WARNING: DFW note

[Chris Sweet]

Teen Age Riot wrote:
> 
> Sorry, but I'm a bit over-conscious about throwing purely DFW stuff around
> now... :)
> 
> Anyhoo, just wanted to mention that Salon, a webzine, has an interview with
> Wallace in the current issue.  He makes brief mention of Pynchon, and also a
> little bit about the AA.  The URL is
> http://www.salon1999.com/09/features/wallace1.html
> 
> Just to keep this post pseudo-relevant.  I haven't taken a look at IJ yet,
> but for me, the biggest difference between Broom of the System and Pynchon's
> longer novels is a bit trivial: Wallace is simply a lot easier to read than
> Pynchon.  I breezed through 400+ pages of Broom, but V, which is where I
> started with Pynchon, was a chore the first time through, just because of
> TRP's rambling, run-on style, which I love, but doesn't make for rapid and
> complete absorption.  Wallace mentions that he doesn't want IJ to be
> considered "avant garde", read only by the literary crowd.  I dunno if TRP
> has ever defined his audience...
> 
> Al
> 
> __________________________________________
> al wang
> http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~alwang/home.htm
> talk request: alwang at random.resnet.upenn.edu
> 
> "What's My Solution?"
> "Noise Pollution!"

On a similar note, I just got my back issue of Contemporary Review
of Fiction from summer 1993 which has quite a large section on
DFW (over 100 pages). He mentions Pynchon frequently in an interview.
The best part, IMO, is a reminisence by Mark Costello who wrote
"Signifying Rappers" with DFW. Here's a sample:

"For relief, dig Kool Moe Dee while taking the morning's second shower.
Ask: is knowledge power, as KMD exults? Or does the rapper really mean
power is knowledge? Goddamn, Wallace realizes, toweling down, that's
Friedrich frickin' Nietzsche. Listen again to Kool Moe Dee with German
Aesthetic fascism in mind; picture Nietzsche in raparound (sic) shades,
the blood-and-iron gangsta of hip-hop, yelling I'M HUGE into a mike,
now out in the alley kicking the shit out of a hapless Walt Whitman. I'm 
bigger than you, Koll Moe Nietzsche jabbers at Whitman, Yeah I'm in the
muthafuckin house!"

chris





-- 
Christopher Sweet                    Csweet at gte.net
http://FTPhome1.gte.net/csweet/index.htm                            
Vollmann Homepage: http://FTPhome1.gte.net/csweet/vollmann.htm