IdleRich
IdleRich
It shouldn't because I didn't really like Brief Interviews much and I loved IJ. Had roughly the same problems with it as you - too many skilfully constructed but tedious circular arguments and infinite regresses."I've just finished about 85% of David Foster Wallace's "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men". It's very very clever, and he was obviously an exceptional writer, but BY GOD it's fucking tedious. Long long long and incredibly self-absorbed and obsessively detailed interior monologues, over and over again, picking apart ever painful detail - I can liken it to having an argument with a really clever friend at 5am when you're both really pissed on gin and really should be going to bed, but can't. I only managed to finish so much of it because it was the only thing I had on me on a long train ride across Catalonia. Amazingly clever, witty and perceptive, and at moments he manages to transcend the tedium, I suppose, so worth reading but rather teeth-grinding.
Has put me off wanting to read Infinite Jest, a bit."
Anyway, I've not had much chance to read more of A Void but what I have read is rather weird - there seems to be an unattributed retelling of Bioy Casares' (sp?) The Invention of Morel (though without any "e"s of course) and then a similar reworking of one of Poe's detective stories but with a different ending. There are also other stories which I don't recognise but which I suspect might be based on other classic novels. Anyone got any idea why he does this? Or is it just to make the reader feel clever when he spots the references?