RECLAIMING DAVID FOSTER WALLACE FROM THE LIT-BROS

[ish mailian]

VW speculated that had Shakespeare a sister, and were female authors
allowed a room of their own, women writers might produce not Hamlets or
Moby-Dicks, or Wastelands, or infinite Jests, but works that would not be
dismissed as drawing room gossip and the mad women's scribbling from an
attic, but Shakespeare had no sister who wrote plays, and a room of one's
own, an ivory tower room even, is no substitute for a penis, not to mention
balls.

In Harper Lee's latest, Scout gets knocked about by her uncle Jack,
intellectually and physically. Lee tries to convince us that Scout needed a
good beating to get her father off her mount Olympus, and though she fails
at this, she reminds us that reading the NY Times  and wearing pants does
not free even an independent young feminist from Faulkner's incestuous
South anymore than DFW's swipes at Roth and Updike free him from the tennis
racket he sat on or the academic arrogance he wrapped round his skull of
insecurity. We've com a long way baby, but we still babies.

On Thursday, August 20, 2015, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
wrote:

> HAS ANYONE ACTUALLY READ INFINITE JEST?
>
> http://lithub.com/reclaiming-david-foster-wallace-from-the-lit-bros/
>
> Why Literary Chauvinists Love David Foster Wallace
>
>
> http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/08/david-foster-wallace-beloved-author-of-bros.html
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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