one casting the shadow (as the career of Roberto Bolaño, artist of exhaustion, Beckett to his Joyce, has demonstrated). The greatest works convert us to their aesthetic faith. When I read Joyce, I think that nothing could be better and that this is the only way that fiction should be written. And when I read García Márquez, I think the same thing.”
In dialogue with the DFW quote, from William Deresiewicz’s workup of the new Garcia-Marquez biography:
“In any case, comparisons with Joyce and Woolf and Faulkner miss the most important thing about his achievement: that in rivaling Modernism, he ended by annulling its aesthetic standards. García Márquez showed us that delight is just as valid a measure of literary value as difficulty, that psychology can be revealed as effectively through action as introspection, that transparent structures can be as sophisticated as ones that flaunt their complications. For half a century, Ulysses was the mountain that all writers worked in the shadow of. Instead of going to the mountain, García Márquez brought the mountain to himself. Now he’s the one casting the shadow (as the career of Roberto Bolaño, artist of exhaustion, Beckett to his Joyce, has demonstrated). The greatest works convert us to their aesthetic faith. When I read Joyce, I think that nothing could be better and that this is the only way that fiction should be written. And when I read García Márquez, I think the same thing.”
‘The greatest works convert us to their aesthetic faith.’
Yes. And that is simultaneously beautiful and frustrating; knowing the unknowable.
‘The greatest works convert us to their aesthetic faith.’
Yes. And that is simultaneously beautiful and frustrating; knowing the unknowable.
In creation, I mean.
In creation, I mean.
Love that quote, Kyle. Thanks for sharing it.
Love that quote, Kyle. Thanks for sharing it.
I know this is a few days late, but hopefully someone will see this.
I feel that the reason Infinite Summer is becoming a real book club is because Mathew Baldwin accidentally created this wonderful community full of smart, talented, intelligent people, and I don’t think he wants to disband that community – and I’m sort of inclined to agree. I was hesitant about Infinite Dracula at first, but I think it’s going to be a good thing, and I’m glad it’s happening.
I know this is a few days late, but hopefully someone will see this.
I feel that the reason Infinite Summer is becoming a real book club is because Mathew Baldwin accidentally created this wonderful community full of smart, talented, intelligent people, and I don’t think he wants to disband that community – and I’m sort of inclined to agree. I was hesitant about Infinite Dracula at first, but I think it’s going to be a good thing, and I’m glad it’s happening.
[…] an interview with Bookworm, David Foster Wallace said that “a lot of the avant-garde has forgotten that part […]