Reviews

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace

maddie_reads_stuff's review

3.0

A collection of short stories interspersed with (fictional, I hope) “brief interviews.”
The “hideous men” are at the very least hideous in personality if not also in looks. You don’t escape this book without having many skeptical or disgusted thoughts that, as soon as you have thought them, are explicitly acknowledged and expanded upon by the character/narrator. Every tiny possibility of an aside is thought through and dragged out…
Warning: DFW is not afraid of describing body functions in intimate detail, so squeamish people be warned. Really. So gross.
Also: There are many words not included in the Kindle dictionary. Was DFW trying to outdo Shakespeare for number of words added to the English language? Perhaps so.

saku_3939x's review

dark funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

worstarchitect's review

finally tired of this guy's bit

irismitchell's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

There are a couple stories in here I found incredibly powerful: Suicide As a Sort of Present, On Hid Deathbed…, and Church Not Made With Hands to name a few. The brief interviews themselves I’m ashamed to admit give shocking realizations of some heterosexual men’s attitude towards women. I know these men, I’ve met these men, in some cases I recognize my own gross mental processes in these men. As long as the reader gets the point of these interviews, I’d say they could be eye opening, especially if you’re surrounded by hyenas. 

audshuffs's review

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense

3.5

klaws500's review against another edition

2.75

I could not connect with this one. I did enjoy Forever Overhead, about a boy jumping off the diving board at the public pool for the first time, and there were some interesting parts in the recurring title story. Of those I especially liked the one about the men's room attendant. The final installment of Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders was very good too. This was my first experience with David Foster Wallace and he reminds me a bit of George Saunders but without the generosity and empathy I always get from Saunders. This collection was painful to read, with neurosis and pessimism on every page. And the footnotes that would stretch pages in some of the stories just didn't work at all, they pulled me out of the flow and I could never find it again. All told I found this collection challenging in an unpleasant way.

shortasianman's review

5.0

This book made me think of Difficult Women by Roxane Gay, so if you liked that book I suggest this one. Very thought-provoking, often disturbing, and held my interest.

spav's review

2.0

Brilliant at times, messy and boring in general; this is a book I didn't like from Foster Wallace.

sarahjustice's review against another edition

2.0

I started off really enjoying this book. The author is very creative and I liked his use of repetition and other literary devices. But, towards the end the book got kind of heavy and it was really hard for me to finish. I'm usually a pretty quick reader, but it takes a lot of thought and consideration to fully interpret this book's meaning. Overall, I would probably recommend it to a select few, but I honestly wouldn't read it again.

jacksontibet's review

2.0

He tries way too hard.