David
Foster Wallace, the pioneering postmodern novelist and award-winning writer,
died in 2008. Wallace, though, was just as famed for his unique non-fiction,
with previous collections A Supposedly Fun
Thing I’ll Never Do Again and Consider
The Lobster released to critical acclaim. Needless to say, Wallace’s third - and, sadly, final - non-fiction
anthology has a lot of hopes riding on it.
The collection opens with the
titular Federer Both Flesh And Not; an
observational piece, focussing on Roger Federer’s 2006 Wimbledon final against
Rafael Nadal, that also seeks to illustrate the wider phenomenon of televised
sports. Chock full of amazing little descriptions (Federer’s forehand - “a
great liquid whip”) and blink-inducing observations (“TV tennis is to live
tennis pretty much as video porn is to the felt reality of human love”), it’s
easy to see why the essay is sometimes regarded as Wallace’s non-fiction
masterpiece. The end of the article comes as a shock; not because of some
macabre twist, but because it ends at all. As a rule, the longer a Wallace
essay is, the more engrossing and immersive it is. Federer Both Flesh And Not is no exception; his near-perfect blend
of encyclopaedic knowledge with a conversational, personal tone is back here in
full force.
The tennis theme resurfaces later on
with Democracy and Commerce at the U.S.
Open, a more informal piece detailing Wallace’s disillusioned experiences
at a corporate logo-laden sporting event. His unique yet relatable observations
take centre stage, as he points out Security (for whom “chewing gum seems to be
part of the issued equipment”) and the players themselves, who ignore the
cameras “in the way that only people who are very used to cameras can ignore
cameras”. This focus on the little details seems to be the essence of Wallace’s
ability to take any subject and make it captivating.
Wallace also brings back his famed
footnotes here, with annotations dotted throughout the text - serving to expand
on lateral points while avoiding any fragmentation of the main narrative.
There’s a sense that they may be indicative of the fractured and disjointed
state of 21st Century Man, but they’re also ludicrously funny; here
he allows himself to meditate on some of the more eccentric characters he bumps
into, complains about the “wildly aggressive” queues at concession stands, and
generally gives a more frantic – and human – depiction of his experiences. In one particularly sharp footnote, as
Wallace notices crowds pushing through turnstiles, he remarks that with “NYC
being one of the most turnstile-intensive cities in the world, New Yorkers push
through turnstiles with the same sort of elegantly casual élan that really top
players evince when warming up.” This is one of the shorter notes – some come
dangerously close to covering entire pages.
Some other pieces do feel a little
out of place– although by no means unreadable. The (As It Were) Seminal Importance of Terminator 2, originally
published in 1998, is one of these. While the article oozes with a redundant
sense of VCRs and Sony Walkmans (“Cameron’s new film, Titanic, which is
currently in production”), it does seem oddly prophetic. When Wallace
introduces us to his theory of The Inverse Cost & Quality Law, it’s easy to
find yourself nodding your head. “Cameron’s premise is financially canny and
artistically dismal,” he writes, explaining that a movie with a big budget must succeed and therefore must adhere by the same winning formulas
– i.e. throw innovation and originality out of the window. Looking at some of
the highest grossing films of all time – Avatar
(a sci-fi retelling of Pocahontas),
the 2010 rehash of Alice In Wonderland, as
well as the CGI-and-explosion-riddled Transformers:
Dark of the Moon – it’s worth considering that Wallace may have been ahead
of his time.
Even more outdated, though, is the
1988 essay Fictional Futures and the
Conspicuously Young, where Wallace explores the (then) rising phenomenon of
what he called ‘Conspicuously Young’ writers; one example being Bret Easton
Ellis, of American Psycho fame, who
published his first novel whilst still in college. The piece, while
fascinating, seems a little unstructured; Wallace quickly meanders onto such
tangential topics as advertising and the merits (or lack thereof) of Creative
Writing Programs, finally bringing the piece back to focus via a meditation on
television’s effect on the next generation of writers.
As with the Terminator article, there is a whiff of prophecy here. Whilst no doubt
an innovative piece at the time, though, the literary landscape has been
maturing for a quarter of a century since its publication, and many of
Wallace’s original points rely on the cultural references of a generation past.
This is perhaps more of an issue with Wallace’s editors, and their decision to
include such an old piece, but at the same time it’s interesting to delve a
little deeper into the literary past.
The literary theme is one of
Wallace’s favourites – second only, possibly, to tennis. We see him explore
writing and language further in three more essays and articles; The Nature of the Fun, The Best of the Prose
Poem, and Twenty-Four Word Notes.
The
Nature of the Fun delves into the world of fiction writing, citing Don
DeLillo’s metaphor of a book in-progress as “a kind of hideously damaged infant
that follows the writer around, forever crawling after the writer.” “The
damaged infant trope,” Wallace says, “is perfect because it captures the mix of
repulsion and love the fiction writer feels for something he’s working on.” He
builds on the idea of fiction writing being a paradoxical blend of torture and
ecstasy, providing an insight both invaluable to writers and fascinating to
readers.
The
Best of The Prose Poem is an odd little article; a book review that’s also
a wider analysis of an often-overlooked subgenre of literary fiction. The anthology it concerns itself with is
partially praised, with Wallace remarking that 31 of the 204 prose poems within
are memorable, 9 of which are fantastic, although 5 of those 9 are by a single
person. His approach, almost statistical in nature, is due to Wallace’s unusual
(even for him) writing style here. Using what he calls “the Indexical Book
Review”, he relays facts in bullet points in a very clinical fashion. For
example: “Total # of prose poems in anthology: 204... Total # of contributors
who do/did edit literary journals, anthologies, and/or small presses: 21.”
Wallace explains that, through some grammatical wizardry, the words before each
colon shouldn’t count towards the rigid 1,000 word limit that the editors
imposed on him. You get a real sense of the maverick Wallace here, and it’s
clear he relishes in the use of more experimental styles. The ‘Indexical Book
Review’ format throws up some gems (“% [of prose poems in the anthology] about
sex: 16.6... % about love: 0.2”) but also some frown-inducers (“Square root of
book’s ISBN: 43,520.065”). As is often the case, you get the sense that Wallace
may have over-egged the pudding – but you can’t help forgiving him for being so
innovative.
Twenty-Four
Word Notes is exactly what it says on the tin; a list of twenty-four words,
and Wallace’s notes on them. What initially seems like a dry affair quickly
becomes surprisingly engaging. The article opens with Utilize, which Wallace correctly regards as no different from “good
old use... using utilize makes you seem either like a pompous twit or like someone
so insecure that she’ll [?] pointlessly use big words in an attempt to look
sophisticated.” The same, he says, is correct for ‘vehicle’ as opposed to
‘car’. It’s hard to believe that this article was written almost ten years ago;
with hotels nowadays serving ‘beverages’ instead of ‘drinks’ and offering ‘tea
and coffee making facilities’ instead of ‘a kettle’. Once again, Wallace seems
to have had a keen eye for the immediate future.
A hidden nugget of hilarity is
tucked away in this article when Wallace briefly, in a trademark tangent,
touches on the language of advertising. Examples he gives to illustrate the
stupidity of ‘Advertising English’ (“Save up to 50%... and More!”) add an extra
dose of amusement to an already fulfilling article.
It might seem that Both Flesh And Not is as good as any of
Wallace’s work published within his lifetime. Sadly, this isn’t entirely the
case. Some of the smaller pieces seem almost like filler, with Overlooked: Five direly underappreciated
U.S. novels > 1960 leading the charge. A two-page micro-multi-review, it
starts promisingly (describing William H.Gass’ Omensetter’s Luck as “bleak but gorgeous, like light through ice”)
but quickly turns sour. His three word review of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian – “Don’t even ask” –
gives the sense that Wallace tried to be clever and overshot. The other
micro-reviews are concise but unsatisfying.
Just
Asking, another two-page article, also fails to get off the ground before
it finishes. Composed entirely of questions regarding 9/11, American foreign
policy, and the notion of freedom, one can’t help thinking that expanding the
word count tenfold – and adding Wallace’s trademark footnotes – would have made
a mind-blowingly-good essay.
By far the worst piece is Back In New Fire, an opinion piece that
Wallace wrote in 1996. It outlines his belief that the AIDS epidemic added an
element of “medieval daredevilry” to the casual intercourse of the post-sexual
revolution decades (prior to the writing of the article). He likens sex during
the AIDS crisis to a knight rescuing a fair maiden from a fire-breathing
dragon, and while some of his observations are astute (“’Fair maiden’ means
‘good-looking virgin’, by the way”), the entire article borders on offensive.
It’s hard to believe that a) such an informed and perceptive mind would write
such a piece, b) that it was published, and c) that Wallace’s editors chose to
include it in this collection.
Granted, some of Wallace’s best work
is in here. There are pieces that inform, engage and make you struggle to hold
in laughter. But there are pieces that bore and drag; pieces that make you
shake your head. A mixed bag indeed.
Is this Wallace’s fault, though?
There were probably reasons why he didn’t include some of the earlier pieces in
his first two collections – which could add weight to the possibility that Both Flesh And Not is David Foster Wallace’s
non-fiction B-Team, cobbled together in a manner that might well have been
against his wishes.
But even if this is Wallace’s
B-Sides compilation, any writer who can claim this collection as among the
worst of their work should be proud. Both
Flesh And Not is a patch of rough brimming with diamonds.
