Among David Foster Wallace's papers at the Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin are three hundred-odd books from his personal library, most of them annotated, some heavily as if he were scribbling a dialogue with the author page by page. There are several of his undergraduate papers from Amherst; drafts of his fiction and non-fiction; research materials; syllabi; notes, tests and quizzes from classes he took, and from those he taught; fan correspondence and juvenilia. As others have found, it's entirely boggling for a longtime fan to read these things. I recently spent three days in there and have yet to cram my eyeballs all the way back in where they belong.
His obsessive examination of Alice Miller's Drama of the Gifted Child(a book I'd make everyone in the world take to heart, had I the power) makes me want to read something of his, an essay maybe. I haven't the stamina for the longer stuff.
3 comments:
Ah! Thank you for this link! Vey interesting. I once asked him a question after a reading (not during public Q and A, but after), and I definitely felt that "scolding" that Bustillos talks about. In hindsight, I realize that it was a very stupid question.
BTW, I totally recommend his essays from "A Supposedly Fun thing I'll Never Do Again." The title essay is fantastic as is the one in which he writes about a visit to a Midwestern state fair. I also love an essay about language that was in Harper's way back when. It was called "Tense Present." I haven't read much of his fiction. I'm all about the essays.
That one rolls through every now and then- I'll grab the next copy I see.
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