On Nabokov's Talking

[Steelhead]

Will Layman asserts, emphatically:
"Of course Nabokov talks better than DF Wallace writes.  That's because he
didn't give oral interviews.  He required that all interviewers submit
written
questions to him; he then wrote the replies."

This Vogue interview, as can be easily assessed from the article (which, by
the way, is included in the wonderful Norton Anthology of Interviews that
also squeezes in a hysterical conversation with Hitchcock and Horace
Greeley's bizarre encounter with Karl Marx, containing an elightening
discussion on the nature of "conspiracies") was not "submitted" in writing,
but was given in a series of chats over a weekend spent with Vlad and Vera
in Switzerland in 1966.

Then, defending that pulsating star, that quasar of the GenX crowd, David
F. Wallace,  Will claims: "That merely makes VN a better (and pithier)
writer than DF Wallace, which tells us nothing about Wallace (or should I
now call him "the much maligned Backlash Boy"?)

Yeah, "Backlash Boy." That's pretty good. He's like the Bill Clinton of
Contemporary American Fiction. But while Wallace's sticky and onanistic
prose-style dribbles out into the minds only of those who are induced to
buy his books (purchased largely, no doubt, from the Mafia-backed stacks at
Barnes and Nobles: DFW's their kind of writer), Clinton's brand of
political narcissism tramples Godzilla-like across the Republic regardless
of who any of us did or didn't vote for (Go, Nader!).

Will inquires:
" -- how many writers were (are) better than Nabokov?"

Well, I think Vlad was a peerless critic, and good novelist who wrote two
and a half great books (Bend Sinister and Lolita, for sure, and, perhaps,
Pale Fire.) So, of relatively recent vintage, how about: Pynchon, Gaddis,
Barth, Burroughs, Ballard, Ellroy (James, the ultimate in neo-noir), Carver
(Ray), O'Connor (Flan), O'Brien (Flan, Is there a funnier writer?),
Matthiessen, Rushdie, Exley (Fred--the Ex on sports makes DFW's tennis
piece sound like the ramblings of Brundt Moshburger, heh, heh), Hannah
(Barry), Delaney (Sam), O'Brien, LeCarre, Wodehouse (PG--Yes, there is a
funnier writer), Ashberry (John --in the interview VN thinks of himself as
a poet--), Amis (Martin), Gass (William, The Tunnel, YES!) DeLillo,
Salinger, Fuentes, Reed (Ishi), Simmons (Dan--don't believe me? Have you
read the Hyperion series? No? Well, shuddup) Morrison (Toni), Gordimer
(N.), Vollman, Kesey, Coover (Robt.--Spanking the Maid does for sexual
harrasment, what Lolita did for stat. rape), Robbe-Grillet (Alain), Mailer,
Stone (Robt.), McClanahan (Ed--check out the People I've Known for a
not-quite-sober view of the counterculture from the ground up), Thompson
(Hunter--brand new form, like it or not), Hoeg (Peter--the TRP of the
Lowlands), Silko (Leslie Marmon), Bellow (I know, I know...but still he's
the second best novelist living in the states), Shirley (John, bonus points
for imagination), Crumley (James), Welch (James)....They're all up there in
Vladie's class, and miles beyond David Foster (but you can call me Wally)
Wallace.

Steely

PS: But how many writers who insist on being known by three names are in DFW's
league:

1. James Lee Burke
2. Bobbie Ann Mason
3. Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Well, we know who that comparison insults)
4. Joyce Carol Oates
5. Rita Mae Brown