On Nabokov's Talking

[Tim Ware]

Jaysus, fuckin' Christ, Steely!

Can't you let people have a different opinion than yours without pissing
all over them?  

If you don't like DFW, fine. But please cut out the ad hominems "DFW's
*their" kind of writer" indeed.   

People are gonna start thinking you're a prick.

Respectfully, 

TW

On Mon, 17 Jun 1996, Steelhead wrote:

> 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
> 
> 
>