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renatasnacks's review against another edition
4.0
It's hard to know what to say about this exactly. First and foremost: this book wouldn't exist if DFW were still alive. But he's not, and I'm still super sad about that, and so are a lot of other people, and so we're reading like... the dregs of what he wrote when he was alive, basically. Things that were written for a very specialized audience, or things that are very dated, or whatever.
But the reason so many people are willing to read, like, a review of The Best of Prose Poetry even if you've never read or even heard of any of the best prose poets, is that DFW is a great writer.
There are some total gems in here. I love reading anything DFW writes about tennis even though I'm definitely not a tennis person, just because he was a tennis person and he's so thoroughly in his element. "Federer Both Flesh and Not" is an amazing essay even if you, like me, could not reliably identify Roger Federer from a lineup. If you actually know anything about tennis, it's probably even better.
I also loved "The (As It Were) Seminal Importance of Terminator 2." UGH I wish DFW were still alive and reviewing action movies on a weird blog or something. I WISH IT SO MUCH.
I also loved that in between essays were excerpts from DFW's personal word notes. Like just a list of some of his favorite words and their definitions.
I recommend this book if you have like, already read all of DFW's other stuff and you want more. If you haven't read any of his stuff, or any of his essays... don't start with this. This is the leftovers. And it's the leftovers of a great meal, to be certain, but... start with [b:A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again|6748|A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again|David Foster Wallace|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1344270821s/6748.jpg|574] and/or [b:Consider the Lobster and Other Essays|6751|Consider the Lobster and Other Essays|David Foster Wallace|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1344266666s/6751.jpg|2207382] and then eventually come back to this.
But the reason so many people are willing to read, like, a review of The Best of Prose Poetry even if you've never read or even heard of any of the best prose poets, is that DFW is a great writer.
There are some total gems in here. I love reading anything DFW writes about tennis even though I'm definitely not a tennis person, just because he was a tennis person and he's so thoroughly in his element. "Federer Both Flesh and Not" is an amazing essay even if you, like me, could not reliably identify Roger Federer from a lineup. If you actually know anything about tennis, it's probably even better.
I also loved "The (As It Were) Seminal Importance of Terminator 2." UGH I wish DFW were still alive and reviewing action movies on a weird blog or something. I WISH IT SO MUCH.
I also loved that in between essays were excerpts from DFW's personal word notes. Like just a list of some of his favorite words and their definitions.
I recommend this book if you have like, already read all of DFW's other stuff and you want more. If you haven't read any of his stuff, or any of his essays... don't start with this. This is the leftovers. And it's the leftovers of a great meal, to be certain, but... start with [b:A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again|6748|A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again|David Foster Wallace|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1344270821s/6748.jpg|574] and/or [b:Consider the Lobster and Other Essays|6751|Consider the Lobster and Other Essays|David Foster Wallace|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1344266666s/6751.jpg|2207382] and then eventually come back to this.
rbrtsorrell's review against another edition
3.0
This collection was published (and presumably selected and put together) after DFW's death and because of this can feel a bit grab-bag. The essays range in time period, subject, tone, and length, and, to be quite honest, quality. Of course, there's plenty of the stuff that DFW fans love: footnotes, a bizarre yet charming sense of humor, abstruse vocabulary, acronyms and abbreviations, & a love of symbols like &. But this collection – perhaps because of its range in topic and style (Wallace's love of tennis and higher math, as well as his intellectual side are on strong display here) – also had moments that reminded me of why I am sometimes annoyed by DFW: namely, the footnotes, the confounding-even-with-a-dictionary vocabulary, the seemingly random opinions, the ability to elide questions of race, gender, sexuality, or really any identity besides himself, and his conservative streak. For a deeply creative person, he also has a deep love of rules; and for a person who so often rags on academese, he is not above inserting a bit into his own writing. Nonetheless, that's all just part of the experience of reading Wallace the writer.
One thing that does interest me though, is the remarkable lack of personal information that these essays impart. They really are Essays in the old-fashioned version of the word, a form that is not so much disappearing as being overpowered by the myriad other methods of writing nonfiction that are being practiced today. Not to mention a wider acceptance of the idea that the personal and political are not separable.
I had a writing teacher whose essay was considered for the 2007 Best American series that Wallace edited, and for which Wallace wrote the introduction, "Deciderization..." that appears in this collection. The teacher's piece was strongly personal and didn't end up making the cut. In class, he told us that he felt one line of Wallace's intro was specifically aimed at him: "I don't much care for abreactive or confessional memoirs," Wallace writes, continuing later, "The sense I get from a lot of contemporary memoirs is that they have an unconscious and unacknowledged project, which is to make the momoirists seem as endlessly fascinating and important to the reader as they are to themselves. I find most of them sad in a way that I don't think their authors intended."
While I don't have much of an opinion on whether or not the teacher's piece should've been in the final collection (it is a fine essay, but so are all of the ones that were eventually included), I think there is something interesting about Wallace's biases coming through here, something that is hard not to connect to the extreme lack of personal detail or anecdotes that appear in his nonfiction. It is another point where Wallace feels a bit old-fashioned, a bit close-minded. Not to mention his poor choice of the word "confessional" makes his whole argument seem a bit like a privileged white male's rant against "silly women's writing." All in all, there are some good pieces in this collection and some pieces – especially some of the much longer book reviews – that some people may enjoy, but I hardly got through. A good addition if you've already read DFW's other essay collections, but probably not the one I'd reach for first.
One thing that does interest me though, is the remarkable lack of personal information that these essays impart. They really are Essays in the old-fashioned version of the word, a form that is not so much disappearing as being overpowered by the myriad other methods of writing nonfiction that are being practiced today. Not to mention a wider acceptance of the idea that the personal and political are not separable.
I had a writing teacher whose essay was considered for the 2007 Best American series that Wallace edited, and for which Wallace wrote the introduction, "Deciderization..." that appears in this collection. The teacher's piece was strongly personal and didn't end up making the cut. In class, he told us that he felt one line of Wallace's intro was specifically aimed at him: "I don't much care for abreactive or confessional memoirs," Wallace writes, continuing later, "The sense I get from a lot of contemporary memoirs is that they have an unconscious and unacknowledged project, which is to make the momoirists seem as endlessly fascinating and important to the reader as they are to themselves. I find most of them sad in a way that I don't think their authors intended."
While I don't have much of an opinion on whether or not the teacher's piece should've been in the final collection (it is a fine essay, but so are all of the ones that were eventually included), I think there is something interesting about Wallace's biases coming through here, something that is hard not to connect to the extreme lack of personal detail or anecdotes that appear in his nonfiction. It is another point where Wallace feels a bit old-fashioned, a bit close-minded. Not to mention his poor choice of the word "confessional" makes his whole argument seem a bit like a privileged white male's rant against "silly women's writing." All in all, there are some good pieces in this collection and some pieces – especially some of the much longer book reviews – that some people may enjoy, but I hardly got through. A good addition if you've already read DFW's other essay collections, but probably not the one I'd reach for first.
js_warren's review against another edition
5.0
Full disclosure: DFW is my favorite author, so I'm highly biased.
I've seen some lukewarm reviews of this essay collection, but I was quite pleased with it. I get it, though. His literary reviews, such as "The Empty Plenum: David Markson’s Wittgenstein's Mistress," are challenging reads and aren't terribly accessible to casual readers. Wallace can get pretty cerebral--the word "genius" gets thrown around a lot, but in this case it's well-warranted--and he can lose me when he really digs deep and plumbs the depths of a topic. But if you don't mind having your intellectual limits tested, then this won't be an issue.
That said, most of the essays in this collection don't reach that level of difficulty. His take on "Terminator 2," for instance, might go against the popular grain, but it's spot on. And while the essay "The Best of the Prose Poem" had me scratching my head at first, it actually ended up being one of my favorites in the collection.
If you're familiar with Wallace, you know how much he loves tennis, and the two tennis-related essays are particularly good, especially "Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open," my favorite of the collection. It's peak DFW: insightful, passionate, and intensely funny in his subtle, idiosyncratic way.
This probably isn't a great collection to start with if you're unfamiliar with Wallace (you're better off going with "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," or maybe "Consider the Lobster"), but if you're a fan of Wallace then you'll get what you expect: the work of an intelligent, funny man with a unique take on life and the human condition.
I've seen some lukewarm reviews of this essay collection, but I was quite pleased with it. I get it, though. His literary reviews, such as "The Empty Plenum: David Markson’s Wittgenstein's Mistress," are challenging reads and aren't terribly accessible to casual readers. Wallace can get pretty cerebral--the word "genius" gets thrown around a lot, but in this case it's well-warranted--and he can lose me when he really digs deep and plumbs the depths of a topic. But if you don't mind having your intellectual limits tested, then this won't be an issue.
That said, most of the essays in this collection don't reach that level of difficulty. His take on "Terminator 2," for instance, might go against the popular grain, but it's spot on. And while the essay "The Best of the Prose Poem" had me scratching my head at first, it actually ended up being one of my favorites in the collection.
If you're familiar with Wallace, you know how much he loves tennis, and the two tennis-related essays are particularly good, especially "Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open," my favorite of the collection. It's peak DFW: insightful, passionate, and intensely funny in his subtle, idiosyncratic way.
This probably isn't a great collection to start with if you're unfamiliar with Wallace (you're better off going with "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," or maybe "Consider the Lobster"), but if you're a fan of Wallace then you'll get what you expect: the work of an intelligent, funny man with a unique take on life and the human condition.
jakemcc's review against another edition
4.0
Some of the pieces are great. Some are just good. There is some really solid parts that touch on topics that have just gotten into the main stream thought bubbles, more than a decade after called out by DFW.
slothrop's review against another edition
3.0
These essays were still worthy and great and had sparks of genius, but there’s a reason DFW didn’t want them published in a collection while alive.
In other news, I finally finished a book!
In other news, I finally finished a book!
munchin's review against another edition
4.0
There's some truly great stuff in here, especially the two tennis essays, the Terminator 2 essay and the very short list of underrated novels, but this is probably the least compelling DFW collection I've read.
avicosmos's review against another edition
4.0
This is a different world built with familiar words. How, I wonder, can that be? How can words mean something alone and something very different when set together in a certain way? Words are mechanical things, how can they inspire emotion? No, how can they be emotions themselves?
The essays presented in Both Flesh and Not are very becoming of the title. My interpretation, maybe a wrong one, is that the title refers to things that are human and alive and things that are mechanical. Both of these are important. I cannot judge the essays individually, I believe I only grasped about 70% of them. That's not enough to pass judgement. Instead, I will tell write about some of the feelings that the book brewed in me.
Tennis was this guy's thing. It is amazing how big a thing it is to him. But maybe, like me, the reader doesn't follow tennis. I didn't even know the rules of the game, let alone the many great players he mentions. By the time I'm done reading how Federer's game is one of the paradigms of beauty, I felt I learned half the game. Agassi V. Federer was the game he writes about, but the detours he takes both in the main text and the footnotes should not work towards a great article. But they do, they do it so exquisitely.
Something: People blame him sometimes for being too high brow, too intelligent and arrogant because he knows it. The feel I got was he was trying his best to humanize everything. Everything.
That's what the detours are for. I don't call them digressions because digressions usually lead to places where one is required to say: 'Anyway, what was I talking about?' Some good may come from that digressions, or may not.
There are very few such digressions he makes. I call them detours because like in detours they are made so as to visit some place or idea in the middle of the bigger idea that is being presented. Almost always some good comes from that. That's why after the first few footnotes, you don't mind breaking away from the main text, you start to welcome some of them.
In this essay or another about tennis- something about money making at tennis games- he writes about a woman who finds him repulsive. This is a footnote in an essay about tennis game.
One glaring attempt of humanising things in the book was his simple one sentence, three-word review of the novel Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. A novel that asks for a good essay on itself. He simply writes: Don't even ask.
Another one of his things was Cinema, maybe he wasn't as fanatical about it as he was about Tennis. There is an essay about the (as it were) seminal importance of Terminator 2. He alludes to the decline of cinema in this; alludes to how, like everything, it stopped being art and started being a business. He picks Terminator 2 because that's where the mindless CGI epidemic that still ails Hollywood today started. He doesn't entirely imply that T2 was mindless, he says its use of CGI has opened doors to mindlessness that later became a forte for Hollywood.
And then it writes about sex and how it cannot and shouldn't be a loveless process.
And about the meaning and mismeanings of general words. This is more of a writer's thing.
In between the essays, there are words he liked and typed into his personal computer or something. These are words that would be deemed obscure by someone who isn't well-read. I'm one of those someones. There were but a handful of words that I recognised.
One of the words that lingered in my mind: Satyromaniac.
It expanded my world just a little. I wasn't even aware of the idea of male nymphomania. It did not exist for me, and then it did once I read the word. That goes some way in explaining his obsession with words and Wittgenstein, who believed once that our world and existence were limited by language; that the horizons of language were the same horizons of existence.
**I have never reviewed a book of essays and I'm pretty sure this isn't the way to go about it. I just put down some things in the book of many, many things. I hope I didn't kill whatever zeal you had to read this book.**
The essays presented in Both Flesh and Not are very becoming of the title. My interpretation, maybe a wrong one, is that the title refers to things that are human and alive and things that are mechanical. Both of these are important. I cannot judge the essays individually, I believe I only grasped about 70% of them. That's not enough to pass judgement. Instead, I will tell write about some of the feelings that the book brewed in me.
Tennis was this guy's thing. It is amazing how big a thing it is to him. But maybe, like me, the reader doesn't follow tennis. I didn't even know the rules of the game, let alone the many great players he mentions. By the time I'm done reading how Federer's game is one of the paradigms of beauty, I felt I learned half the game. Agassi V. Federer was the game he writes about, but the detours he takes both in the main text and the footnotes should not work towards a great article. But they do, they do it so exquisitely.
Something: People blame him sometimes for being too high brow, too intelligent and arrogant because he knows it. The feel I got was he was trying his best to humanize everything. Everything.
That's what the detours are for. I don't call them digressions because digressions usually lead to places where one is required to say: 'Anyway, what was I talking about?' Some good may come from that digressions, or may not.
There are very few such digressions he makes. I call them detours because like in detours they are made so as to visit some place or idea in the middle of the bigger idea that is being presented. Almost always some good comes from that. That's why after the first few footnotes, you don't mind breaking away from the main text, you start to welcome some of them.
In this essay or another about tennis- something about money making at tennis games- he writes about a woman who finds him repulsive. This is a footnote in an essay about tennis game.
One glaring attempt of humanising things in the book was his simple one sentence, three-word review of the novel Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. A novel that asks for a good essay on itself. He simply writes: Don't even ask.
Another one of his things was Cinema, maybe he wasn't as fanatical about it as he was about Tennis. There is an essay about the (as it were) seminal importance of Terminator 2. He alludes to the decline of cinema in this; alludes to how, like everything, it stopped being art and started being a business. He picks Terminator 2 because that's where the mindless CGI epidemic that still ails Hollywood today started. He doesn't entirely imply that T2 was mindless, he says its use of CGI has opened doors to mindlessness that later became a forte for Hollywood.
And then it writes about sex and how it cannot and shouldn't be a loveless process.
And about the meaning and mismeanings of general words. This is more of a writer's thing.
In between the essays, there are words he liked and typed into his personal computer or something. These are words that would be deemed obscure by someone who isn't well-read. I'm one of those someones. There were but a handful of words that I recognised.
One of the words that lingered in my mind: Satyromaniac.
It expanded my world just a little. I wasn't even aware of the idea of male nymphomania. It did not exist for me, and then it did once I read the word. That goes some way in explaining his obsession with words and Wittgenstein, who believed once that our world and existence were limited by language; that the horizons of language were the same horizons of existence.
**I have never reviewed a book of essays and I'm pretty sure this isn't the way to go about it. I just put down some things in the book of many, many things. I hope I didn't kill whatever zeal you had to read this book.**
marshamudpuddle's review against another edition
4.0
The title essay is brilliant, and the best of DFW's many excellent essays on tennis. My love of tennis partially stems from it!
windycorner's review against another edition
4.0
David Foster Wallace is one of those oft-dropped writer names. You're supposed to have read him. At the time of his tragic death in 2008, I realized I never had. Situation corrected. I'm sort of stunned. The guy was so smart and so Word Knowledgeable that if he'd been in school with me, I would have crumpled in defeat over his mere proximity.
Admittedly, I didn't enjoy the essays about tennis. No one can cause me to enjoy a sports essay. But some of the others blew me away. In "The Nature of the Fun," DFW offers permission to stop writing when one's motives have gotten off track. "Back in New Fire" discusses the possible long-term effects of AIDS on our sexual attitudes. (DFW asserts that there is no such thing as casual sex. This concept carries more weight coming from the Real World than it does from religious purity cultures, where you expect to find it.) I learned more from "Twenty-Four Word Notes" than I did in some of my college classes. If my path crosses yours in the next few days, expect me to drop a really outrageous new word on you.
Admittedly, I didn't enjoy the essays about tennis. No one can cause me to enjoy a sports essay. But some of the others blew me away. In "The Nature of the Fun," DFW offers permission to stop writing when one's motives have gotten off track. "Back in New Fire" discusses the possible long-term effects of AIDS on our sexual attitudes. (DFW asserts that there is no such thing as casual sex. This concept carries more weight coming from the Real World than it does from religious purity cultures, where you expect to find it.) I learned more from "Twenty-Four Word Notes" than I did in some of my college classes. If my path crosses yours in the next few days, expect me to drop a really outrageous new word on you.