A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

I've wanted to read David Foster Wallace for a while now, ever since I read a course syllabus he wrote in a set of famous authors' essays posted in... Slate? The Atlantic? Something like that. He's most famous for Infinite Jest, of course, but I'm a little intimidated by that. I finally found someone who's actually read him and asked how to get started. They recommended either Infinite Jest (if I wanted fiction) or this (if I didn't).

This is a collection of seven essays, widely varied in topic and tone. Included, among others, are some experiential travelogues, musings on David Lynch's film career, and literary metacriticism. The travelogues remind me a bit of a better-written David Sedaris not written by a fuckup; the others have more to do with exploring the point of other creative expressions. Consistent throughout is DFW's smart writing.

I enjoyed it quite a bit. DFW has a couple other essay collections, and I will probably seek them out. Nota bene: DFW has a penchant for, shall we say, uncommon word choices. I enjoyed it because (a) I rarely encounter words with which I'm not acquainted, and kind of like it when I do, because I am a dork; and (b) I was reading an ebook version and thus had a dictionary a highlight away. Not everyone will share both of these traits. Favorite new word: “otiose.”