For August, the Not-School Fiction Group will read The Pale King, an ‘unfinished’ novel, by David Foster Wallace with a live conversation to follow on Sunday, August 25th 3pm CST. A small group of readers will meet online to discuss the novel’s themes, characters and ideas with passage-readings and spoiler-filled conversation intended for those who want to hear about the story. Please, Continue Reading …
Film Review: “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men”
Entirely relevant to our feminism episode is this film directed/adapted by John K. from “The Office” from the novel by David Foster Wallace, which I’ve not read. Is it amusing to see numerous comic actors give monologues that display keenly that self-consciousness–philosophical reflection–does not guarantee virtue? Yes. Does it (in its cinematic form) amount to a coherent thesis on how Continue Reading …
David Foster Wallace on Wittgenstein
Slate Magazine recently posted a great article on the recently-departed author and essayist David Foster Wallace, focusing on how Wallace (correctly?) interpreted Wittgenstein’s early and late philosophy to cope with his allegedly crushing sense of solipsistic dread. I’m not sure I buy this thesis, but Wallace’s suicide implies something was clearly bothering him. Even so, I’d ascribe a more clinical Continue Reading …