Comments on: I Pushed My Soul in a Deep Dark Hole and I Followed It In

By: Trent Hamm

Trent Hamm — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:17:01 +0000

I think it was recognition of what “Reservoir Dogs” actually is. Wallace points to him as a “goremeister” and, well, that pretty aptly describes Tarantino’s work. Goremeister with an arty aesthetic.

By: Brock Vond

Brock Vond — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:27:37 +0000

A 140-character limit requires discipline. If u want 2 say more than “OMFG Hal just colapsed lol” you have to read and refine until it fits.

By: Ozma

Ozma — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 05:32:41 +0000

Oh God, I also forgot to say, Matt Evans, that I loved your comment and really thank you for reminding me of the ‘wearing evil’ thing. I read that article while I was waiting for IJ to arrive in the mail. And I never saw that.

It’s so brilliant and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time. So thanks.

By: Ozma

Ozma — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 05:30:38 +0000

Twitter is just like blogging. It is thinking for public consumption.

But then is this really different from writing novels. I think what the internet does it create an insane immediacy. I don’t think the worst thing about it is that you want someone to read what you wrote.

The 140 characters is also like blogging in the sense that some people have a genuine talent for this form.

That said, Twitter is evil.

By: Ozma

Ozma — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 05:28:16 +0000

Is every kind of unfreedom fascist? There are so many ways we can lose our freedom. It stretches the meaning of the word ‘fascist’ to me to think that any kind of voluntary or involuntary embrace of something all-consuming (like Substances) or highly structured (AA) is fascism.

Then: Buddhism is fascism, gambling addiction is fascism, etc.

But I guess the word fascism is used so much maybe we’ll just have to come up with a new word.

DO NOT FOR ANY REASON GO ON TWITTER. You are 100% right about the internet and facebook and Twitter. Stay away from Twitter! If it is not too late, stay away!

It’s not just that it is socially isolating in the usual terrible internet way. It’s that it also the ultimate in short attention span thinking. And hugely addictive.

By: kevin

kevin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:10:46 +0000

I agree. I think it is easy to be nostalgic for a time that never existed. But I’m not sure Wallace is saying that this condition is peculiar to our time. Indeed I think he would say its hard-wired.

I think it’s possible we’re making Twitter into something of a straw man here. I’m the one who brought it up, but my point wasn’t to blame Twitter (which I’m actually a fan of) for anything. I just think examining our relationship with it is one more diagnostic tool to identify the human ailment Wallace describes.

By: Rosser Clark

Rosser Clark — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:47:12 +0000

I read IJ for the first time last winter and into the spring, after learning of DFW’s death. So I’m not reading along per se, but am following IS as a recent reader. That being said–IJ made a big impression on me, but I’m not sure I loved it. I think any book that is so full of what may be termed “social commentary” is going to be an ambivalent experience for me. I’m not sure that’s what I want out of my fiction. But anyway.

One of the reasons for my ambivalence is that I feel the social commentary is oftentimes based on a fallacy: that our time is uniquely damaged in ways that other times were not. This has also been referred to as the “golden age” fallacy — that there was a previous time when everything was better. I just am not sure I agree with this. Example: people decrying the downfall of civilization because of something like Twitter. Yes, it’s trivial and narcissistic. But was there a time in the past when people connected in a much more vital, profound way? I don’t think so. Okay, maybe they talked face to face instead of screen to screen, but I would wager that the conversation in the fields or the scullery was not any more profound. And maybe less so. In the past, people were often forced to relate to everything in terms of the dominant religion. It isn’t that hard to imagine how much more oppressive that would be.

I guess what I’m saying is that much of IJ’s social criticism is filtered through the eyes of a depressed person. A more optimistic view could focus on our freedoms, our diversity, our relative prosperity, our relative lack of illness compared to 500 years ago when the average lifespan was probably 30.

Like I say, IJ made a big impression on me. But I’m not sure I loved it. It is very revealing what DFW said about the purpose of fiction being to show of the author’s smarts. He implied that he had moved beyond that. But a lot of times when I read him, I feel like when I’m sitting in a meeting, and one of the underling clients says, “Can I be the first to say what I don’t like about this idea?”

Just some thoughts…

By: Cole Tucker

Cole Tucker — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:39:12 +0000

Don’t have footnotes with me, so paraphrase… What are the chances that you’re the one in a million who didn’t need to be here?

By: Brock Vond

Brock Vond — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:38:37 +0000

Twitter’s great. Just use it as you feel comfortable. Don’t sign up to follow Demi or Ashton or Kanye or whoever (no-one’s forcing you to, which is a point a lot of critics miss), and just find some interesting people. Participate a lot or a little. Right now it’s at an interesting point: it has a critical mass, enough that it’s starting to sometimes affect things in the Real World (such as in Iran) but it’s still not totally ubiquitous, boring (1) and industrialized. To me, there’s a kind of “what next?” feeling about it. How this all relates to DFW or IJ I dunno.

(1) Some may disagree (a).
(a) and some already do: bit.ly/YZFye

By: Matt Evans

Matt Evans — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:26:37 +0000

Schtitt makes a lot more sense, Dutchguy. Thank you!