A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments by David Foster Wallace

“I am now 33 years old, and it feels like much time has passed and is passing faster and faster every day. Day to day I have to make all sorts of choices about what is good and important and fun, and then I have to live with the forfeiture of all the other options those choices foreclose. And I’m starting to see how as time gains momentum my choices will narrow and their foreclosures multiply exponentially until I arrive at some point on some branch of all life’s sumptuous branching complexity at which I am finally locked in and stuck on one path and time speeds me through stages of stasis and atrophy and decay until I go down for the third time, all struggle for naught, drowned by time. It is dreadful. But since it’s my own choices that’ll lock me in, it seems unavoidable—if I want to be any kind of grownup, I have to make choices and regret foreclosures and try.”

A good collection of essays can enlighten, entertain, and persuade without feeling like it’s trying too hard to do any of these things. That’s what A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again does. You’re swept along weird, quirky, or banal topics, subjects which other writers might make boring but not, fortunately, this one. It’s littered with funny and smart observations, and its arguments/explorations are interesting and the style playful. If you’re looking for a place to begin reading David Foster Wallace, this is it.

Wallace zeroes in on the weird bind that comes from life in the Western world (particularly America, capitalist bastion that it is): mental discomfort, weird thought patterns, and eventually ennui can actually be instilled by our physical comfort and societal wide sense of entitlement for luxury and ease. This all creates some strange ways of responding to entertainment and art. Most of us are (relatively) pampered people, who eat tasty food, have (compared to most of the world) good educations, and are unlikely to be blown up by mortar shells. We also have some of the highest mental illness rates on the planet.

We’re bombarded with advertising and cultural prompts about what to want, when to want it, and what it means to want what we want when we want it and why wanting what we want means we should also want this different product, as that will be what truly makes us individual, and when we want that we should want this other thing, but we’re not the kind of person who wants too much, as that would make us materialistic…

It all gets a bit complex and weird and frustrating, but these essays are great at pulling back the layers of modern life and revealing what it is at heart: mildly absurd. I don’t get the feeling that Wallace is being a Luddite, either. If you had planted him anywhere from 12th century France to present-day Saudi Arabia, he would have come away from these cultures with some bizarre and fascinating musings.

It’s just nice to be reminded of how silly all us humans look from the outside sometimes.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

“Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you’d have a little love left over for the next one.”

It speaks to Morrison’s skill that a tale about such harrowing circumstances is still as tender as this one. She’s the kind of writer who could find beauty in the reflections of a pool of blood.

A house with a dead baby’s footsteps echoing through its halls sits next to a river. An ex-slave, Sethe, and the remnants of her family try to make sense of the United States after the Civil War, and struggle against poverty, prejudice, and their own memories. Beloved by Toni Morrison is difficult to read at times, due to the prose’s density and the painful subject matter, but it’s harrowing and heartfelt, and deserves patience.

I’m going to make this book sound very serious, but please don’t think I’m using serious as interchangeable for dry or boring; this is an interesting and occasionally warm book. It’s just a good idea for someone picking this up to go in with the knowledge that their emotions are about to be beaten with a pipe wrench.

This is a mournful book which is still extremely engaging. Hope is something these characters can’t afford to have, and we watch as they struggle to navigate a “free” world they never expected to experience. They’ve been let down too often before to risk the pain of disappointment again, so they approach life like it’s contained in a glass case on a wobbly mantelpiece: nice to look at, but not something to get attached to. It will fall and shatter eventually. The cruelty they’ve suffered—on both a personal and institutional level—leaves scars, both literal and figurative.

The story here is gripping, despite that the writing at a sentence level blends between first- and third-person, and the plot structure is (purposefully) as fractured and confused as the the minds of its characters. It’s still a joy to read, somehow; like any great story of tragedy, the pathos feels almost tangible.

When you’ve never seen a house or a happy home, how do you make a life for yourself? Slavery destroyed the humanity of the people it ensnared, and Morrison offers no easy answers. Beloved stares penetratingly into how racism and slavery have created a cycle of pain that will continue for generations. There are difficult questions here but no easy answers, and it’s a better story than most because of that.

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

“Nothing was ever discussed—nor did they feel the lack of intimate talk. These were matters beyond words, beyond definition.”

The only Ian McEwan novel I’d read before this one was ‘Atonement’, and I immediately noticed that they’re similar in theme. This isn’t a criticism, as the theme is a bloody interesting one. Both explore how misunderstandings destroy lives; in On Chesil Beach, however, it’s the words which go unsaid that cause lives to fall apart, rather than false assumptions as in Atonement.

In 1962, two newly married virgins have a painful, frustrating wedding night. They lack the language to explain what happened, and the story is a painful one.Explaining their distress would involve skills of introspection which the two young adults simply don’t have, due to the well-meaning, stifling prissiness of their society. Each have problems that they can’t understand, let alone resolve. The language they need to explain and explore what’s wrong lies in parts of their minds they just can’t reach.

Melancholic and beautifully written, with prose which compares and weaves history and the mundane with precision, this is a great short read.

The Incarnations by Susan Barker

‘You will see me again. We are destined to be together. I will come back to you in dreams, or another life.’

The Incarnations by Susan Barker is an ambitious novel that centres around a taxi driver called Wang, who has begun to receive some disturbing letters from someone who claims to know him from past lives. We are swept across Chinese history and shown how these two are connected across centuries and reincarnations. Things get intense with Wang as this mysterious person begins stalking and threatening his family. A number of reviews call this book ‘China’s Midnights Children’, which I don’t think is fair to either Barker or Rushdie. While Midnight’s Children is meandering (in a good way!), The Incarnations is tightly plotted, to the point where, despite the lack of action scenes, the end of the book is so tense that it could almost be called a suspense novel.

Barker has a gift for pacing and quickly sweeping the reader into her worlds. When the past lives are inserted into the narrative, they could have come across as irritating as they often occur after cliffhangers. Instead, the tales of intrigue and betrayal are quickly engaging.

There’s a strange moment later in the novel, which shows the difficulty in fictionalising recent history: we’re shown young Chinese girls being forced to learn obviously skewed stories about the United States, which is explicitly criticised at times by the narrator; at other moments, we are watching these same young Chinese girls brutally torture those they suspect of capitalist thoughts and force feed their classmates pigs blood in a moment that feels like a crossover between Animal Farm and Carrie. I don’t doubt that things could be just as dangerous in Mao’s China as they are portrayed here. The purges and indoctrination are well documented. It’s that there’s something strange about a novel criticising biased portrayals about other cultures while at the same time showing China, over and over again, at its most brutal and cruel.

Despite its ambitions and engaging characters and story, The Incarnations never moves over the line from good to great to me. Things which engage sympathy rather than horror, and small touches of everyday life which can add verisimilitude to a story, crop up far less often than the Big Moments of strife, and the former would lend this novel pathos which is currently just lacking.

We’re shown the dazzle and oppression of this society, but the most riveting plots are of Wang’s marriage falling apart and the fate of his mother. That unfortunately makes the flashes to other lives not as engaging as they could be, despite the careful plotting, as they don’t feel entwined in the main narrative in the way that, say, Cloud Atlas managed.

I want to be clear: despite my complaints, I really liked this novel. The characters are well-crafted, and Barker’s prose is often intriguing even if it’s is let down by stilted dialogue. The Incarnation’s weaknesses only weigh it down as obviously as they do because its strengths helped it climb so close to greatness.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

“One fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul. For the human species, selfishness is extinction. […] Is this the doom written within our nature?”

Near the beginning of Cloud Atlas, taking place around one-hundred and fifty years ago, a priest recounts how pacifist ‘savages’ were slaughtered by nearby Maori tribes. “What moral to draw?” our first narrator, a white American gentleman, muses. “Peace […] is a cardinal virtue only if your neighbours share your conscience.”

This is a novel split into six: six sections, six protagonists, six time periods, six genres. 19^th century New Zealand among tribes who are being colonised; pre-World War 2 Belgium; California in the midst of the 70s counter-culture; North-East provincial England; a dystopic Korea in the 22^nd century (I think) where capitalism has been taken to alarming extremes; back to tribalism in a far flung future. The stories stop in their middle, only to start again after you have seen how the future has been influenced by these tales: in some cases this was significantly, in others not.

This might seem like a gimmick, which is something the novel is conscious of. It wants you to know you’ll be rewarded if you stick with it, that any efforts to pay close attention will not be brushed aside in some sort of irritating postmodern game, such as in Italo Calvino’s ‘If on a winter’s night a traveller‘ (which I found infurating). Little self-conscious prods mid-way through keep the reader assured that Mitchell will not leave threads untied, such as when Robert Frobisher, a young, selfish and gifted composer, muses about his new work:

“In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor; in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan’t know until it’s finished, and by then it’ll be too late.”

Mitchell slips in and out of different characters and situations with astonishing ease, and what should feel—due to its scattered narratives and sheet ambition—cluttered, confusing and unfocused is held together by very wonderful but careful writing, and themes which emphasize humanity’s interconnected nature. Symbols, plot-points and characters occasionally connect the six stories, but these threads are never overemphasized to make a narrative point or to seem clever. In other words, they stay fun to spot. Each story shows someone trying to overcome oppression, but you could read each of them in isolation and still enjoy them.

At its core, Cloud Atlas is occupied with humanity’s history of violence and opression, and where that history may lead us. That’s why it stays interesting despite being so ridiculously busy in terms of story. In each of the sections, arrogance, entitlement and greed mean that characters are unfairly treated and hurt. I expected something optimistic here, as I had watched the Wachowski’s film version, which changes some of the endings (most notably the tribal future’s) so they’re more uplifting. I think the novel is more honest about where our current course could take us if we aren’t very, very careful, and as such is a more honest plea for empathy.

Many novels this ambitious falter because, in the search of grand philosophical themes and strange structures, they forget character and storytelling. Cloud Atlas, thanks in part to its beautifully crafted first-person style (except in California, where it becomes an intruiging third-person thriller) feels extremely personal, and so succeeds where most other books of this sort would fail.

Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“I could not become anything; neither good nor bad; neither a scoundrel nor an honest man; neither a hero nor an insect. And now I am eking out my days in my corner, taunting myself with the bitter and entirely useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot seriously become anything, that only a fool can become something.”

Occasionally funny, often disgusting, the novel Notes from Underground is the mournful wail of a man who has given up and is proud of it, a man who thinks you’re foolish for not succumbing to nihilism like he has. This is one of the most bitter, angry novels I’ve ever read. I’d heard the stereotype of Russian literature as depressing, but The Brothers Karamazov, Pushkin, or Tolstoy all seem absolutely joyful in comparison. I thought that almost two centuries later, the barrage of misery the protagonist endures and self-inflicts here might seem tame to a modern reader. Nope. This is still very, very powerful.

The narrator’s pain being almost entirely self-inflicted is a dominant theme. He was a bureaucrat, but an inheritance allowed him to retire. He does nothing but brood on those he perceived as wronging him. The results are both sad and funny, in a way that becomes so obviously self-inflicted that it feels like a farce. It takes the narrator dozens of attempts to bump a man of higher standing’s shoulder on his morning walk to work, for example. He has been plotting this bump as an act of revenge for years. The man’s crime? A long, long time ago he had ignored our protagonist at a pub. Shocking, I know.

The narrator has lived his whole life on a self-destructive path which is narcissistic and cowardly, but, thanks to his eloquent way of writing, understandable. He is a pitiful, self-disgusted man. He has isolated himself from the world, and lives in a cocoon of anger; he derides a society he sees as arrogant and foolish, but acts no better—worse, in fact—than those he considers scum. The only thing he has pride in is his intellect, the importance of which he clings to like a limpet. He only values what is inside his head, and rages at the world around him which he sees as ignoring his genius. The futility of pride in intelligence, which he uses for nothing but selfish brooding, becomes obvious to readers, as it helps no one, not even him.

Notes From Underground is dark, sad and quite moving. If you’re ever in the mood for a book which stomps on your brain and heart, give it a go.

On Writing by Stephen King

“So okay― there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of the telephone. You’ve blown up your TV and committed yourself to a thousand words a day, come hell or high water. Now comes the big question: What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want.”

Books on writing often start with the strange assumption that the reader is already wonderfully disciplined, and merely needs guidance in regards to adjectives and paragraph structure. King is more helpful. He explains the nuts and bolts of his trade rather than the just the tweaks needed to finished products. He takes the time to dispel myths about the magic of ‘inspiration’ as the cause of good stories, and encourages you to approach the craft in the way of a carpenter: it can be difficult, yes, but once you’ve learned the tools of the trade the most useful thing you can do is sit at your desk every morning.

King’s books do not crave being taken seriously, they merely hope that they are. They embrace some ridiculous premises, and are happy to sit on genre shelves while their creator bathes in money, but if you approach them with trust they are often refreshingly honest portraits of very strange situations. This makes him the perfect person to explain the actual process of fiction writing, as he avoids romantic ruminations which impede serious discussion of what should be, above all else, hard work.

King is above all practical, but also infectiously enthusiastic. His love for the craft shines through, and his focus on the joy of his job makes you able to take him more seriously when he talk about the difficulties.

The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel by David Foster Wallace

“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.”

This is an incomplete novel by David Foster Wallace that was released posthumously. It’s sometimes dazzling and other times tedious. I would never, ever recommend it to anyone but a hardcore David Foster Wallace fan. It’s in such a specific style, and tries to make you feel the banality that its characters live and grow in, which makes for an interesting experiment which is occasionally (intentionally) mind-numbing to read. Like with all of DFW’s works, though, the words are put together with tremendous skill, and can crackle in your skull and leave you thinking days after you put the book down.

“To be, in a word, unborable…. It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.”

The Pale King takes place in the IRS (the Internal Revenue Service) and I appreciated that aspects of life which are often ignored — taxes, social malaise, the difficulty of true acceptance — are put under the microscope, as seemingly unrelated events slide in and out of view at random. The fragmented chapters leave you disorientated, as though they’re dozens of short-stories rather than one interconnected narrative. Reading this is like having hurried, interesting conversations with strangers, trying to work past their defences so you can figure out what it is they want to really talk about.

It’s unfinished (there are a number of plot threads which are brought up and never addressed, although potentially by design), but the thesis here is vital: real adulthood can involve tedium, and frustration, and that both these things are intensely important for becoming quote-unquote mature. Without the ability to sit and think in silence, even when doing so is uncomfortable and draining and painful, the world will grind you to dust.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

A strange mixture of cynicism and hopefulness, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is Dave Eggers’ attempt to unpack his own mind and find meaning in his parents’ death.

Anyone who feels lost in their own thoughts will find something uncomfortably relatable here. Eggers bravery while raising with his little brother is accompanied by narcissism, and a refusal to be put on a pedestal with an acknowledgment of his desperation to be seen by millions as a genius. It would have been easy for him to focus on pure tragedy, but this is a funny book. A funny book that hurts deeply at times.

Eggers feels stripped raw and exposed, his flaws in plain view while he stares straight at you and dares you to judge him for them.

An asshole; aggressively intelligent; selfish; loyal. Eggers is not easily explained and neither is this book, a self-conscious meta-memoir where some of the most honest moments are fictional. His prose is triumphant and his story is, yes, heartbreaking, but he feels flawed and honest and funny and alive throughout. This is a novel in which you feel a heart beating angrily through the pages, trying to burst free.

The Stonemason by Cormac McCarthy

Confession: I wouldn’t have picked this up if I wasn’t working through every piece of Cormac McCarthy writing ever. This was the last thing left to read before I finish his oeuvre with the novel Suttree. Screenplays or short works also haven’t been the highlights of this project, as McCarthy is at his best when he gets grandiose and epic, and there’s often just not enough time, so while sub-par McCarthy is still tremendously well-written I went into this with tempered expectations.

The Stonemason is an interesting play about a black family in the States. The Telfairs are about to undergo an unavoidable, unpredictable series of catastrophes (like many of Cormac McCarthy’s main characters do).

In theme, this was similar to many of McCarthy’s works: the degradation of traditional life, the value of physical work, all with death looming over every moment. The perspective of a black family means issues of race and time are at the forefront here: the more abstract, mental pains of the new age are contrasted with the physical oppression old, so societal progress is presented more evenly than in, say, No Country For Old Men.

The Stonemason is above all earnest. The problems here are still enormously difficult to deal with, but they’re things nearly everyone experiences: death, money troubles, the ability to trust. Definitely one of the more heartfelt and the most subdued of McCarthy’s works, and it was an interesting change of pace.