Like most of King’s “monster-plot� novels, I found it engrossing for the first two hundred pages, then it fell very flat. A big, flawed work. King’s pLike most of King’s “monster-plot� novels, I found it engrossing for the first two hundred pages, then it fell very flat. A big, flawed work. King’s plots are reused and reused � other than specific characters, is there any difference between Desperation and IT? And is there now any difference between Desperation and The Outsider? Forgive me for finding these not only repetitive but monotonous....more
SO GOOD. Listen to the audiobook, which is partly read by David Foster Wallace and another narrator. The “other narrator� truly understands the text �SO GOOD. Listen to the audiobook, which is partly read by David Foster Wallace and another narrator. The “other narrator� truly understands the text � the humor, the prosody, the conversational writing. Much of the content of these essays could have been written recently (I was surprised the book is ~20 years old now), particularly the chapter about conservative media/radio. It was that essay, in fact, that made me want to buy the physical copy of the book and highlight everything.
Other standouts: the title essay, which is one of the best condemnations of the barbaric practice of not only eating meat, but cooking an animal alive (such as what is done at the Maine Lobsterfest). I also really enjoyed the essay about the dictionary writer: it was the most tedious essay, but also the most impassioned, nerdy, sprawling, and fugue-like.
DFW was a brilliant mind, and one that I wish we had around today to help make sense of our chaotic, proto-fascist-hyper-capitalist times. His nonfiction is much stronger than his fiction, in my opinion, and must be fully appreciated via the spoken word. Thus, choose this as your next audiobook. Go in with patience: the 3-4 bulkiest essays can run up to 3 hours long. Overall, I found this to be an even stronger set than A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and was sad when it ended....more
A man finds disturbing videotapes in his new home. He becomes obsessed with learning more about the director, only to have This whole book is a mood.
A man finds disturbing videotapes in his new home. He becomes obsessed with learning more about the director, only to have the memory of the film (and the film itself) disappear. Some cool interpretive questions could arise: what was the film? Was it all imagined? What could it symbolize? My sense was that the protagonist was a film school reject whose influences made their way into his own work � yet, he can’t quite recall those influences� origin. The videotapes he finds, thus, are a metaphor for (perhaps) what Harold Bloom would call the Anxiety of Influence.
An interesting horror/story-of-obsession plot mixed with a quest narrative....more
Could be a YA novel. Lots of heart and little intellect. A recycled, unoriginal plot/setting (dystopia, post-apocalyptic). Somewhat elementary writingCould be a YA novel. Lots of heart and little intellect. A recycled, unoriginal plot/setting (dystopia, post-apocalyptic). Somewhat elementary writing style.
I expected more from a Kentucky writer that in many ways is following in the footsteps of Wendell Berry. I’m not sure if Silas House was just really inspired by McCarthy’s The Road but this seemed like a dollar-store knockoff....more
Loading...
