11.3.11

Two excellent essays on books to lead you into the weekend:

First, a defense of David Foster Wallace as a fiction-writer:

A lot of important-sounding people will tell you that Infinite Jest is a book about addiction, obsession, consumerism (and how it’s related to the two prenominate things), passivity, power, and the need to find order in one’s life. They are right, but if they stop there, they overlook the fact that the book is also about trying your best to be a good, kind human being in a hostile world; about telling the Truth; about admitting your vulnerabilities and sincerely seeking help from others. In certain cases, characters must trust their lives to the inbound goodness of other people, which is a scary thing to do in an incredibly self-centered age.

I think that's right, and is much of what makes him a compelling figure for those of us who find him compelling. That view is, however, compatible with the thesis that he was still in need of an editor to pare down his writing. I am currently stuck around page 600 of Infinite Jest, and though many of the characters--far more than most novels--are interesting and human in just this way, the attention of the narrative is too divided. But he was and is a modern Dostoesvky, and so worthy of attention all the same.

Second, in praise of marginalia.

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