IJ

[Michael Bailey]

On 3/25/06, jbor at bigpond.com <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> This article gives a pretty decent overview of the post-Pynchon and
> DeLillo crop of American postmoderns and what they're on about, and
> rates Wallace and his achievement with IJ (and the rest of his work)
> fairly and sensibly.
>

> http://afr.com/articles/2003/10/16/1065917545463.html
>

wanted to share a chuckle I got from an ambiguous antecedent in the article:

"Amanda Davis's "Faith" delivers a disturbing portrait of a raped girl
with an eating disorder that is as elegant and poised as anything in
contemporary short fiction."

(nothing funny about the rape, of course)

(waiting for the chuckle, now spoiling it by trying to come up with a capper)
-- so that is the state of contemporary short fiction?  an eating
disorder can be as elegant as the best current short stories?  even
the ones in the New Yorker?

---
The article also mentions IJ ringing changes on Shakespearean themes
(obviously Hamlet, but I keep wanting to do something with the name
"Hal") and Yorick is the clergyman in Tristram Shandy, and I've
detected more than one respectful nod to Pynchon (but unfortunately
didn't make a puissant enough mental note to specify)
---

...and I'm reminded of seminal treatment of AA in "Secret Integration"
- alcoholism as great leveler, no respecter of persons, or social
lines

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--
"Acceptance, forgiveness, love - now that's a philosophy of life!"
-Woody Allen, as Broadway Danny Rose