Further Proof of the Evil Nature of D.F.W.

[Derek C. Maus]

On Mon, 14 Dec 1998 MalignD at aol.com wrote:

> Yes, well, that's the point, isn't it, judging a book's "worth" without
> reading it and then blowing off about it because you didn't like the
> author's attitude when you heard him speak.  Guy's a real dipshit.  His
> book must suck. 

For those Malingerers who apparently haven't been paying attention, let me
recap my points about Wallace: 

1) I have read all of one of his books and the opening tenth of INFINITE
JEST, which I found to be so uninteresting that I decided against
finishing the book.

2) Based on these, and my personal experience of hearing him speak and
reading individual essays he has published elsewhere, I find him to be a
derivative author in need of some serious editorial oversight.

3) My comments, from the start, have not been about _INFINITE JEST_ alone,
but about Wallace as a writer in general. My comments about its perceived
literary worth to me are based on what I saw in the first tenth and are
extrapolations from that.  However, I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT _IJ_ ALONE,
CAPICE? 

4) I have pointed out that I don't find anything inherently wrong with
Wallace's writing (I don't happen to like it all that much, that doesn't
make it wrong...), but that I do find his incessant self-adulation and the
critical evaluation of his as a particularly original writer to be rather
flawed.

> You apparently think that's criticism.  And interesting.

No, I think that's my opinion. Unlike you, I have no illusions that my
opinions are universally shared (cf. the quote below from your recent
diatribe against "trivial and banal")

On Thu. Dec, 3, 1998 MalignD at aol.com wrote

> others posting here seem to be pleased to find the list serving the
> purpose of electronic clearinghouse for banal and trivial information
> (for the hypothetical and ostensible benefit of a reader in Godthaab
> (town, southwest coast of Greenland ("green"-"land," i.e., land which is
> green (perhaps ironic?)))) and the yet-unborn, but I guess I find it
> unnecessary, tedious, and depressing.

I'm really sorry you find the list so unecessary, tedious and depressing.
I guess now you know how I feel about what I have read of Wallace.  

> And I hadn't thought of myself as one of those "guys on AOL."  Do you
> suppose we all know one another? 

Frankly, I don't know who you are, and I'm beginning to really not care.
Enjoy your superiority, you've really made me change my mind with your
savvy rhetoric and careful attention to detail.

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Derek C. Maus               |   "Don't go around saying the world
dmaus at email.unc.edu         |      the world owes you a living.
UNC-CH, Dept. of English    |       The world owes you nothing.
http://www.unc.edu/~dmaus/  |          It was here first."
                            |                  --Mark Twain
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