DFW Short Fiction

Which is your favourite and why Veeky Forums?

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Brief Interviews is great, especially the dad hating his own retard child

How is it compared with some of his other stuff like IJ and his essays?

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Not that guy but in my opinion the stories are more concrete and traditional than Infinate Jest.

My favorite is David Lobster Walmart is overrated as fuck

GwCH: uneven--pretty good at best; from Wallace's showoff phase
Oblivion: very good; challenging but worth it imo
for reference, I really liked IJU and Pale King, as well as ASFTINDA, I thought Consider the Lobster was also very good, and Both Flesh and Not a sometimes decent but not solid cash-grab of an essay collection. Everything and More was basically okay in terms of having more Wallace words, but frustratingly uninsightful about its subject matter and the epitome of Wallace as enthusiastic but not an authority on something.

Haven't read Oblivion but I haven't been too stunned with GWCH or BIWHM.
>GWCH
Very show-offy. Has interesting humor in some parts (the recurring dream about Lettermen seeing himself as a frycook flipping human faces is the best sentence in the book). But a collection titled after a half-assed story mocking BEE, not a good look nor interesting (not the biggest BEE fan but that's just lame). The novella is pure assholery, uninteresting and really bad. Two stories of merit were both about TV game shows.

>BIWHM
Not blown away whatsoever, a lot of obvious imitation and for the most part not-well conceived character voicing (outside of the interviews).
>The Depressed Person
His best story I've read. Haven't read Good Ol Neon yet though.
>Octet
Had potential but ended up only as mildly interesting, his metafictional tirades about metafiction should've ended in the novella in GWCH.
>Adult World
pretty good, a little gimmicky with its style of no vowels in nouns in the second part.
>Tri-Stan....
Unimpressive imitation of The Naked Lunch talking about TV.
>On His Deathbed...
Obvious reaction piece to Kafka's "The Judgement", it too had potential to be a great story if he didn't force the character to name drop so many writers that was a little uncharacteristic of his role and voice.

In short, they're alright. Haven't read Oblivion but I've heard its some of his best work. I'll continue to only really be a fan of IJ, but I'm reading TPK this week, which I've read a little bit of and think I'll enjoy it more. His essays are also pretty good but honestly nothing that I wouldn't just give to my mom to have her enjoy.

Cheers for the replies, think I'll go with oblivion

Girl With Curious Hair is fucking classic.

Good Old Neon is transcendentally brilliant.

dallas fort worth short fiction?

The Devil Is A Busy Man is one of my favourite shorts to read to people
"That's great, but I don't really understand it.."

Yeah I think negatively parodying another author is a pretty shitty thing to do

There are some stories in Brief Interviews that are absolutely horrible. "Signifying Nothing" and "Death is Not the End." What the fuck, David.

only the one about the jerkoff fantasy is good

Horrible how?

That's because IJ is a really shattered narrative, short stories don't have enough room to be fractured like that.

Brief Interviews has The Depressed Person, but Oblivion has Good Ol' Neon AND The Soul is Not a Smithy, so Oblivion wins out. Girl With Curious Hair is juvenilia and not good

Can you read the depressed person online somewhere? Probably going to get oblivion later today

Doesn't Brief Interviews have something of a story arc?

harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-01-0059425.pdf

No. The film adaptation makes you think that it does but it doesn't.

Agreed.

Thanks user

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