(debby)
More DFW links

In the interests of transparency, I should point out that I have developed a post-humous and hence rather sad crush on David Foster Wallace. This has directly led to me not doing work at a time when I have rather more than the usual panic-inducing mound of urgent work, and to sitting in the office and reading obituaries and old short stories and essays, getting teary-eyed, and then pretending to my supervisor that this is because of the global food crisis. And that, in turn, is sending me to a very special ring of Hell.

I can also attribute to this my extensive foot-noting of one of my GRE essays (the boring, “Argument” one). Time (roughly three weeks) will tell whether my appointed GRE essay scorer will appreciate, or at least tolerate, this.

Also, I failed to mention before that he was from the Midwest, and that this makes his work even more very very special, as most modern American literature seems to be written by people who are not aware that the Midwest section of the United States of America exists.

a brilliant article about going on a 7 day cruise

a lecture about Kafka being funny

a very short story from Girl With Curious Hair

and more from the Harper's Archives

(Debby)
I read some Julian Barnes before I got sick and then while I was sick, and then I wrote this while I was recovering

Arthur & George – This is a good book. If I was going to read a historical fiction novel, this is the book I would read. But, that said, I am not going to read historical fiction, so I just skimmed this one and sort of skipped the middle chunk.

Those poor characters trapped in the Historical Novel. They are doomed to a certain fate, forced to make decisions not just by the authors’ pen but by the confines of the Understood and Accepted narrow path of History. They and their entire backdrop are doomed to travel a known path and eventually arrive, grudgingly, at the Present, where we stand, smug and bemused, waiting for their inevitable arrival.

This is probably part of why I am so enamored of books by Dorothy L Sayers and Wilkie Collins and Dashiell Hammett – mystery authors who set their stories in the present tense, and were the more honest for it. They and their characters face an Unknown Future, rather than the Certain Fate of their Historical Novel counterparts. They stand, with us, at a series of unending crossroads, and sometimes they can have some control over which way history will go, but often they can only look on as a spectator, speculate which way the engine will go, and hope for the best.

A Short History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters – Now THIS is a book that I actually like. A lot. 10 ½ wide ranging and ridiculously fun chapters. Highly recommended.

(Debby)
Good-bye, David Foster Wallace

The week before last I found a really discounted copy of The Broom of the System, David Foster Wallace's first novel, at a Nairobi bookstore. It is hilarious and wonderful and awesome.

This week he killed himself.

On the whole, I dislike reading short stories. I don’t know why. I guess I’m more of a fan of character development and plot structure and generally short stories have a hook or a gimmick and that’s it. I don’t like how they make me feel.

But I love Girl with Curious Hair, a collection of his short stories and one wildly bizarre novella.

No one should write any more short stories unless they are like Girl with Curious Hair, and no one can write like that but David Foster Wallace, and David Foster Wallace is dead. oh man.

I got the following links from Amanda:
- Infinitely Sad, a Slate obituary, including a clip of DFW on Charlie Rose.
- another Slate piece, with people who knew him talking about him.
- The best food writing on the Maine Lobster Festival. Ever.

(Debby)
Well, the 1800s Boy Adventure! run of success had to end sometime, and it has resoundingly ground to a halt at 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I really thought it was going to be another Kidnapped! – sized success. I mean, Jules Verne! And vague memories of the Disney movie with Kirk Douglas and a harpoon! This was sure to be success.

But, I am deeply saddened to report, success there was none. Just long, long passages on the different kinds of fish the Professor sees, and how those fish taste compare to things that aren’t fish. This. gets. old.

There is some adventure, yes. But it is somewhat boring adventure. And we never find out what drove Captain Nemo to scorn land, or what nationality he is, or what fight against injustice he is waging with his battles and money, or how many crew are on the Nautilus or where those crew sleep or even who is cooking those blasted fish. No. Instead we get long explanations of how the Nautilus is run on “electricity”. Ooooh.

Two things of minor interest: 1) Ned (played by Kirk Douglas in the Disney movie) is from Quebec, which is how come he knows French and is so ‘hot-blooded’; 2) you can tell that Jules Verne really, really disliked giant squids.

(Debby)
brief thoughts on some TV shows that have one word as their title

Heroes

I saw the first season near the end of last year. At first I was really into it, but I finished it more from inertia than any excitement. The only thing I have to say about it is that, for some reason, when I saw the first episode I got seriously freaked out by the Indian dude’s accent. I mean, it didn’t sound like anything I’ve ever thought of as an Indian accent. It’s a big country, yeah, but his accent was just so different . I got really upset that there was a whole range of Indian accents that I had never heard. Then Julia pointed out that it was probably just a made-up accent for the benefit of the American public. And I felt much better.

Lost

is AWESOME. I just got saw the 4^th season. Holy moley, people. If you started to feel like the show was dragging a little bit, hang in there, because the 4^th season just blows everything out of the water in a very, very good way.

Firefly

is still more awesomer than Lost.

(Debby)
Fever + Moby Dick = Awesome

I feel like I’ve spent a significant chunk of my life avoiding reading Moby Dick. But then I got sick a few weeks ago. The first day I lay on my couch and watched television, and so of course my back went out. So the rest of the time I lay in bed, reading Moby Dick until I got too exhausted, and the rest of the time just lying there. (which led to some questionable results)

It was totally great! Most likely if I was whole and able to do something else, I would still want to read the philosophical rantings of a mentally-disturbed whaling captain, but I probably wouldn’t have been as patient with all those chapters on the intricacies of whaling, the differences between the heads of Right Whales and Sperm Whales, the critiques of many popular paintings and etchings of whaling expeditions and whales, let alone the whole argument about why whales will never be hunted to extinction.

But if you are patient, it’s a great pay off. It is a sprawling, insane and totally engrossing masterpiece.

Also, I really think that everyone involved in conservation work should read it. It doesn’t hurt to be reminded that ‘nature’ is not necessarily noble and serene and ‘good’. And whalers are not necessarily swarthy and greedy and ‘bad’. (No, I do not think that the international whaling ban should be lifted.) It’s also a great reminder that even before petroleum and electricity, the process of bringing light to our homes was still a brutal and bloody affair. You really get a feel for the whalers being driven by this insatiable demand for whale oil.