media consumption

Oblivion

I'm halfway through this short story collection by David Foster Wallace. This puts me smack in the middle of the story "Good Old Neon," which from what I can tell so far is a first-person account of a self-tortured, self-absorbed yuppie who commits suicide. But wait, you say, how do you know he's committed suicide if you're only halfway through the story? Well, it's because the story is told in the past tense, as in the narrarator is already dead and is speaking from beyond the grave.

[UPDATE 7/13: Aha! but now that I've read the whole story I know there is more to it than that. I should know by now that it's best not to try to predict what a DFW story is all about.]

This is an example of Wallace's unique, some would say warped, writing style. The first story in the collection, "Mr. Squishy," describes a marketing focus group being lectured on the marketing and manufacturing processes behind a new snack cake, Felonies! Meanwhile, behind the scenes, machinations and mayhem swirl as the story is told from any number of shifting perspectives and points-of-view. Not only that, but the various collision-course plotlines are never resolved, so the reader is left to puzzle out the details on his own.

Reading David Foster Wallace is not a passive activity. He challenges the reader to engage in the process, crafting stories that seem more realistic than most fiction with the typical neat and tidy plot resolution. In many ways his stories seem "alive." For those of us obsessed with his work (see, I admit it, I'm obsessed), his stories seem to grow and take on a life of their own long after the books have been read and placed back on the shelf.

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