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Comment by nartsbtaa | Hacker News Reader

DFW's writing comes up from time to time, and I always react by venting the frustration I feel with his work, which I promptly destroy because it seems wrong to criticize a (relatively recently) dead man.

But I'll say it: his writing style is incredibly self-indulgent and dreadfully dull. I guess it's a matter of taste, but it takes a unique talent to attend a pornography award show and afterparty, and churn out something as soulless, humorless, and completely devoid of a point-of-view as "Big Red Son."

I'll probably delete this soon -- I feel like an awful person for writing it, although I'm not entirely sure why.

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I thought "Big Red Son" was hilarious. Humor comes from the clash of high culture with low culture. I'm not sure what the point of view was but I'd guess it's "we're all human here" which is a common POV of Wallace's work.

The humor is so dry it makes the pages all dusty. I liked Big Red Son very much, too.

The only book of his that I can recall reading was 'Infinite Jest'. My opinion lines up with your's, based on that book.

However, his commencement speech 'This is water' is amazing, and I highly recommend it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI

It's quite acceptable to criticize a dead person's writing. In fact, almost all literary criticism does it. So, definitely don't feel bad.

But, I disagree with the opinion of the work. It's hard to take Wallace's style and content without considering the 90s and its historical and social context. A lot of what you don't like about his writing is actually his point.

I've considered that "Big Red Son," to use that example again, is intentionally tedious and humorless. Readers expect something titillating, or at least mildly interesting, and instead DFW reflects the mundaneness of the awards show through brutally dull prose. Perhaps, and the original title, "Neither Adult Nor Entertainment," would support this. But at the end of the day, you're just left with an exceptionally boring essay.

I don't think you should feel guilty about writing that criticism. I feel almost completely the opposite as you do about DFW's writing style, but I recognize it's very much a subjective matter of taste. He gets a lot of hype, so that he has a lot of detractors only seems fair and balanced.

as others say, totally legit to criticize the writing of a dead or living writer, they take on that risk when they decide to publish.

mostly here to say: all of DFW's writing is basically a pain in the ass to read, and many folks (including myself) consider that to be very much on purpose - he wrote (posthumously so maybe wrote is the wrong thing to say..) a 550 page book (the Pale King) about the IRS, tax code and boredom (yes, that explicit ha) and honestly, it’s one of my favorite books of all time, though sometimes really boring ha (a choice quote, from an accounting professor to class: “To be, in a word, unborable.... It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish”).

the fact that you were able to make it through Big Red Son at all (even though you didn’t specifically enjoy it) makes me want to recommend more DFW to you, because not everyone has the will/patience to get through a piece like that in the first place. To that end, I think for a HN audience there are definitely more interesting pieces like:

“Tense Present” http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-0... (an exhaustive and IMO awesome essay on the “seamy underbelly of U.S. lexicography” specifically with regard to the actual usage vs. institutional tradition in language)

“Television and US Fiction” https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf (interesting take on TV, advertising and its effect on society, consciousness and fiction - it was written pre social media and even pre ubiquitous internet, so can feel dated but towards the end feels prescient, esp. as it focuses a lot on one of DFW’s favorite themes: “what we pay attention to and why and how that affects our consciousness”, etc.)

plenty more, but i think those are both good places to start.

(PS: if you like David Lynch or Dostoevsky, DFW has AMAZING essays on each of them too, highly recommend)

Thanks, I'll probably try again with your recommendations. I may have just approached his writing with the wrong expectations.

You're totally right. I can't stand his work. Just even trying to read it feels pretentious.

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