Wednesday, May 21, 2014

David Foster Wallace, Both Flesh and Not *** 1/2

This posthumous collection of essays is, like The Pale King, best for DFW fans only. None of the essays is embarrassing (with the possible exception of the oldest one), but neither do they measure up to his non-fiction work in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again or Consider the Lobster. Go read those books now.

For DFW fans, Both Flesh and Not is notable for the way you can see his inimitable prose style developing. Except for the title essay, the pieces are in chronological order. The oldest one, "Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young," is conspicuously sophomoric; the writing gets stronger as the book goes on. As it happens, the best pieces are the two about tennis, especially "Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open" which effectively captures the full experience of attending the tournament.

Even second-tier DFW non-fiction serves up nuggets of inspiration that make me feel smarter and want to be smarter. I also liked the vocabulary words between essays.

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