

David Foster Wallace’s struggle to surpass “Infinite Jest.”  - tshtf
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/09/090309fa_fact_max?currentPage=all

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katovatzschyn
I like DFW, Infinite Jest, and The New Yorker, but I question the increasingly
regularity of this kind of content on HN and would like to gently recommend
metafilter.com.

Here is this article posted there:

[http://www.metafilter.com/79589/David-Foster-Wallaces-
unfini...](http://www.metafilter.com/79589/David-Foster-Wallaces-unfinished-
opus)

~~~
tptacek
It's hard for me to get too wound up about DFW stuff being on the front page
when it's otherwise occupied by "AngelGate" drama.

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alextp
I still haven't been able to finish Infinite Jest. It's just... not that
interesting, I guess. Part of me thinks English is not a very good language
for what's been attempted there; English as it is usually written is too terse
and direct, which is precisely the opposite of what DFW was going for.

Novels like 2666, written in Spanish, feel a lot more natural in their
distorted rambling and crazy deviations from what you guessed should be the
plot.

But then again, I can't judge it until I finish it. These are just my thoughts
after having it around for over six months.

~~~
jamesbritt
"English as it is usually written is too terse and direct"

If only. Too many people waste too many words dancing around what they really
mean to say.

English _can_ be terse and direct (love those anglo-saxon words!), but having
glommed so much from so many other languages it affords endless variety for
circumlocution.

~~~
alextp
Not endless. I'm brazillian, and more than once when translating a good,
terse, phrase in english to portuguese I felt the need to "pad it up" with
rethorical and discourse markers that have no meaning in themselves;
conversely, when translating from portuguese to english most of a sentence
becomes unnecessary and the final result is a lot terser. I can give you
examples if you want.

~~~
sp332
Well, I'd like some examples :-)

~~~
alextp
A sentence I extracted from a particularly idiomatic piece of portuguese:

> O primeiro, presença ofuscante na consciência social, tem nome definido e
> inscrição temporal supostamente clara: a crise financeira global.

If you translate it idiomatically to English you have

> The first of them is the global financial crisis.

But if you translate if literally you have

> The first, a blinding presence in the social consciousness, has a definite
> name and a supposedly clear temporal inscription: the global financial
> crysis.

You will not believe me, but in portuguese all this extra unnecessary rhetoric
reads a lot better than the equivalent in english. Also, there is a tendency
in portuguese to write using as erudite a word as you can think of, which in
English mostly sounds pathetic. I'm looking for better examples right now.

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kj12345
Its sad to hear he struggled so mightily to write more novels given the
incredible power of his essays and short stories. "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll
Never Do Again", about the pleasures and distractions and ultimately the
"despair" of a 7-Night Caribbean cruise (which he helpfully abbreviates 7NC)
is both the funniest and one of the most stark and cold works I've ever read.

~~~
arethuza
Here is a link to that essay:

[PDF]
[http://harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-000...](http://harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf)

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awakeasleep
I had to stop reading when they said he wanted to write a story that would
show people how to lead good and happy lives. Too sad.

~~~
Estragon
Yeah, all I could think was "physician, heal thyself."

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tshtf
Evidently The New Yorker doesn't like linking to the printable version. Link
below should work:

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/09/090309fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/09/090309fa_fact_max)

